Posted by Anna on: 03.27.2007 /
10. Don’t use coffee filters or colored paper towels- they have been bleached!!
9. Shorten your showers!!
8. Travel in your car less- use a bike or walk or take a bus or even carpool (you don’t need 5 cars for 5 people going to the same place, do you?)
7. Reduce junk mail- write to places to get your name off big junk mail lists
6. Install low-flow faucet airaetors- they can be found in your local hardware store
5. Don’t use items with dangerous chemicals- these include air fresheners, permenent markers and many other items
4. Pick up trash- six pack rings and other garbage can be very harmfull to wildlife
3. Compost
2. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!!
1. Plant a tree- we need cleaner air!
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Comment by: Helen
1 03/27/07 11:57 AM | Comment Link |Hi Anna, these are great suggestions!
I can’t say I’m good at doing everything on this list. But I have called companies to ask them to take me off their magazine mailing list.
Comment by: John Lamoreau
2 03/27/07 11:59 AM | Comment Link |Great ideas Anna. I really like the plant a tree idea. I usually plant at least one tree a year. One idea I thought of is to invite neighbors who live in walking or biking distance over for dinner. They won’t have to use energy cooking dinner and you can share your earth saving ideas when they join you. Thank you for sharingyour top ten ideas with us.
One last thought on what we can do: We can encourage the use of more renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Over 50% of the electricity Oregonians use comes from the burning of fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. Oregon has one coal fired electrical plant. They burn 1,000,000 tons of coal a year!
Comment by: Staci
3 03/27/07 12:39 PM | Comment Link |This is a great list to get me started on some “spring cleaning” of my habits that mess up the earth!
Walking or riding our bikes not only helps us burn fewer fossil fuels, it also lets us spend time in the beautiful world. I think many of us (including me) spend so much time inside of buildings and cars and we forget how beautiful and precious the earth is and how much what we do affects it.
If any of you are in Oregon, today’s Register Guard has an article about a book on great places to hike w/kids in this state. (Article is also available on their website.)
Comment by: Aubrie
4 03/27/07 12:47 PM | Comment Link |Anna I love that you have decided to become an “enviromental freak”! It’s amazing that someone of your age knows so much and is willing to do so much to help our earth that God created for us. We all need to stop and look around at the gift we’ve been given and then do our part in whatever way we can. You have inspired me to get my children involed in our recycling.
Comment by: Staci
5 03/27/07 12:50 PM | Comment Link |Oh, hey! Along w/paper towels are paper napkins. The other day I decided to get out the stacks of cloth napkins I got as shower or wedding gifts and rarely use because we don’t want to “ruin” them. They really don’t add to my laundry since they are small and just go in with the towels. Bonus - you feel really special to use the good stuff and they won’t fall off kids laps as easily.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
6 03/27/07 4:16 PM | Comment Link |Anna, I’m feeling rather good about myself because I’m already doing some of things on the list. Also some other things I’d not thought of. I shall have to check into the faucet aerators.
the “shorten your showers” made me smile. When I worked on an ocean going vessel, fresh water was always a relatively more precious commodity than it is where I live now, and we learned to be more careful with it. One time we sailed 21 days without refilling with water, and we *really* had to cut back, so we only heated the water for one hour per day, and outside of that it was cold, and thus naturally shorter, showers. It’s hard to maintain that perspective in always very wet and very green Seattle.
Comment by: Rachel
7 03/27/07 5:54 PM | Comment Link |Thanks for that suggestion, Staci. I just pulled out my cloth napkins, which were also wedding gifts (14 years ago!) and were languishing in the back of the drawer waiting for that elusive super special occasion. I’ve been thinking about the paper napkin thing for a while, but you gave me just the nudge I needed to make the switch!
Comment by: Jim
8 03/27/07 6:05 PM | Comment Link |Anna
Thanks for leading us. I am not so good at this stuff but I am trying to be open to change.
Comment by: Anna - age 11
9 03/29/07 1:55 PM | Comment Link |Thanks guys! You all have really good ideas!
Comment by: Robbie
10 03/31/07 9:17 PM | Comment Link |Hi, my beautiful granddaughter Anna! How did you get so smart? I am so downright proud of you! And I don’t think I’m doing all that stuff either. Thanks for keeping me in line. I’ll certainly try those suggestions that I haven’t yet. Love, from Grandma Robbie
Comment by: linda
11 04/1/07 4:03 PM | Comment Link |Hey Anna,
I am encouraged when I read your words of the world in the future with you in it.
Here is a saying I raised my children with, it is from the depression days about the way we need to use what we already have:
Use it up, make it do or do without.
I would also add buy used whenever you need something.
Keep thinking
linda
Comment by: Christina
12 04/1/07 9:56 PM | Comment Link |Thanks Anna for the great ideas and reminders!I really like the idea of the cloth napkins. I am going to be pulling those out and using them! Keep up the great job of getting the word out there!
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
13 04/4/07 1:13 PM | Comment Link |Welcome Grandma Robbie! I think it rocks that you are using the internet to connect with Anna and with the rest of us. Very … cross generational of you.
Linda, I learned the rhyme this way:
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.
I’m feeling vaguely guilty because I went out to buy a suit last week (my last one was ten years old and basically toast, and I needed to attend my lovely sister’s wedding). I did make *one* stop to find a used suit, but finding nothing appropriate, and feeling overwhelmed with the whole task of finding one, I just went ahead and bought a new one.
It takes a certain amount of energy, doesn’t it, to … do live from within a justice/compassion/green/planet encompassing mindset? Perhaps the key is “poco a poco”: a little something this week, a little something next week, and thus 52 somethings by next april.