Steve Shanafelt - 18 February 2008 12:02 PM

Seriously, though, are there any other good, simple, idiot-proof ideas for reducing my personal impact on the local environment?

Cut way back on your meat consumption.
Walk as much as possible and take the bus.
Make sure to completely empty your beer cans before throwing them into Ralph’s yard.
Carry cloth bags to the grocery store to cut down on paper/plastic use.
Keep your thermostat low, use electricity wisely, conserve water.
Use only one sheet of toilet paper (thank you Cheryl Crowe!)

Buy bulk foods. Cuts down majorly on packaging.

Also, we own a dryer, but hang our clothes on the line outside to dry. If they are wrinkle-prone clothes, we toss them in the dryer for a couple minutes after we pull them from the line. They smell wonderful.

Today I had a huge load with jeans and sweatshirts, and with the wonderful sunshine that came out, had them dry in less than an hour.

Yes, requires some extra effort, but is easy enough.

There is something really wonderful and therapeutic about being directly involved in your living. When you directly enjoy the fruits of your labor, its just really soothing and satisfying.

don’t use air conditioning.

don’t use an electric dishwasher.

clean up after yourself outside of your home, and especially in the forest.

Lobby to have our energy systems altered so that we arent producing a surplus of Coal-Power just so that we can run our electric La-Z-Boy mini beer-fridge at 2 am.
And turn off the light when you leave the room.

... and close the damn door, I’m not paying to heat the outside!

the irony being that we are, indeed, heating the outside.

three 55 gallon rain barrels connected to our rain gutters overflowed in hours durring that drizzle of a storm yesterday.

I lived on a small tropical island for a year and everyone used cisterns. It was an adjustment, as you can’t drink the water (you can have a gallon jug filled with purified water for a buck 60), but it made perfect sense. They do go dry occasionally, but you can have a truck fill it partially for about 150 dollars. The rest is rain. I was bartending at the time, and a couple who were regulars said they have things set up so that their air conditioner collects about 30 gallons a day (OMG!) and they use it to water their lawn and plants. Most places there, mind you, don’t have air conditioning- you just deal with the 85 degrees and 100% humidity. Also, it was unheard of to have a bathtub (except in hotels)...all homes had simple showers- which ran off the cistern.

I think we are far too late to stop the impact of years of abuse- I do think it is good that we learn how to live responsibly (and with what is naturally available)- as I think we are gonna NEED to soon enough!

:0)