Going Green - Part Two

While I understand that changing the chemicals I use to clean my home was an important step in allowing myself to be green, I also know that other steps need to be taken to ensure I'm doing everything possible to help our earth fight the good fight.

Several months ago I began replacing our light bulbs with the new kind of spiral bulbs. Yes I know they have mercury in them and are supposed to be cleaned up in a special way if they are dropped and broken and YES, I did break my first one in my kitchen floor. Now, NO, I did not clean it up in any special way. I looked around for any little mercury beads, didn't see any, so I swept up the glass then mopped the floor. It was springtime so I had most of the windows open anyway (that is one of the recommended things - air out the room where the incident happened). Since that first breakage (is that a word?) I have been very careful with my bulbs. The only problem I have with them is that they will not work if the bulb is pointing upward. They do fine sideways (like in the fan over the stove) and they are their brightest when put in with the bulb pointing down, but unfortunately I have several fixtures where these bulbs just do not work - aw!

My other "green" activity has been purchasing the canvas grocery bags. I love these bags!! They hold an incredible amount of groceries and there is not any worry that my bag will burst before I get into the house. Of course when I buy meats and produce, that is still placed into plastic bags first (the meat because I don't want "yick" all over my nice bags - and produce because, well - I don't want my produce lounging around in a grocery cart full of germs). I thought it would be a problem remembering to take the bags with me to the store, but as soon as I get the groceries put away, I just gather all my bags and take them back to the truck right then. Now they are always with me and I've used them in places other than the big supermarket. I take a few of them with me when I go into places like Big Lots and my local farmer's market.

These two steps, along with changing my cleaning chemicals may seem like it's not very much but I know it will help in the long run. If every one of us could just make one change in the way we go about our daily routines I think the collective difference would be enormous.

Feel free to post more "green" ideas in the comment section.