OK, so it's earth day this Sunday, and all I've been hearing about the last month is "green". Wonderful, fabulous, I am totally happy about this. But some of the tips magazines, TV shows, etc. are giving are really freaking me out. Not because they are so radical or super hard to do, but rather because they are sooooo obvious, and it makes me really wonder "are these really new tips for people? Are people really so unaware?"
Some of the tips that I've been hearing that I find shocking are:
"don't run the faucet while you're brushing your teeth" - I believe this was something I learned at about age 3...from my mom.
"recycle glass, paper and tin". Um, yeah. Duh.
"clean out the lint catcher in your dryer after each load". Of course, what do you want to start a fire or something!!!
"use cold water to wash your clothes". Of course, that's what cold water detergent is for.
"Take shorter showers". Seems a bit obvious.
"plants in the house make for cleaner air". Yes, it's called "nature".
"turn off the lights when you leave a room". What, do these people not have parents?! I thought this was nailed into our heads at about age 14.
But all joking aside, I have heard about some other tips that I thought were useful, but not necessarily something you think of:
- don't take a receipt at the ATM unless you REALLY need to know your balance.
- Bring your own travel mug if you're one of those people who picks up a coffee every morning, most coffee shops will fill it for you, and Starbucks will give you a 10cent discount. If the person won't fill up your cup, their loss, no more business for them.
OK and now some other green tips that we all know we should do, but maybe we need a little reminder:
- switch as many lights in your house as possible to CFLs (compact flourescents) There are soooo many options out there nowadays, there isn't really much of an excuse not to.
- Use natural cleaners, or even no cleaners at all. When you're cleaning glass, all you need is water and one of those awesome microfibre cloths and you will SOOOOO not get streaks. You can pick up those cloths at the dollar store. Remember,"clean" is not lemon scented.
- try to take public transport whenever possible, or now that the weather's nice pull out your bike.
- Try to remember your tote bags to haul groceries. And if you're thinking of throwing out plastic bags, don't! Give them to us and we'll use them for picking up doggy business.
- remember that Reduce and Reuse come before Recycle: Try to buy items with less packaging, and when possible reuse whatever you can. This of course includes clothing, so drop off your unwanted stuff at a second hand store, or organize a clothing swap. Same goes for furniture. Who throws their clothing in the garbage anyways?! The only clothing I've ever thrown out in my life is old socks and undies.
In terms of reducing clothing consumption...um, that's a hard one. I'm going to work on reducing packaging.
- Support local industry. A lot of $$ and wasted energy goes into transport of goods, so buy local produce when possible or pick up a shirt from a local designer.
- Lastly (and this should be incredibly obvious) Don't litter!!!!! The below picture is what Notre-Dame right beside our apt. looks like in the spring, from all the winter littlebugs, shame on you people!!! Do you enjoy living in a garbage pile? The only garbage pile I want to live next to is the one from Fraggle Rock, and this is nothing like that, so enough already!! And using the planters as garbage cans, enough of that too. As of right now, I'm starting to yell at litterbugs, so watch out. Tyson's been reaming people out full force for awhile now, time to join him.
6 comments:
Angie and Tyson are the coolest, who else would publish green tips on their store blog site, they're not even hippies, they smell great.
I've always noticed how the garbage just seems collect there by your place. Thankfully, my street in St-Henri is fairly clean...at least compared to our last place on Notre Dame, where our neighbours piled a pyramid of rotting garbage under our living room window.
Happy Earth Day!
Linda
We blame a lot of that garbage on the Dollarama right beside that strip of sidewalk. There seems to be a disproportionate number of "ray gun" and "princess jewelry" packages in the mess.
I find the most ironic thing though to be the water bottles. So you get that the water on the earth is no longer clean enough to drink, so you buy bottled water. And then you throw the bottle from the water on the ground, which in turn makes the earth more dirty?! WTF!!?? Tyson and I went to IKEA the other day (I know I know, not exactly the most earth friendy place in the world) to buy more shelving for the store, and we were appalled to stop at a light on the highway, to see hundreds of waterbottles thrown on the buelevard. Nothing else, JUST WATERBOTTLES!!!! Come on people!!!
Another great way to clean windows is with newspaper. If you must use paper towel, use unbleached and vinegar instead of windex etc.
The other day i picked a big slab of cut wood with nails sticking out of it, out of a pond where canadian geese were. What kind of a moron would throw a sharp piece of litter where animals live?!
Thanks Tyson and Angie for caring and yelling at litterbugs. I do that too. cheers.
Yeah, I can imagine Dollarama causes the majority of all that litter. I, too, have seen "princess" junk around there too! It's really too bad, since St-Henri is an interesting end of town.
What I see at my end of St-Henri are those cheap cigar tubes. Ugh. They're everywhere! Nothing compares to our old place - we'd always see used condoms and syringes...I don't exactly want to go cleaning that stuff up myself, haha.
I really have to make it down to your gallery - I keep saying that - being a former Manitoban myself!
~Linda
Yeah, we get alot of the used syringes too, but that's more at the back of the building. Very nice.
And yes! Do come by the gallery!
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