What is your environmental performance?

[tristan]

I am sure we all have different benchmarks, but I am interested to hear what people think of their environmental performance. Are you very environmentally friendly, a little, ...?

[jnezmama02]

hmmm...I'm "not so good". Here's the good, the bad and the ugly.

Good:
--We only own 1 car right now, very rarely drive more than a few miles to get somewhere. We very rarely travel outside of our town...so we're not using a lot of gas or putting out a whole lot of nasty fumes.
--We recycle a lot of cardboard.
--I've switched over to all-natural cleaners, 95% of the time.
--We live in an area that doesn't require a lot of resources to get food and other items to us and isn't extremely cold or hot, so we don't use a lot of resources to heat or cool.
--All of our appliances are "energy star" appliances, meaning they use electricity more efficiently.

Bad:
--The car we have right now is an SUV, so it's not as good as it could be.
--We don't recycle anything else b/c it's not "convenient"
--Don't use all-natural shampoos, soaps, or laundry detergent yet
--We drink bottled water, which I'm sure is a waste of resources and uses plastic. Honestly, it just tastes better than our water on the city line. We do have a filtering line on our refrigerator, but I find it a hassle to have a glass of water that doesn't have a top (and haven't found a cup that I like to drink out of that has a lid to it).
--We have a lot of plastic toys and organizing bins.
--The lights and tv are running most of the day here, so we're not conserving as much energy as we could.
--We do use the plastic bags from the grocery store...but we often reuse them for another purpose afterwards.

The really Ugly:
--We use disposable diapers and wipes (eek) for both kids
--We often use paper plates (DH is big into them) and plastic cutlery
--We go thru a lot of paper towels and toilet paper
--Our house has environmentally un-friendly vinyl siding, carpet and vinyl floors; our neighborhood has very little trees in it as it used to be a corn field that was plowed down to create our subdivision.

Ok, now that I think about this...I should have rated myself lower.

[moogie]

I'll have to go for 'good'.  I don't do as much as Tristan but for a woman, i think i'm good.  as in i use cloth menstrual pads, don't use much TP etc.

Hope, i have to admit i cringed when i saw the paper plates and plastic cuttlery on your list.  one of my environmental pet peeves that is.  If my mum brings those to a bbq then i ask her to atleast use them once more before chucking them, the plastic that is.

Just so you know, bottled water although it tastes better has pthalates in it from the plastic.  Really not good for us at all, quite toxic.  I'd highly suggest getting a filter for your water, it really improves the taste and it'll save you money on the bottled water.  If you like the convenience of the bottlesht ,en you can put the filtered water into the bottles, but definately change the water daily because of the pthalates.

[jnezmama02]

Oh, I know, Megs about the paper plates and plastic cutlery.  I'm not that big of a fan of it either, but DH is very "into" it. If you give him a choice, he'll grab for the single-use stuff everytime. Drives me crazy sometimes.  His family is even worse. Somehow they think it's "cleaner' (ie less germy) to eat on paper than plates (never can get them clean enough). And, yes, they do suffer a bit of OCD.  Don't get me started on the harsh chemicals like lysol they use to get every surface cleaning...including eating surfaces. Somehow they think germs are bad, but chemicals are ok. It's laughable.

We already do have filtered water for both our kitchen sink and our refrigerator...just can't seem to get in the habit of using it.  Maybe I should look again for a water bottle to drink from. Like I said, I just haven't found what I want in a reusable bottle. 

[ShannonandDel]

Hope, have you seen these? They are awesome. They seem expensive, but not when you think about how much you will be saving when it comes to not buying bottled water. Plus you can get the kids each their own. Delaney loves drinking out of a sports top! You can get them at sporting goods/camping store, or online.

I say we are good. We are better than most people, not as good as some. We definately make a dent, but not a huge one