I’m the first to admit that I am not “green.” With the recent Earth Day celebrations all around me, I have experienced many sheepish feelings this past week. I like to drink soda that’s individually packaged in cans or plastic bottles, I like my plastic bags from the grocery store (I use them for other things around my house), and in general, I like being a consumer. What’s so bad about the way I live? The answers are obvious, I know.
This week, our agency held a kick-off event for sustainability and is making a concerted effort to be more conscious about the waste we create. The L&S Green Committee is taking action around the building. Quoted from our internal blog site, “We encourage everyone to brainstorm about green ideas for L&S because we are not just going green for Earth Day. It takes time to adjust life-long habits, but sustaining our environment is worth the effort.”
Green water bottles, reusable shopping bags, notes and tips are posted in the bathroom and on the paper copiers – it’s everywhere. So I’ve been thinking – this won’t be as hard as I thought. I can make some small changes that can have a great impact.
Here’s my green commitment:
- No more water from individual plastic water bottles while at work or home;
- For a majority of my groceries, I will use a reusable cloth bag;
- I will recycle white office paper;
- And the most difficult one for me – I will not print documents only to make reading easier.
The last one is hard, I am a researcher after all. I have a tendency to print, read, and then toss, instead of just reading from my screen.
So this is my commitment. What are your ideas and suggestions to make this a better world, or even just a better community? Join me in my personal green evolution.
Gaily going green,
Billie Jo
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
If you can do it so can I. I will begin with the most difficult commitment of all – I will no longer print documents to distribute at meetings when most participants will just throw them away after pretending to read them in the meeting. My commitment to “going green” will begin tomorrow.
Kirk,
http://www.Travelsd.com
Kirk, let me know how your meetings go. I now have feelings of guilt when I run to the printer.
We’ve been using cloth bags for our groceries for the past few months and I have to admit, I definitely prefer them. You can stuff them full and easily carry them a distance (without pinching your fingers or stretching the handles like with plastic bags). We’ve found that all of our groceries fit into 5 cloth bags, and that makes my life a little happier. And probably Mother Earth’s.
We have 4 bags now and have just started using them. My biggest problem is leaving them at home and not having them with me! So, when I empty the bags, I immediately take them back out to the car.
I’ve stopped buying bottled water and just use my workout bottle instead