Now 61 Easy and Eco-Friendly Ways to Help Maintain Planet Earth. We found a few more ideas to add to the list. Hopefully I can get to 100 or more soon! As always, choose what is comfortable for you and your family from these eco-friendly ideas, and you will have done something important to grow a greener world!
1. Air dry your clothes.
2. Ask your utility companies for an energy audit.
3. Avoid clothing produced in sweatshops around the world. Women and children deserve fair labor practices.
4. Avoid down and feather products for the sake of the animals. Feathers are painfully harvested from live caged birds that are kept alive to regrow their feathers for additional “harvest”. Replace it with organic cotton or organic wool bedding.
5. Avoid electric bug zappers.
6. Avoid laundry detergents with phosphates or chemical builders.
7. Use only recycled plastics in your home.
8. Avoid poultry and meats from animals raised on hormones and steroids. Buy only products from free-range, cage-free animals. Reduce your family’s consumption of meat and poultry.
9. Avoid products from farms that practice inhumane treatment of people and animals.
10. Avoid products tested on animals.
11. Buy organic or locally grown foods.
12. Buy organic bedding.
13. Buy organic coffees and teas with the Fair Trade seal.
14. Buy organic cotton underwear.
15. Buy organic grains, pastas, herbs and essentials in bulk.
16. Buy recycled and biodegradable toilet paper.
17. Use recycled wrapping paper.
18. Compost yard waste and food scraps.
19. Consider giving homemade gifts.
20. Reject drinking straws at the restaurant.
21. Baby diaper in soft organic cotton.
Frontier’s all natural and organic herbs, spices and teas
22. Don’t buy a bigger house than you need.
23. Don’t buy a second home. Vacation rentals are shared, affordable, and much less wasteful of resources.
24. Don’t buy big cars.
25. Don’t buy a car for everyone in the family. Teach to share.
26. Donate to your favorite environmental organization.
27. Donate disused clothing and furniture.
28. Eat meatless foods at least twice a week more than usual.
29. Eat more organic or farm-raised fruits and vegetables every day.
30. Garden without chemicals or pesticides.
31. Grow your own organic herbs.
32. Wash clothes by hand instead of dry cleaning.
33. Install and use ceiling fans.
34. Lower the thermostat in your home to 68 degrees and 55 degrees when you’re away from home.
35. Turn your water heater thermostat down to 120.
36. Recycle, recycle, recycle.
37. Reduce disposable products in your home.
38. Reduce watering in your yard and garden.
39. Fix faucet leaks.
40. Replace incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient lighting.
41. Sew with organic cotton and natural fabrics.
42. Shorten shower time by 25%.
43. Support environmental legislation. Scold your congressman.
44. Support Fair Trade practices to reduce poverty and hunger in the world.
45. Support your local farmers market or co-op.
46. Use cloth napkins, or recycled paper napkins.
47. Use natural and organic soaps, shampoos and cleaning products.
48. Use public transport, or share a car to go to work, at least once a week.
49. Use recycled paper to write and print.
50. Use washable coffee cups.
51. Walk or ride a bike. Leave the car in the garage for a while.
52. Shop thrift stores for clothes, furniture, and more. There is a huge secondary market for gently used goods at local stores. (I hate to break it to you, but those thrift items were absolutely the right thing to do.)
53. Opt out of the mountains of paper flyers and coupons that arrive in your mailbox every week.
54. Here’s a new one being practiced in schools and business offices: Two-sided printing cuts paper use and waste by almost half, and cuts costs, too.
55. Don’t leave your reusable bags at home: After a shopping trip, put them in front of the door so you don’t forget them.
56. For those plastic bags that inevitably end up in your house, reuse them to clean up kitty litter or to pick up and dispose of your best friend’s (dog) poop.
57. Online banking, electronic invoicing and electronic payments.
58. Stored documents that are no longer needed should be taken en masse to a local, secure paper recycling facility for safe shredding. Make sure confidential documents are well protected.
59. Walk or ride a bike. Leave the car in the garage for a while.
60. Reusable coffee filters.
61. Encourage your employer to start a “green project” project with IT that turns off computers at night and automatically “wakes up” early in the morning. The energy savings can be significant.
~Susan Fullen-Yurek, EcoSleepShop®