Happy Earth Day!!

I've always been conscious about doing my part for the environment, and especially now that I have my own little bundle of joy on the way I'm even more conscious of preserving the Earth the way I have enjoyed and viewed it for my little one. Since today is Earth Day I thought it would only be fitting to share the things I do to help out Mother Earth, and also a list of the things I would like to incorporate into my life in the future. I really hope others are doing something, not just for Earth Day, but their part in taking care of our planet. I know a lot of people have the mind set that they don't have to do anything cause there are others out there doing enough to make up for what they are doing. I think that if we don't take action, who will?

Here are the things I do already:
- Turn off the light(s) when I'm not in the room, or when I do not need them. In my kitchen there
are lights over the stove, over the sink, over the computer, and over the room in general. I
usually only turn the lights on in those areas when I'm doing dishes or cooking
- Recycle like it's a religion
- Walk and use public transit...this kinda doesn't count as I don't own a car, but still
- Re-use paper...Brett now prints his daily work schedule on both sides of the paper...as for me,
being the list maker that I am, I use envelopes, scraps, whatever is in the recycling bin!
- Use re-usable cloth grocery bags all the time. When I know I'm going to get groceries I always
carry my cloth bags with me. Even when we go on a big grocery trip, we use the cloth bags
before resorting to plastic
- I also use a messenger bag as my everyday bag, and when I go shopping I usually avoid
getting another bag. I always try to fill up my own bag before getting a new one
- Wash all my laundry in cold water
- In the summer I like to hang dry my clothes, therefore avoid using the dryer. I think this is from
when I used to live in Finland and the dryers were always in use...that and there was one
washer that was broken which meant it was free. Why pay for the dryer when you can hang
them dry for free? When I came back to Canada, I had to buy a clothes rack pronto!
- Use those heat saver things over all our windows to conserve heat, so less use of the space
heater
- Keep the space heater off...we don't have control over the heater, so when we first moved into
our place it was like a freezer! We had to use a space heater to keep the place relatively warm.
Now that the weather is heating up, we keep it off permanently and when it gets cold we just put
on a hoodie
- Use less water when washing dishes...since my kitchen sink is a double, I fill up one side with
dish water and use the other side to pile up dishes to rinse when I have a big enough pile
- Use CFL and LED bulbs in all my lamps and ceiling fixtures

Here are some things I would like to do in the future:
- Start a compost...I always feel so bad at the amount of food that we throw out
- Buy biodegradable plastic trash bags...right now we're still going through the pile that Brett's
sister has given us
- Buy all local and organic produce
- Grow my own herbs
- Buy a bike
- Avoid buying bottled water
- Buy/rent a water cooler with reusable water bottles by a company like Canadian Springs as a
18.5L bottle is better than 18 one litre bottles
- Sign up for electronic bills and slowly stop receiving any paper bills
- Use nothing but eco-friendly cleaning products
- Sew or buy more reusable cloth bags so that I don't have to use any plastic bags when I go
grocery shopping
- Use my travel mugs more whenever I go get coffee at Cafe Fantastico
- Buy stainless steel or lined aluminum water bottles for me and Brett, as new research on plastic
bottles are surfacing

I know there are more things I would like to do, but just can't seem to think of them at the moment.

Hmm...when Brett comes home from work tonight I'm just going to have to have a little talk with him about how we can do more for the environment.