“Green” NY resolutions

[namasteak]

I know there are some in the other thread but I thought it might be helpful to have all the “green” ideas in one place.

[namasteak]

-We bought a cargo bike and will try to reduce the amount we drive. I can eliminate driving to preschool, elementary school & the grocery store. Probably TARGET too but I need to find a safe route through neighborhoods.


-continue to compost and start our own garden . It’s a large space (about 6’ x 32’) so we should be able to grow a lot.

-try to get more groceries from
Imperfect produce and More from local farmers

[pierogigirl]

I just saw that Clorox wipes come in a compostable version. I'm going to try them because the amount of pee and toothpaste all over my bathroom makes me crazy, but wipes seem so bad.

-Continue to bring our own bags and travel mugs when shopping/getting coffee.
-Explore a hybrid when we buy a car in 2-3 years
-Buy less and have fewer things shipped (Amazon, Target, etc.)
-Go to the kids' consignment store first when buying kid clothes

That bike is cool.

[lemoncupcake]

Jan 4, 2020 16:29:50 GMT -5 pierogigirl said:

I just saw that Clorox wipes come in a compostable version. I'm going to try them because the amount of pee and toothpaste all over my bathroom makes me crazy, but wipes seem so bad.

-Continue to bring our own bags and travel mugs when shopping/getting coffee.
-Explore a hybrid when we buy a car in 2-3 years
-Buy less and have fewer things shipped (Amazon, Target, etc.)
-Go to the kids' consignment store first when buying kid clothes

That bike is cool.

For the wipes, you’re still better off using spray and reusable cloths. Bonus points if you can make rags out of old towels/shirts/etc.

[verycontrary247]

We are trying to drastically reduce the amount of single use plastics our household uses. Ditching plastic straws, Ziploc bags, produce bags, grocery bags etc in favor for reusable alternatives.

E has aspirations for a raised planter garden in the new backyard.

[lemoncupcake]

I want to do a better job gardening - I always start with good intentions but it fizzles out.

Keep my car for another year at least. I’m itching to replace it, but there’s no real need. I also want to have an electrician out to evaluate if we could do an EV charger in the garage for a new commuter car for DH.

[namasteak]

pierogigirl I’ve had my eye on it for awhile but hesitated because of the price. Since my car is 7 years old and we Live in a bike able area it will got a lot of use! THank goodness it is semi electric because it can hold 4 kids and has storage in the seats.

[Patsy Baloney]

I was going to take another year off from gardening (school and birth got in the way the last 2 years) but this thread is making me itchy.

Gardening is so great. Good luck to everyone who is endeavoring to grow!

[penguingrrl]

Jan 4, 2020 16:29:50 GMT -5 pierogigirl said:

I just saw that Clorox wipes come in a compostable version. I'm going to try them because the amount of pee and toothpaste all over my bathroom makes me crazy, but wipes seem so bad.

-Continue to bring our own bags and travel mugs when shopping/getting coffee.
-Explore a hybrid when we buy a car in 2-3 years
-Buy less and have fewer things shipped (Amazon, Target, etc.)
-Go to the kids' consignment store first when buying kid clothes

That bike is cool.

Unless you have access to municipal compost, you need to look carefully at things that are labeled compostable. Many are only compostable in municipal compost, not home compost.

[snapoutofit]

We’ve had solar panels for a while and just bought two Tesla batteries for the house so we can run it on battery power in the evening/night time. Also when the power goes out so no gas powered generator. As always, getting better about keeping the lights off in rooms we aren’t using (this is harder for me when I am here alone at night).
Signing up for compost pick up.
Buying as much locally sourced food as possible.
Reducing single use plastics. We re-use zip locks several times and when they can’t re-use for food any more we scoop the cat boxes into them.

[Bernadine]

I'm definitely working on using less ziplock bags and plastic wrap.

Can anyone recommend a good backyard composter?

[minzy]

Continue weighing my family’s trash with the goal of reducing what we send to the landfill. Last year we threw away an even 600 lbs of “stuff,” some of the weight was before we started composting. I highly recommend weighing waste as a practice - it influences so much what I bring in the house because I have to think of how I will get rid of it.

Expand our garden and use our own compost on it.

Try again to get a slot with a solar farm through our electric company. We tried last year but it booked up before we got in. We are hesitating on our own solar panels because of the age of our roof and the hope that solar shingles will actually be a thing by the time we’d need to replace.

Have our next cars be electric. I am really impatient on this but we drive paid off sedans with decent gas mileage and our home electricity (see above) is still coal powered. My husband thinks the electric car market will explode soon and options will become more plentiful and cheaper, and then we should buy electric. I think we can afford to do it now and should. We go around and around on this but it’s at a price point where we’d both have to be on the same page, so we’re not quite there yet. I also am not driving as much now that both kids ride the bus to school and a lot of our daily life is very local to our house.

