To Be or Not To Be Environmentally Friendly...

From time to time I get an urge to consider what I can do to be more environmentally friendly. Sometimes I feel guilty and stop using disposable sandwich bags for a few days and pull out my re-usable water bottle, but then I forget it in the car and it rolls under the seat and I am too busy to think about it and I go back to normal life.

But the reality is, I do believe in good environmental stewardship (this is really not about global warming, more about being cheap and wanting to breathe clean air), and ideally one day I would like to seriously make some changes to reduce my environmental impact. Anyone who knows what I drive is probably raising an eyebrow by now, but I'm baby stepping, ok?

So here are a few of the areas where I have dabbled in research, and where I am at/would like to be...

1) Diapers - ok, I'm going to clear this one up early. I use disposable diapers. The regular ones you buy in huge boxes at Costco, not the expensive organic, food grade ones you have to get somewhere on Whyte Ave. I'm price conscious, and I just can't shell out the extra bucks. As for cloth - I am a poor house keeper as it is, and cannot imagine the impact of using cloth diapers on my house. I would forget to wash them, I'd run out, it would be smelly, I would cry. And the bottom line is, I am just not that committed. As for a diaper service, they're pretty much as expensive (and possibly as environmentally unfriendly) as disposables, but almost as gross as washing them yourself. It's like the worst of both worlds. I feel pretty much the same about feminine products.

2) My vehicle - I admit it. I drive an SUV. HOWEVER - I do try to keep my foot light, and I don't drive that much since I work from home and Matt takes a bus. Being from Alberta, I also think that if you have to drive more than 20 minutes to get somewhere, it's too far so when I do have to venture outside of St. Albert, I usually try to combine my errands. Also we were in a car accident with our Honda Civic (in which luckily no one but the car was hurt), and I feel that my family's safety outweighs the environmental considerations at this point.

3) Travel - I fly quite a bit. I know it's bad for the environment, but I really like to go places that are inconvenient to drive to. However, when we're on trips we usually walk a lot, so does this outweigh the flying?

4) Food. I have read a couple of books on this subject (I highly recommend anything by Michael Poulin) and have made sporadic attempts (ok, I have sporadically thought about...) at buying locally, etc. This is actually an area that I'm pretty interested in taking some action in. We are moving hopefully this year, so no garden, but I would like to take a stab at growing some food next year, and when I am not too lazy I love to hit the farmer's market in the summer. In my next house I also plan on having a deep freeze and I have looked into a small farm meat subscription, which would be pretty neat. I try to avoid pre-made meals where possible for the health & environmental (packaging) aspect although my weakness is individually packaged snacks for Matt's lunch. When I take my baby break later this year, I would like to start doing some more baking to reduce this.

5) My yard. My yard is pretty environmentally friendly. We don't water, and almost never mow it, which means low gas lawn mower emissions (these are pretty bad), and our backyard is organically fertilized by my dog. We did do a fall fertilizer on just the (small) front yard last October because we are planning to sell and wanted it to look a little better, but for the most part we don't use chemicals on the lawn. Also when we do get around to mowing, usually we use the mulching function and leave the clippings on the lawn (this is good for putting the nutrients back in the soil, but mostly we do it because the grass is so long that we have to stop and unclog the bag constantly...). One day I think we might get one of those mechanical mowers, maybe, if I can convince Matt to use it.

6) Recycling - I left this towards the end because this is one of my strongest points. I actually do recycle everything that they take at the bottle depot (and only take it in twice a year when it fills the whole car, thus reducing my driving), and everything that they take through St. Albert's curbside recycling, and we did actually do this even before when we had to haul it to the depot ourselves. I think this makes up for our SUV and the diapers. PS I would like to recycle batteries because they are terrible, but haven't found a convenient way to do this. Any suggestions?

7) Light bulbs - I HATE COMPACT FLORESCENT BULBS (this is an understatement). My parents taught me not to mis-use the word hate, but this I can say. I hate the delay when you turn them on, and I hate the colour of the light. It is ugly and makes me unhappy. When someone does the research for me and can show me a compact florescent that is the same colour as my incandescent bulbs, I will switch. Until then, let the hoarding begin! (seriously, if someone knows about a bulb that is worth considering, let me know).

I know this is probably just a scratch on the surface of thinking about leading a more environmentally responsible existance. My goal is not to convince or guilt anyone (I'd be a pretty big hypocrite) but just to get the thinking going. I think that we all have little things that we can do all the time to try and contribute to less waste and a cleaner environment. It goes without saying that we should not throw trash on the ground (although a lot of smokers seem to think that disgusting cigarette butts somehow don't qualify as litter) and that we should stick our bottles into the marked recycling container next to the trash can, but it's worth thinking about other areas of our lives, and realizing that every little thing that we do counts!!