Nature’s Green RemedyHelping Find Balance Between Man & Nature

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It is amazing how easy it can be to make a transition from a “typical” American lifestyle and adapt to a new green lifestyle by making a few simple changes in our normal routine to start living green.

Green living changes can come by simply changing a light bulb; using green cleaners; or unplugging an electrical device when not is use.  Even with simple little tasks like those, the change to a green lifestyle is sometimes slow in coming and an ever-evolving process.

As I mention during the site introductory post found on the “About” page, we have tried to maintain some level of a green lifestyle though for most of our married life.

Much of the time however, it was definitely one I would refer to as “convenient green”.  In other words, if a change in routine or a new purchase was convenient and green, it often got implemented.

Convenient green changes made earlier in our daily lives included:

• Beginning stages of implementing the three “Rs” – recycling, reusing, and reducing materials involved partaking in municipal refuse/recycling curbside programs; re-use of materials such as using the back side of printed drafts as note pads; or reducing material packaging by buying bulk and concentrated items.
• Use of brick in older toilet tanks to reduce the amount of water used with each flush. The brick was ultimately replaced with water in container since bricks degraded and created other issues with the tank flush mechanism. Note: Many newer toilets (purchased after 1994) were designed to be low-flush systems that used ~ 25% to 50% less water than older models.
• Replaced paper towels, placemats and napkins with cloth versions (fortunately my wife loves sewing and makes all our placemat and napkin sets).

Over the last several years, however, there has been a conscious effort to change our daily routines and use patterns to further green our lifestyle.  Many of the changes require breaking old habits and although they took effort (along with some trial and error) it all appears to be worth it in the long run.

Some of the more recent changes and alterations include:

• Replacing most of the incandescent bulbs in the house with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL);
• Use of reusable water bottles and an in-house filtration system in place of bottled water;
• Use of concentrated green cleaners (lower cost/less packaging/less energy);
• Un-plugging charging devices (cell phone, MP3 players, etc.) when not in use;
• Making use of natural light and heat whenever possible (which is most days when the sun is shining since the main living area of the house is south facing;
• Limiting running water use when washing, brushing teeth, doing dishes by hand, using dishwasher when completely loaded; and
• Recycling shopping bags, egg cartons, clothes, usable household goods and boxes by donating to local businesses and charities.

As time moves on, so does our continuing efforts to upgrade our green lifestyle altering more and more aspects of our regular routine so our activities are both Earth-friendly and sustainable.

The best thing about making the change to a green lifestyle is that most of the changes not only help the environment by lessening our personal demand on resources (Earth-friendly) but also tend to save money in the process.

So who says maintaining a green lifestyle has to be expensive?   Not us!

Start living green and prosper as well …