Happy Earth Day!

Well, I know it's not a major holiday or anything, but while I was on my way to the Hazardous Waste Drop off today, to recycle old paint we found while cleaning out the garage this weekend, I started thinking of all the changes that our family has made over the past few years to help our environment.  I thought about how interesting it is that even ten years ago I didn't do or know about most of these little things that will (hopefully) help our earth in the long run.  Sure, we all learned Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...But I don't know how much effort I put in to any of them.  Well, slowly adopting little practices here and there has made a pretty big list that will hopefully continue to grow over time.  They are all so easy to do.  Especially when you just add one or two at a time.  

I thought it would be interesting to list some of the "environmentally friendly" things we do now, so that I can look back in another ten years and see how much further we've come in the fight to keep our Earth healthy.

• Recycle: We are lucky to live in a place that provides recycling services for many things.  Glass, plastics, paper, cardboard, tin, aluminum, most containers.  We also recycle yard waste and food waste, (yup, anything you can eat can go in the yard waste bins to be composted by the city.)
• When we needed to buy new appliance we switched to energy and water saving varieties of washing machine, dryers, refrigerator, etc.  We even got rid of the gas powered lawn mower and now use a Reel push mower.
• Changed most of our light bulbs in the house to Energy saving bulbs. (CFLs I think.)
• Switched to an environmentally "friendlier" diaper.  Nature Baby Care.  Good for Mother Earth and your baby.
• Switched to many natural cleaning products.  Okay, not all.  I do still use some chemicals but I try to be aware of what goes down the drain including soaps, detergents, bleach, cleaners and any other chemicals.
• Buy local and organic when we can.  During the summer we like to go to the local Farmer's markets to buy produce.  Or sometimes we have local produce delivered from online services.  We try to always remember our reusable shopping bags when we go to the store. Sometimes I even take them to the mall or other shopping places.
• Educate my kids!  My kids are always fascinated about these topics and are interested to hear how what we do helps the earth.

Well, that's a few of the things I can think of right now.  I'm sure there are others and even many more that we should start.  Now that we've become good at recycling, our new goal for the coming year is to focus more on reducing.

What things do you or your kids do?  We'd love to have any of your ideas.