Thankfully we live within walking distance to several parks, our community library, the grocery store, the movie store - just about everything we need is within walking range! This morning I needed to get some groceries for the rest of our week, so I loaded up our youngest in the jogger and jogged to the store, purchased our groceries and jogged back. Now, not only did I not use our gas-fueled truck but I also got in some quick cardio - two birds with one stone! Go me! But this is a normal thing for us, we will take our bikes to go to the park and the library - anything to not only be healthier to our environment, but also get in some exercise for our family!
We also are very serious about the 3 R's in our house: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I make conscious efforts to buy things that are either reusable, or if not reusable at least it's recyclable. In all honesty, our recycle can which is larger than our trash can, is always full every week since we recycle everything that possibly can be recycled. I've even switched to two "trash" cans in our home, one large one for recycle and one regular for the trash. On top of that, I do like to save scraps, peelings, egg shells, etc for our compost pile. I like to add it to the pile, give it a spin and when it's broken down enough, I use that on our flower beds.
Recently, we've switched to Green Mountain energy as our electric provider. Not only is this a little better priced that our previous electricity provider, but on top of that it provides majority of the energy from renewable resources - upwards of 70%!! That's amazing to me! Also, we like to keep the temp in our home set at 80 degrees in the summer. That sounds incredibly warm, but when you run the fans, you would never even tell what the temp is. Believe it or not, running the fans 24/7 is lower electricity cost than running your A/C constantly to keep it at a lower temperature.
Below is an infographic with some other ideas of ways to make a positive impact on our planet, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly!