The restaurant I enjoyed today with family for lunch needs help. If using up too much unecessary space on paper is not green, then we know what Tahoe Joe’s is doing on their menu is not green. Of course, I’m having fun and awakening my green intuition as to what is on the fringes of being a good green company or citizen.
So, nonetheless, I look up to the top right corner of the menu and it says, “Lunch served Monday thru Sunday”…hmmmm….isn’t that EVERYDAY! I’m just sayin here…green is about efficiency and authentic conservation of everything including words.
Yes, I sound extreme or wild, and I’m in one of those silly moods again staring at this computer for too many hours and now I don’t FEEL green. Does a case of retinal trauma from gazing at this monitor of mine for too long mean I get sympathy from you for not feeling green at the moment? No. oh, we’ll I tried in my wild sort of way. Then it got me thinking what other wild ways could we go green.
Wild ways to go green? I’ll start and you jump in for smiles and giggles.
1. Child eco-powered vehicles– are you forever running your kids from place to place and want to try and cut down on your carbon footprint? Why not put a cycle rack on top of your car and then attach a chain to the axle! The kids get exercise, you get to make sure they arrive safely from the comfort of the car and the whole thing is better for the environment – it’s a win-win situation.
2. Annual bathing – if it was good enough in medieval times why can’t it be good enough now? The savings in water will be huge, not to mention the money saving benefits that will come from the drastic decline in your social life. Americans like to bathe a lot. We’re bath crazy. Although you may not believe me, you don’t need to bathe everyday. A couple times a week is good enough to keep you healthy. (If you are very physically active or work in the sewers/morgue/infectious disease ward, you are probably an exception.)
3. Forget fair-trade, source it yourself – if you want to ensure that products you buy are really ethical then what better way then compiling your own list of producers and sourcing everything direct from the point of origin? From fruit and veg to shoes and socks, you’ll be paying retail prices so the producers get an even better deal. Of course some producers may object to the paperwork and insist you buy in wholesale quantities, but hey, you can never have too many bananas!
5. Become a hermit – if even ethically sourcing everything yourself seems to resource intensive then why not shun worldly possessions altogether, live in a cave and eat what you can forage? You can’t get much closer to nature than that! You may cause a few pollution incidents in the early days as you learn which berries and fungi are good to eat, but at least you’ll have plenty of peace and quiet to recover.
6. Coat your house in tin foil – When all else fails there are always geo-engineering options. By coating your house and garden in tin foil you can reflect more of the Sun’s energy back in to space, thus reducing the global temperature and helping to reverse climate change.
OK LETS GET MORE PRACTICAL FOR THOSE WHO THINK I’M ON DRUGS
7. Eat Over the Sink
If you hand wash dishes, then you may waste more water washing a cup than you drink from it. Save water by eating your sandwich, toaster waffle or chicken strips over the sink.
8. If It’s Yellow Let it Mellow
It takes about 3 gallons of water to flush a toilet. If you don’t flush every time you pee, you’ll save three gallons per pit stop. And, Pee Outside. That’s right. You can save three gallons of water by urinating on the earth we’re all trying to save.
10. Do Laundry Less
You can wear your clothes two or three times before you need to wash them. When I was younger I would wash my clothes when they started to itch. ewwwwwww….isn’t that kind of repelling. Hey…c’mon work with me here, that’s how I knew they were ready.
11. Shave Less
Luckily for guys, the stubbly-loser look is in. Women, on the other hand, face an unfair social stigma for not shaving. If the guy isn’t in to you cause you have some coarse leg hair, he probably wasn’t marriage material anyways.
12. Less Deodarant
This is the one that is motiviating me to get more green. I hate anti-persperants. They ruin my clothes with stains but they work. Letting yourself stink, as God and nature intended, can reduce chemicals and waste. If you see a decrease in friends, try an all-natural deodorant..