Host another party where we talk about this stuff. Last year’s was a huge success (I had 15 women over) and people still talk about it all the time. We did a clothing exchange, low waste/mostly vegetable food and baked goods from a local female baker, we talked about the science, and went around the room and discussed what we have been doing/could do better. I gave away various sustainable prizes. Then I started a private Facebook page about it and we’re up at 75 people, with posts coming frequently.

Try to make sustainable practices more widespread in the greater community - I have made big strides with a local school and my neighborhood HOA. I was just asked to speak about it at an upcoming conference and I’m eager to see what other people are doing.

[minzy]

Jan 4, 2020 17:08:34 GMT -5 Bernadine said:

Can anyone recommend a good backyard composter?

I have this one - www.amazon.com/Miracle-Gro-Dual-Chamber-Compost-Tumbler/dp/B0785HCXB5

I’ve only been loading it so far so haven’t removed compost yet. I might have gone bigger since I’m working on the second bin already. This was one of the only reasonably priced closed bin systems I could find that would satisfy the criteria I could get my HOA to agree to (quite the process, believe it or not). The kids love spinning the bins, I imagine it’s kind of like spinning the wheel on The Price is Right. 😉

[wildrice]

I plan to have at least 1 vegetarian dinner per week. We eat meat with almost every meal and there is really no good reason for that, other than laziness. I'm not in the habit of cooking vegetarian so it always seems like more work to figure out what to make, but another goal is to cook more recipes and clean up our diets anyway, so this will serve multiple purposes.

I've been trying to cut back on plastic bags and other random plastic uses. It's a constant challenge so I mostly just strive to continue to do better.

If we do end up moving this summer, a high priority will be to live somewhere that has recycling. Our building does not and I have constant guilt about this. Our apartment is also not energy efficient at all, and you can't even open the windows so we're always running the AC or the heat to have any kind of air circulation.  I'd like to find a place where that's not the case.

[knx9211]

DH and I agreed to do what we can to reduce single use plastics. And then my ILs walked into our house yesterday with a whole case of bottled water that we did not ask for. I have no idea why they’d do that. Drink out of one of our glasses like a normal human.

Oh and I don’t know that they actually drank a single one. What?

[onthemove]

Anyone do community composting? What do you keep your compost in during the week?

Anyone use one of the “green” startups? Grove, cleancult? Do you like their products? I need a liquid soap concentrate refill. Also interested in plastic free dish soap and laundry soap options.

[minzy]

Jan 4, 2020 19:44:59 GMT -5 onthemove said:

Anyone do community composting? What do you keep your compost in during the week?

Anyone use one of the “green” startups? Grove, cleancult? Do you like their products? I need a liquid soap concentrate refill. Also interested in plastic free dish soap and laundry soap options.

I don’t do community composting but there is a service here that picks up compost in pretty simple lidded 5 gallon buckets. Before I was composting myself I froze it during the week.

I’ve purchased a few things from Grove and have had no issues.

[joenali]

I would love to reduce the amount of paper I use at school. It’s horrible. If I mess up on a copy job I put the pile in a scrap bin for the kids to use. But I use so much paper and I’m sure what gets sent home also is recycled. I don’t know how to minimize this part of my life. Thoughts?

[juliachild]

I'm trying to really cut down my plastic consumption. We have already been doing a good job of using reusable bags. I got stasher bags for Christmas to use in place of ziplocs.

We already don't eat much beef, but I'm starting to cut down pork and chicken consumption too.

I just made a purchase through Grove. I like the hibar shampoo and conditioner bars. I also bought the leaf razor and walnut scrubbers. I haven't used those yet.

I already walk to work everyday, but H has a longer commute and then we drive a lot on the weekends. I'm trying to convince H to replace our older car with an electric scooter.

I encourage everyone to look into your local CSA. We love ours and it has introduced both of us to a lot of new vegetables and vegetarian cooking.

[jackie011]

I’m overwhelmed with a lot of things going on right now, but I have noticed 2 easy things I can do to improve our habits- I recently learned about the Hefty Energy Bag program. Basically, you buy these orange bags and fill them with things our community recycling program does not take and then put them out with the recycling. From the website it looks like this is only in a few communities, but as long as we’re included, I’ll do it. I also spent about 20 minutes this morning using the hair dryer to remove labels from all of our Amazon padded envelopes. Now, I can take them to the grocery store and recycle in the bins in the lobby. I’m also planning to shop less, for a variety of reasons, but less waste is certainly one of the reasons.

So, on a green scale, we’re at maybe a 2, but you have to start somewhere!

[wanderingback]

Jan 4, 2020 16:29:50 GMT -5 pierogigirl said:

I just saw that Clorox wipes come in a compostable version. I'm going to try them because the amount of pee and toothpaste all over my bathroom makes me crazy, but wipes seem so bad.

