Geek Goals

This year is about getting my sanity back. Getting my health my house and my family into a better place by deliberate incremental changes in all areas of my life.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Healthy Environment

Some of you may find this a bit off topic for our blog, but I think it fits well. Being Healthy is not just about being fit but about having healthy things around you and being nice to our environment.

I already started doing "more" lately to help the environment. Getting more strict with the thermostat, starting to recycle thin cardboards and office paper and a few other things. This article here takes it so much further than I have gone... and it might give you some ideas as well. In the comments section there are even some humorous ones like "use your toothbrush to clean the toilet, a little bleach and you are sanitized and as good as new".

More than anything I just wanted to document this link so I can refer back to it later.
http://www.cleverdude.com/content/50-ways-to-save-money-by-not-wasting/

What do you think? One thing we do that I didn't see mentioned there is not throwing away plastic silverware. If it can live through the dishwasher (and most of it does) we wash it and re-use. This was more important when we were bringing lunch each day.

3 comments:

Karen said...

We do a lot of the same...holey clothes for rags or really messy jobs before tossing them. I avoid the disposable cleaning supplies as often as possible. Disposable plates and plastic ware as well for that matter.

Thermostat with a timer really makes it handy to control the temps -- although if I end up being home when we're normally gone I end up either being really hot or cold depending on the time of the year. Fortunately this time of year we aren't running the heat or air.

I have read a different opinion on dishwashers in my "green" cleaning book. Their argument against pre-rinsing is it uses more water over all and the enzymes in the dishwasher soap need food particles for it to work properly. I wonder if myth-busters has checked in that! ;)

Jossie said...

I don't care so much about the whole global warming thing, although maybe I should, but I think (like you said) we should be nice to the world.

We take our lunch to work about 95% of the time and always take our regular silverware...then wash it in the dishwasher at home...has been working great so far.

We now use cotton bags for grocery shopping. I also have asked not to get my things bagged anytime I can and don't have my reusable bags around. That reminds me, the other day I asked the guy at subway not to bag my sub since I was going to eat it right there and he bagged it anyway and said "I think I'll get in trouble if I don't, sorry" :-D

Danielle said...

That is funny that the Subway guy thought he was going to get in trouble!

I have reusable shopping bags... 2 of them but I never remember to bring them in from the car.

I'm not sure about global warming either, but for the most part "being green" also saves money which I can use for more fun things!

I agree this article went a little farther than I am willing to go in some of these areas, but just wanted to pass the ideas along.