How Green Are You?

My blogger friend Erin over at The Mother Load recently posted about being green and challenged her readers take some simple steps to become greener. I was a very insightful post and got me thinking about the things that I do to be green. It also got me thinking about the things that I don't do...and what I need to do.

I have to admit that most of my areas of greenness all selfishly come from being thrifty and/or natural. And all of these things came about once I became a mother. I was not an eco-conscious, natural living type person until I had kids. I would never have been considered crunchy. But my perspective changed. I brought a life into this world and I wanted to do everything I could to make it the best life for her that I could.

I'd say the very first step in being natural, and eco-cheap, was breastfeeding. Read more about the Eco-Cheap factor of breastfeeding here. Baby food making soon followed. At this point, it didn't even register that these two choices were in fact green. Being green wasn't even on my radar!

Fast forward to baby two. At some point during my pregnancy with the boy, I decided that I was going to cloth diaper him. Little did I know that this decision would alter the way I lived my life and change the way I viewed the environment.

In my search for information about cloth diapering, I came across Diaper Swappers, a cloth diaper website and message board. It was from this site that I learned about many various ways to be natural, cheap, and green. Diaper Swappers was my gateway to greenness!

From this great community of cloth diapering mothers, I discovered cloth wipes and natural wipe solutions, eco-friendly, phosphate-free detergent, and wool dryer balls to eliminate toxic dryer sheets. On a more personal note, I learned about the Diva Cup and Mama Cloth. I also learned about turning the thermostat down (or up) to save energy. These were all great ways to save money, and that's always a plus in my book. But not only that, they were all better for our health and the environment!

Recently, I have been using the Ultimate Cloth which has helped us to cut down on our use of paper towels and toxic cleaners. And I am trying very hard to use kitchen towels to dry my hands instead of paper towels. It's really a hard habit to break!

I am also trying to reduce our use of plastic bags. I actually have some reusable snack bags on the way and I'm excited to start using them!

Like I said earlier though, I have been selfishly green. The only green thing that I currently do that doesn't benefit us personally, is use reusable grocery bags. And honestly, I forget to use them a lot, and I never even thought about using them for other than grocery shopping. Duh! I'm proud to say though, that the last 2 days that I went shopping, I used my own bags!

Thank you Erin for the kick in the butt that I needed! You inspire me! I am going to do better for our environment!

Now I just need to figure out this whole recycling thing.

How green are you? How do you handle your recycling? Any tips to get me started?