13. Bathe Less
Americans like to bathe a lot. We’re bath crazy. Although you may not believe me, you don’t need to bathe everyday. A couple times a week is good enough to keep you healthy. (If you are very physically active or work in the sewers/morgue/infectious disease ward, you are probably an exception.)
What would you consider wild ways to go green? There are lots of way to make your life more eco-friendly. Whether there mundane or wild. It’s all fun isn’t it?
Kendal
on 12 Jun 2009 at 1:07 am
Number 6 made me lol considering this article I read recently:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/obamas-climate-guru-paint-your-roof-white-1691209.html
Here’s a good tip: get an environmentally-friendly laundry liquid (mine smells like oranges!) and put a bucket in the sink to catch the water that’s being emptied out. Transfer bucket contents to gardens. Enjoy :D
Marty
on 12 Jun 2009 at 6:32 pm
Oh you youngsters are learning a thing or two, aren’t you… If you had grown up with *my* generation, you’d already be doing a lot of this stuff. We didn’t have the luxuries you’ve grown up with. We had to make do with what we had… and as it turns out, many of those things are called “green” now. We didn’t bathe every day because we couldn’t afford it. We did laundry once a week. We bought local produce… locally. (That has been changed by corporate greed, forcing us to buy prepackaged fruit and vegetables from foreign sources.) I miss the produce stands that were so common then. There still are a few in some areas, but I figure not for long. Moms used to sew their kids’ play clothes from the cloth sacks some commodities were packaged in. I only had 5 wearable outfits for school… one per day. Nowadays, living alone and retired, I do eat over the sink. The dog gets all the crumbs and scraps, though petfood manufacturers would have us believing how unhealthy that is. I don’t have that many scraps, and the dog thinks I’m a god. But I didn’t have to anguish over my dog’s fate during the petfood recall 2 years ago, either. No, I think we need to look back in order to find a path forward. Call it green, call it any color - some day we’ll be forced to go back to basics anyway, one way or another.
jerry
on 13 Jun 2009 at 2:23 pm
Kendal, what a gas that top 10 list was to write. TIN FOIL A HOUSE was #6…that’s a lot of Reynolds Wrap! I read the article you nudged me to check
out and it’s all about painting everything WHITE for going green. Well, there’s the stimilus package for Kelly Paint stores. And, as I was reading it I thought of
Madonna’s hotel in Miami. It’s literally ALL white…everything. The only color I witnessed was a green apple that greets you on a white pedistal when you open
your door. Kind of surreal. Appreciate your reading Hart of Green and adding such color and flare to the conversation. How can I support you? What is your blog?
Sincerely, Jerry
Mark
on 27 Jun 2009 at 11:20 am
You know Jerry, maybe you can help me out with this little conundrum I’ve had for many years. When standing at the grocery checkout line and they ask, “paper or plastic”, I get this sudden paralysis of two conflicting dilemnas.
On the one hand, I hate to be contributing to the whacking down of our beautiful forest, as I pause and play a mental youtube of the majestic Red Tailed hawk lighting on the very limb that I may condemn to death in the name of my half gallon of milk, package of low-fat cheddar and a tub of Sanka.
On the other hand, I’m quite passionate about not using up our petroleum just to create these billions upon billions of plastic grocery bags that mostly end up in landfills. Yeah ok I do put them in the recycle ben, but…. Well you know what I mean.
So Jer, what’s the answer?
Julia
on 07 Jul 2009 at 6:50 am
I spend so much time carting my kids to swim practice and picking them back up! If I just stuck them on the top of the car and drove around town to do my errands, not only would I save the gas money but they wouldn’t even have to get in the pool for their exercise! You’re awesome!
David
on 13 Jul 2009 at 3:18 pm
On # 10. “Do Laundry Less”you don’t need to wear your clothes two or three times to reduce laundry, just wear clothes less. That reduces a lot of laundry, you can save water by showering with friends too.
On #12. “Less Deodorant” Foul Odors Come From Foul Foods, cutting out the meat and eating raw fruits and veggies will stop the foul odors.