Baby Steps to a Green World

Green has become the catchword of the decade. Remember chlorophyll? TV shows like Ed Begley Jr.'s "Living With Ed" advocate all sorts of great ways to live green. Unfortunately, most of these schemes require big money outlays now to save big money over the next five or ten years down the road. It seems to take big money to save big money.

Does that mean us folks who can't afford these big innovations are stuck living purple? Or red? Nope. It means we have to find little green things to do. Measure cleaning additives. Sort and recycle trash. Cut down on use of electricity.

Little? Nobody I know has time to mess with things like that. Laundry detergent is thick so you have to stop and rinse out the measuring cup and send as much down the drain as you saved by measuring it. Maybe your city doesn't pick up recycled trash or they want brown bottles separated from green from clear. And don't even start with the paper sorting!

Let's get really little, like seedlings. Let's think more in terms of preparing the soil than in replanting trees a la Ed Begley or setting out hothouse plants from the nursery. Let's start in the kitchen. No, let's start in a kitchen on TV.

Green Smart or Purple Stupid?

Why use a paper towel to wipe up a mess on the counter? Don't you have a sponge or a dishcloth? Either one can be rinsed out after that wipe, given a squirt of detergent to wash the offended surface, and tossed in the laundry once a week - not in the trash several times a day. Besides, wiping up a sticky spill with a paper towel never gets all the stickiness anyway.

You buy dairy products like yogurt and cottage cheese in plastic containers with snap-on lids, throw out the empty containers and buy plastic containers with snap-on lids to store leftovers in. Duh! The dairy containers are dishwasher safe, can be written on with a marker, and have no flanges and styling to take up extra space in storage or the fridge. Plus, you won't mind giving something away in one or tossing one that's just too far gone to clean. Their usefulness is not limited to the kitchen. Crayons, nails, hair curlers - any bunches of little things can be collected in them.

Green Water

Your tap water tastes fine - or you make it so with a filter - but you fill up the fridge with store-bought bottled water to carry out of the house. At what cost? You've seen the ads about plastic bottles lasting forever in landfills.

Recycle! Stick the empties back in the backpack to fill again. Leave the labels on if you don't want the other kids' moms to know your kid is drinking homemade water. Or for some real one-ups-manship, design and print custom labels for your own custom bottled water.

Now if bottled water would only stay cold longer. You tried freezing them but the expanding ice split those flimsy little bottles. Switch to soda bottles which are designed for pressure. Rinse them out - caps, too. Fill them less than half full and put them in the freezer. Leave them uncapped to allow for that expansion. When you're ready to go, top them off with fresh water, cap and pack. Watch the envy as people see ice floating in your bottled water.

Think Green

Have you noticed a pattern here? It's called sales resistance. You don't have to buy every specialized convenience and indulgence advertised on TV. You already have several in your own kitchen if you think about it. That's probably the best first step to living green...thinking green.