Becoming Crunchy

Right in our back yard

I was reading The Little Green blog this morning and I came across a post that told of a super easy way to help raise money for 3 environmental charities: Surfers Against Sewage, Trees for Cities and Young People’s Trust for the Environment.

All I had to do to join in would be to answer 8 Eco Interview questions from The Green Chain sponsored by Price Minister (a site similar to Craigslist or Kijiji) here on the blog. When I link it up, they’ll donate £10 to the charity of my choice.

How cool is that?

I checked with Mrs. Green to make sure I could participate here in Canada, and the answer she got was a go – so here it is!

1. Turning the heating down by just one degree in your house saves 240kg of CO2 a year. It would take eight trees to soak up this amount of CO2! Are you currently doing anything to make your home eco-friendly?

I had no idea one degree could make that much of a difference! Fortunately, we like to keep it pretty cool in our house. Here are a few other things we’ve done:

• Eliminated all toxic cleaning products and most toxic personal care products
• Making sure things are recycled properly
• Planning for every meal so we don’t buy too much and waste food
• Planning a garden for the summer
• Trying to avoid using the air conditioner in the summer
• We hang the clothes out to dry on a line during the summer

2. Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth’s land surface, now they only cover 2%. How are you reducing your use of paper?

• We use cloth diapers and wipes instead of disposables
• I use reusable menstrual products instead of disposables
• We try to go paper towel free in the kitchen, using towels and wash cloths instead
• We use paper free billing and request from our bank that everything be computerized as much as possible
• We rarely print anything off the computer

3. At PriceMinister we believe that trading second hand items online is a great way to extend the life span of products. Have you ever thought of buying or selling second hand items on or off line?

• Yes – we’ve done both.
• We also love going to garage sales (and hosting them when we acquire too many things!)
• Another great thing in our book? Hand-me-downs – we’ve hardly had to buy anything for our baby Bean due to the fact that we have a 2 year old niece and Bean gets all her stuff!

4. One of the biggest environmental challenges we face is Freshwater Shortages. Are you taking measures to reduce your water consumption?

• We don’t shower every day, and when we do it’s often together; and it’s always short
• We don’t flush every time we use the washroom
• We have a high efficiency washing machine
• I would like to move to a tankless water system when we have the chance – we had one at our previous home and it was wonderful

5. How do you choose the produce that goes into your shopping basket? (any favorite products?)

• We have organic fruits and vegetables delivered every week from Mama Earth Organics – most of it comes from local farms
• During the summer we shop at Farmer’s Markets as often as possible
• We plan to grow some of our own veggies this summer
• If I’m buying from the grocery store, I look for organic – and minimal packaging

6. What is your favourite green space near home?

• We have a beautiful green space right behind our back yard – it’s like a haven in the middle of the city. It’s one thing I love about Ontario – they do a lot to preserve pockets of green space, even if it’s just a little park every few blocks – it’s not hard to find trees around here!

7. Which charity would you like to support and why?

• Young People’s Trust for the Environment – it’s important for our children to be educated in environmental responsibility outside as well as inside the home – and it’s great for them to have the opportunity to be involved!

8. Please give us the url of a fellow blogger (or bloggers) you would like us to contact to raise an extra £10.

I’d like to tag

• The Cloth Diapering Mama
• I Thought I Knew Mama
• McCrenshaw’s Newest Thoughts
• Child of the Nature Isle
• Monkey Butt Junction

I know there are lots of other bloggers out there in this community who would be a great fit to post an Eco Interview response – if you’re interested, visit The Green Chain to find out how you can help raise £10 for charity too!

I know for myself, these questions bring up how much more I need to do to make our home more sustainable. If that’s something you’re interested in doing too, check out Little Green Blog and My Zero Waste for some awesome inspiration.

In the meantime, how would you answer any of those questions for yourself?

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