Going Green on a Shoestring

There has never before been greater awareness about how individuals can positively impact the environment. "Going green" is all the rage. But regardless of its trend status, taking steps to help our environment has never before been so accessible to so many people as it is today.

Just ten years ago, living an environmentally friendly lifestyle was seen as expensive, complicated and requiring radical lifestyle changes. Today, we know environmental awareness can be accomplished by ordinary people with no special knowledge - and with a much more affordable range of choices. In fact, "going green" today can cost you nothing at all! Anyone can start making a difference right now - without spending a lot of money.

Recycling, that stalwart of environmental programs, has never been so easy. Most major cities have implemented free recycling programs for homeowners. Google the name of your city and the word "recycling," e.g., "Chicago recycling," and you should find the web site of your local recycling program detailing all the opportunities you have to recycle in your community. Typically, these programs provide special receptacles, often at no charge to homeowners, that you can use to separate and sort paper, plastic and metal. You can stack these bins right by your ordinary trash can on the days of the month the city has designated for picking up recycling materials. Recycling literally requires no more effort than taking out the trash.

If you live in an apartment, or other privately rented property, your landlord may be required to provide you with these kinds of receptacles. If it's not a legal requirement, ask anyway; your landlord may be able to obtain recycling bins from the company that he or she pays to pick up the trash.

If there simply is no recycling program in your place of residence, it's still easy to recycle paper and plastic. Most major grocery store chains such as Winn-Dixie, Albert's and Publix have large bins especially for their customers to drop off their recyclable plastic bags and bottles. And call your local school or library to ask if you can drop off your paper waste with them; per federal regulations, schools and libraries get money for recycling paper, so you'll not only be saving trees, you'll be helping to contribute to new funds for new programs, renovations and other resources for our local schools and libraries.

One of the most significant contributors to our "carbon footprint" is the family automobile. According to Yahoo!Green, personal transportation such as cars, SUVs and trucks account for nearly 20% of all greenhouse gases emitted in the United States. If you can't live without a car, it's cheap and easy to take steps to make it more environmentally friendly. Getting a hybrid or new fuel-efficient car may be outside your budget right now, but with gas prices steadily on the rise, making your current mode of transport more fuel-efficient makes sense in more ways than one.

If you own a car, keeping it properly maintained and tuned-up can make a huge difference in your fuel usage. Keeping your car in top condition doesn't cost very much at places like JiffyLube and PepBoys, and these procedures not only save on greenhouse gases, they can also save you money on repairs down the line. Yahoo!Green reports that if every American simply kept their automobile's tires properly pressurized, we'd save a whopping 2 billion dollars in gas per year!

Of course, the ideal would be outright "carlessness," but since most of us rely on our cars to some degree or another, you can instead just aspire to cut down on your car usage whenever possible. Try to do your errands in one trip; plan your menus for one or two weeks at a time and make only one or two trips to the grocery stores per month instead of every other day. Carpool with co-workers, telecommute, ride the bus, ride a bike (get the whole family involved - it's great exercise!) or just walk whenever you're able. Short trips in the car are a big culprit in fuel expenditure, so if you can do without - do without.

An environmentally friendly lifestyle can be achieved in myriad other small ways, as well. One easy way to reduce waste, save on fossil fuels and cut down on the clutter around your house is to purchase reusable tote bags for use at the grocery store, or any other store. My local grocery chains all sell large, sturdy tote bags for less than a dollar apiece, but if that's not the case where you live, you can purchase them at your local dollar store for around that much. They hold much more than a plastic grocery bag, and they can be used anywhere, not just at the grocery store!

Our local grocery chain has the policy of double-bagging all your groceries for you. Before my family started using reusable tote bags, we were bringing home an average of 20 to 30 plastic bags per week. They all always went in the trash, because this was before they implemented their policy of taking back their own bags to recycle. That means that with our new reusable totes, our small family alone is saving over 1,500 plastic bags per year! Earthbound Farms, a leader in organic agriculture, estimates that if every household in America used canvas totes for just one shopping trip per year, we would cumulatively save 60,000 trees per year. The difference we could make is staggering.

After getting your feet wet with these easy, inexpensive, environmentally-friendly steps, you may get so enthused about developing an environmentally-aware consciousness that you find other ways of getting involved. You may even get creative and start some of your own methods and programs. With how accessible and affordable "going green" has become, there is no limit to how green you can ultimately go.