Environmental Friendliness Isn't As Hard As You Think!

I was thinking about whether we could consider ourselves green in our family after Natalie posted about Ottawa's Green Bin program.  It turns out that our habits are actually pretty good.  We actually do most of these things without even thinking about the impact on the environment, and none of them are inconvenient at all.  Perhaps there are some new ideas for you to try now or in the future!

Green things we do:

• use reusable shopping bags and bins
• refill sports water bottles instead of buying bottled water
• drive very fuel-efficient cars, one of which is diesel (we don't have public transit in our rural town)
• carpool to work (sometimes I drive with my husband to his job and then bus to Carleton)
• line dry laundry outside (don't do this when it's snowy, but probably could)
• cloth diaper our baby and use cloth wipes (it's actually way cheaper and easier than you'd think!)
• breastfeed our baby (lets us avoid unnecessary packaging for formula)
• buy used baby clothing (we'd do this even more if we didn't receive so many clothes as gifts)
• fewer toilet flushes (sounds gross, I know, but it doesn't really need it every time!)
• cook and eat whole foods (less packaging!)
• grow veggies and herbs in the summer
• buy locally from our farmer's market and butcher
• compost in our backyard and use the result in our gardens (instead of the green bin)
• keep our house cool in winter (18 during the day, 15 at night), and air condition only our bedroom and only on the hottest days
• buy the best quality we can afford so we aren't throwing things out all the time

 What else do you do?