Green Lifestyle – Getting Started
Do you want to help save the planet? Would you feel better if you recycled more? Most of us like the idea of living a green lifestyle but may not know where to begin. As part of my commitment to suburban homesteading, I actively choose to be more green.
What We Do To Be Green
My household seeks to be as green as possible on a daily basis. However, there is always room for improvement. Changing technologies and greater public awareness of environmental issues play a part. The bulk of our lifestyle changes are due to the way we were raised, at least in my case.
As children, we tend to absorb our parents’ habits and ideals, often without ever being aware of it as we internalize their behavior as the norm. My parents were very self-reliant types, as were their parents as well. So, much of the way I live today is a result of their influence on me growing up.
Here’s a bit of my green lifestyle:
- Growing a vegetable garden – From the time I was a child, we always produced the vast majority of our own vegetables.
- Having solar panels – I’ve had a solar panel setup on my roof for about ten years now. It doesn’t cover all of our electricity use, but it does cover most of it. My monthly electric bill is about $50.
- Using a compost pile – We keep a small, covered bin in the kitchen for food scraps. when full, we dump it onto the compost piles, along with yard water, grass clippings, etc.
- Having a rain barrel – why waste the water running off the roof during a rainfall? We use ours to fill water jugs for easy watering of some of our many plants.
- Fixing rather than replacing – we don’t replace items just because a newer version comes along, but instead we fix and maintain items to lengthen their usefulness. For example, our central air system is now over twenty years old but still works fine.
- Most of our furniture are old family pieces, handed down through several generations, or second-hand. I vastly prefer solid wood furniture over composite board materials.
- Cooking from scratch versus buying pre-packaged meals – Not only is this much cheaper, it’s also healthier as we know what is actually in our food
The above are just a few of the many ways my upbringing influences me. In other posts, I’ll go into a lot more about my background and how it continues to affect me today.
