Your Greeness

As your kids adjust to the daily grind of school, introduce them to these new tips that can help build greener and more environmentally friendly values!

1.For snacks, make sure to buy local and organic produce and food stuffs.

2.For snack containers, get those reusable plastic containers.

3.Don’t forget to recycle like printing on both sides of the paper.

4.Introduce your kids to the idea of walking, biking or taking a carpool to school.

5.Always choose eco friendly school supplies for arts and crafts projects and other needs for school!

A simple way to be a green parent, especially when you have a new baby in the house is to use cloth diapers instead of the regular ones.

While it is true that cloth diapers have to be laundered, and they can get messy, you will be doing the environment a favor by reducing the amount of waste thrown out!

Cloth diapers are also better for baby’s skin because it gives it breathing room, and reduces the risk of rashes.

If you cannot imagine using cloth diapers full time, why not strike a compromise. Keep some normal diapers in case you have  a busy day ahead, and use normal diapers for quiet days at home. This will still spell out a huge and significant difference!

Don’t use up paper in wrapping gifts! Get creative, and save some trees! Plus, the recipients will totally be pleasantly surprised!

1.Instead of using paper, why not wrap bottles of wine in dish towels? Just tie it up with a little ribbon and you are good to go!

2. Instead of using bows for a huge gift, make a bow out of a jump rope. The kids will especially appreciate this idea because they’ll have an extra gift in the jump rope!

3.Tie up your gifts with scrunchies or pony tail holders. This will work best for a fast fix and if you’re not a very good bow tier!

4.Use old newspapers as wrapping paper- If you want some color, why not use the cartoon section. You will save up so much money from wrapping paper!

5.Reuse old greeting cards for gift tags. Simply cut the nice picture or part of the card, and punch a whole! It’s so much better than throwing it away!

Every little bit helps! Here are super simple recycling tips!

1.Collect old newspapers and tie them up in bundles. Then, leave them outside during collection day. This can be turned into recyclable paper.

1.    If a cardboard is wet, don’t recycle it as it clogs the sorting machine. It is better to throw it away instead.
2.    When segregating plastic bottles for recycling, make sure you take out the bottle tops as they’re a different kind of plastic.
3.    Make sure to recycle aluminum cans, and there really is no need to crush them either!
4.    Try to rinse and empty all glass jars and containers that are going to recycling.

1.Use them as gift wrappers! This idea works best for the pretty ones, as well as the ones with no brand names printed on them.

2.Use them to hold your drippy umbrellas. When you need to go inside after a rainy time outside and you’re carrying your dripping umbrella with you, just stash it in a handy plastic bag.

3. Use them as makeshift “sickness” bags- When going on long drives, especially with the kids, make sure ot bring a couple of spare plastic bags. When they suddenly suffer from motion sickness and need to throw up, you can rest easy knowing it’s not going to be all over the car!

4. Protect your shoes- If you’re getting the paper from a wet and muddy lawn and you don’t want to spoil new shoes, you can slip a plastic bag over them and walk protected!

5. Protect your cookbooks with them! You can cover the pages you’re not suing with the bag to keep your cookbooks splatter and ingredient free!

If you’ve noticed the steadily growing pile of plastic bags in your home, maybe it’s time to find other uses for them. It would be the greener solution than just letting them sit there, or worse, throwing them away!

1.    Use them as knee pads when you have to do the gardening. This way, your knees won’t geet dirty and your jeans won’t get grass stains!

2.    Use them as gloves or hand protectors- If there’s something at home you wouldn’t really like to touch, put your hand inside a bag and use plastic like gloves!

3.    Utilize them as paint preservers- to keep brushes dipped in paint from drying out when you’re suddenly interrupted , you can put a plastic bag over them!

4.    Emergency Rain gear- If you feel it’s going to rain, maybe you’d like to put a plastic bag in your pocket, and use like a rainhat!

5.    Put over kitchen preparation- Put a plastic bag under the veggies you’re chopping or your cooking preparations. This will make for easy clean-up because you won’t need to wipe the counters. You just sweep the peelings onto the trash can!

Are you on the fence about recycling? Maybe these incentives will convince you to do it!

In some towns, they’ve  developed different programs to encourage people to recycle . For example, some weigh the recycling bins when they pick them up. The weight of the recycling bin is then calculated each week and added up to a monthly total. At the end of the month, you’re rewarded based on your overall monthly recycling weight!

Some towns have partnered with companies and businesses and will provide gift certificates in exchange for your recycling efforts.

Studies on towns like these have found a 90% increase in recycling! So if this is the little push that you need, inquire about incentives in your own town!

When someone gives you a gift you don’t particularly care for, what do you do with it? Do you throw it away or stuff it in a closet somewhere?

The next time you are at the same situation, why not regift? Regifting is actually a very green concept.

By giving someone else that same gift, you are eliminating the need to shop more, and you are actually putting that thing to use instead of just stuffing it somewhere.

Someone’s trash is always another person’s treasure, so keep this in mind when you receive a gift you don’t particularly care for. Think of  a person who could really use or love the item and then regift!

Back to school season and shopping really go hand in hand, after all, who doesn’t need knew school stuff right? However, to be effectively green, one needs to think about his purchases, even if they have a green purpose to begin with.

For example, you might say, you want to get a bike so that you won’t have to drive to school. Before doing that, stop and think. Examine yourself and ask yourself if you’re really going to use the bike everyday? Or will you lose interest after a week?

Other common questions can be: Will you really make time to make your lunch everyday for you to get a new lunchbox? Or do you really need those 60 colored pens instead of the 30? Or how about a new ruler? Have they discovered a new inch between one or 2 that your old one can’t be used anymore?

These little reflections will ultimately help you make greener decisions when shopping. So always remember to stop and ask before buying!

As weird as it may sound, scoring free stuff is actually green. How? Well getting free stuff through borrowing, or just asking for something prevents you from buying.

If everyone subscribed to this formula, there would be a lesser need to produce new things and there would be less resources utilized and wasted!

If you look hard enough, you’ll find that there is actually a ton of free stuff waiting for you to take! Extremist groups, like the freegans actually get free food from the perfectly edible stuff that many groceries dump out.

Don’t worry if you’re not that deep in just yet. You can score other free stuff like furniture, musical instruments, books, computer, electronics from the following sites:

www.Craigslist.com
www.GoogleBase.com
www.BackPage.com
www.USfreeAds.com
www.Oodle.com
www.Hoobly.com
www.BuySellCommunity.com
www.USFreeAds.com

So go forth and be a free-loader! You have the perfect excuse: You’re helping the environment!