Coming home on the train last night, I spotted a guy carrying one of those green totes made of recycled material. Good for him, I thought. Then he walked by and I peeked inside. The bag was packed with styrofoam plates, which are non-biodegradable. Meaning, they end up sitting around in landfills for basically forever.
Clearly, some of us mean to be green but aren't totally there yet—our family included.
A lot of our lightbulbs aren't CFLs (compact fluorescent lights), the kind that save electricity and energy. Also, we tend to leave lights on around the house. We get cases of bottled water from Costco, even though we have reusable SIGG and Nalgene bottles. We don't buy recycled tp or paper towels. We own a gas-guzzling SUV.
OK, those are our eco-sins. On the eco upside:
We recycle. We use natural cleaning products. We do online banking and get most of our financial statements online, so we're saving some trees. I unplug the coffee machine when we're done with it and the BlackBerry when it's finished charging (appliances that are plugged in when not in use are known as "energy vampires"). We keep the thermostat on the low side in winter. I take short showers and turn off the water while brushing my teeth, and I've taught the kids the same.
So, there you have it. We're doing some green good, but we could be doing more. I know this is A Really Big Deal—I want to leave my kids a cleaner, healthier planet. And if each one of us did a little bit, it really would make a huge difference.
OK, in honor of Earth Day, I'm going to toss a bunch of our old lightbulbs and put in CFLs.
Quick: How many bloggers does it take to screw in a CFL lightbulb? Two: One to screw it in, and one to write a post about it.
Do you think I missed my calling writing material for David Letterman?
Happy Earth Day, everyone.
What kind of green stuff are you guys doing?
Photo/iStock
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