Avoxtar 3.0

Well, today is the day. In case you didn’t remember, this is blog action day. My guess is that the blogosphere is about to get inundated with posts about the environment. How exciting to be a part of this movement… The official blog action day blog reports that there are more than 15 thousand blogs that will reach a potential 12 million readers! Wow. You could say that this was a major random act of kindness towards the planet. Nice to see all these minds coming together to tackle one issue.

So I’ve thought long and hard about todays topic… I started by making a list of what we do to protect the environment.

We love our planet. I believe that’s the most important thing. You protect what you love. Most days, I feel like we are living in paradise on earth. We live in Quebec, Canada and we are very fortunate to live in peace, surrounded by an an amazing diversity of flora and fauna and an incredible abundance of natural resources. For that, we are most grateful.

Here are some little things we do, on a daily basis, to protect our environment :

We are recycling freaks : Nearly 80% of our waste goes to the recycling bin.
We also recycle clothing… shop at thrift stores, donate our clothes to other families so they can have a second life.
We used recycled building materials to fix up our house. My husband works in construction and you would be amazed at the great (new) materials being tossed away on construction sites. Everything from lumber to ceramics to moldings, walk-in closet cabinet systems, doors… you name it. Hubby brings home the good stuff and we use it to embellish our house.
We buy recycled paint, and recycled paper.
We don’t support restaurants who use Styrofoam to package their meals to go and we don’t buy products with excessive packaging. We complain to them when they do.
We compost : Well, I did last year with mediocre results but I’ve made the resolution to start again. We always compost our leaves in the fall. We don’t burn them or toss them out.
We use bags made of fabric instead of plastic ones when we do our shopping. (This is a big trend here in Quebec)
We only have one fuel efficient car but we walk or bike whenever we can. (although this is harder to do now that we live in the mountains)
I work in a quasi paperless office. (about 90% of the work I produce is digital)
We don’t buy disposable cleaning products like swiffer or scott towels. We use a mop and cloth
We use vinegar, water and baking soda to clean mirrors and various things around the house.
We switched to a laundry soap that doesn’t contain phosphates or bleaches, no dyes, no petroleum based cleaners. (Arm and Hammer brand)

Water is never wasted in our house. I think we’ve always been cautious as to not waste water but I think that since we moved out of the city and up into the mountains, we are 100 times more wary of wasting water. The simple reason is that our house draws it’s water supply from a surface well. If we waste water, there won’t be any left in our well so we are extremely careful. We also educate our friends and family to be conscious of that when they visit.

Here are some ways we save water:

My husband never washes his car with the hose. He uses a small bucket and a sponge.
We don’t use the hose to clean our driveway(for one thing we don’t have an asphalt driveway but for folks who do… a broom is perfectly fine for that… for an extra clean job, sweep when it rains.
We never let the water run when we brush our teeth.
We only use the shower and only take quick showers. We installed a nozzle that turns the water off as we lather.
We only do a load of laundry when there is a decent amount of clothing to be washed.
We placed a brick in the bottom of our toilet’s water tank to reduce water consumption every time we flush.
We follow the “if it’s yellow let it mellow if it’s brown flush it down approach.”
We don’t have a pool and we don’t let our son run through the sprinkler - We have a nice lake for swimming.
We don’t water our plants, grass and shrubs. We let nature take care of itself but we use a clean barrel to collect rainwater just in case of a drought.

Making this list has made me realize that all these little things we do to protect our environment add up and make us pretty eco-conscious citizens even though I’m sure there are a ton of other things we could/should be doing.

But I think that the most important thing we are doing is raising our son to love and protect his environment. We teach him about the importance of trees, and clean water and reducing waste and a whole host of other things. Recycling and water conservation is a part of his daily life even though it really wasn’t an important part of ours growing up. A lot of progress has been made, in a relatively short amount of time, in making people aware … this gives me hope for the future.

I’ll leave you with this link… it’s a simple flash game that teaches kids about recycling and my son absolutely loves it. Visit the Earth Day game on Starfall to play it.

We only have one planet. It’s up to us to take care of it.

Namaste to you!

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