make a smaller ecological footprint

a buddhist temple made completely out of plastic bottles. From the roof to the steps to the inlay. When asked why they answered, “why not, it takes 700 years for a single bottle to being to breakdown. What better way to insure our temple lasts that long’.
Brilliant.

I just bought a new house so there are going to be many things that I did previously that I’m going to be re-doing here as I begin to settle in and figure out how I can make this place more green. We’ve been here a month and have spent most of that time in construction so I’ve yet to be able to really figure out where my troubled areas are going to be. We’ve already put new insulation in the attic over the kitchen and dining area but I know I’ll have a real to do list in the next few months here. SO I’ll be back here for sure.

I took my recycling to school today. There’s no pickup service here and I have no car, so I can’t take it to the depot. I feel kind of like an idiot toting all of my recycling on the bus, but it also makes me feel sort of bad-ass to care that much about it.

I really miss living in Toronto, where there’s not only full recycling pickup but also compost pickup (including meat and dairy scraps)! It really saves on the amount of waste that goes to the landfill.

people who compost cut their waste by 30%. I cannot believe all of the things we take to our compost every other day. When I look at all the scraps that we put in there and think that we were once throwing them out…Im gonna go with 30% seems like a conservative estimate. We arent taking our trash out nearly as much. Plus, because you cant compost dairy or animal products, we have cut back on those a lot as well.
What a fantastic idea. It takes a little while to get a hang of, and sometimes I am still googling to see what the heck Im supposed to do, but this has been one of the things I have done this year that has really been worth it and made me happy I now do it.

This is an ongoing goal, but here’s some of the things I have done towards it:

- don’t own a car, rely on public transit and bike
- signed up for the renewable energy program with my electricity provider
- buy organic milk (and organic produce, when I can afford it)
- use a reusable coffee cup
- use cloth grocery bags
- use reusable cloth menstrual pads
- hang dry my laundry on an indoor drying rack
- write political leaders and advocate for better public transit funding

I want to:
- plan my food purchases better so I don’t waste food
- cut more meat out of my diet
- buy things used instead of new
- participate in a community garden program
- buy environmentally friendly cleaners when the regular ones run out

I went through the basement like a whirlwind and started separating what we need, what we dont need and can donate, boxes to be broken down and recycled, etc.
The give away pile is over 10 boxes. Amazing what we think we will need later so we put it in the basement. Funny what we buy. I swear a fake flower shop exploded in my basement. I dont know why I ever bought them. I used to make wreaths for people, maybe that was it? Either way, gone. We can move around down there now. Plus, books are being donated to a used book shop on our street and all others are being donated to good will. I was going to give them to our church, but most of the things my mother gave me are in those boxes and it would be a lot of explaining to do. So, kudos for teaching people a vocation.

As long as they haven’t had meat in them, I’ve started washing out my plastic ziplock bags and drying them on a plastic-bag-dryer job that I bought from Gaiam.

I’m a nature lover and environment enthusiast, sky gazer and tree starer, and animal friend-er—basically, I aim to do my part in loving and celebrating the earth. Just got to figure out how!

today, I put lettuce scraps in my compost. It was the first set of scraps to christen it. I feel hopeful and happy. What a great feeling.

One of my co-workers and I are putting together a “Greener Nation” committee at work in the hopes of implementing some simple programs for recycling our office paper, soda cans, and plastic water bottles.

Baby steps, baby steps.