Why do you need wipes?
My general philosophy is to try not to use things that are single use.
I haven't bought paper towels in many, many, many years. We use old t-shirts as rags for all cleaning.
That includes the bathroom (toilet), kitchen, etc. I wash as needed when I have a full load. I even did this when I didn't have a washing machine in my condo, so it's pretty do-able for most people. 

I drop off food scraps to compost weekly in my city and they specifically forbid items that are labeled as compostable. I don't think those items are actually that much better than other single use items. 

[wanderingback]

Jan 4, 2020 19:44:59 GMT -5 onthemove said:

Anyone do community composting? What do you keep your compost in during the week?

Anyone use one of the “green” startups? Grove, cleancult? Do you like their products? I need a liquid soap concentrate refill. Also interested in plastic free dish soap and laundry soap options.

Yes I do.
I bought a bin from amazon, but it's kind of small so it gets filled up rather quickly because all of our cooking involves multiple vegetables a day. We try to eat/use of the vegetables, but there ends up being scraps. Plus I eat a lot of eggs, so the shells.

Anyway, once the small bin is full I just use a paper bag. I keep it stored in the freezer. If I have any plastic bags laying around (rarely) I'll use those in the freezer too. The night before I take it out to thaw out so then I can dump it all in a paper bag and walk it to the compost. Paper bags are compostable here too. 

[wanderingback]

I do most of the things listed so far, but a big one for me was to not drink ANY bottle water at all.

I actually meant to remember the date I started and at least go for a year, but I forgot! It was sometime over the summer when I started.
I was never a huge bottle water drinker, but sometimes at races they'd hand me bottle water or on the plane or in hotels and I'd just take it without thinking.
So now I make sure I bring my reusable water bottle with me whenever I do races or I travel and make sure I know when/how I can refill.
It was a little more challenging when I was overseas in a country where it was recommended that I shouldn't drink the water, but I managed just fine there too! It would probably be harder in some countries, but I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

So I think I'll see how long I can keep this streak going.

[wanderingback]

Here are the biggest things I try to be conscious about:

-No driving, public transport or walking (my SO used to take lyft/uber a lot more, but he bought an electric scooter to reduce his carbon footprint as he prefers that to public transport sometimes)
-No paper towels or paper plates. Rags for all cleaning.
-Reduce plastics needed for cleaning supplies. Have started making my own.
-Stopped using swiffer 1-time use pads. Have a reusable mop and make my own cleaning solution.
-Bar soap only
-Reusable food storage bags
-No plastic wrap, bought reusable silicone covers for bowls/plates
-Composting weekly. Try to have very minimal food waste. If I don't think I'm going to eat a fruit or veggie I will usually toss it in the juicer or make a smoothie.
-Most meals are vegetarian. I only eat chicken and fish occasionally.
-No plastic water bottles
-Very rarely order from amazon/from online stores
-Never ever use plastic for fruits/veggies, just put straight in to the cart or for smaller items like green beans use reusable bags
-If I don't have my reusable bags just carry items or put in my purse instead of getting plastic bags
-Refuse straws

[smilee1079]

Jan 4, 2020 20:03:54 GMT -5 joenali said:

I would love to reduce the amount of paper I use at school. It’s horrible. If I mess up on a copy job I put the pile in a scrap bin for the kids to use. But I use so much paper and I’m sure what gets sent home also is recycled. I don’t know how to minimize this part of my life. Thoughts?

Put worksheets in paper protectors or plastic sleeves and have kids use dry erase markers. Use the worksheets again For other groups or days as needed or even save them for next year.

[joenali]

Jan 4, 2020 20:56:22 GMT -5 smilee1079 said:

Jan 4, 2020 20:03:54 GMT -5 joenali said:

I would love to reduce the amount of paper I use at school. It’s horrible. If I mess up on a copy job I put the pile in a scrap bin for the kids to use. But I use so much paper and I’m sure what gets sent home also is recycled. I don’t know how to minimize this part of my life. Thoughts?

Put worksheets in paper protectors or plastic sleeves and have kids use dry erase markers. Use the worksheets again For other groups or days as needed or even save them for next year.

I’ve actually done that for our math games. But honestly, just on our team of five alone there are 125 students. The paper use is out of control. Even if we double side things.

[minzy]

I also basically stopped buying newly manufactured clothes for myself about a year ago since the fashion industry is another huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. I’m not in the workforce so that makes it easier, but I truly don’t “need” anything that I don’t already have. I have made a few exceptions that I felt I could justify (women owned STEM clothing, a Patagonia fleece made from 100% recycled materials, running shirt made from recycled ocean plastic) but otherwise have only worn what I already have, used Rent the Runway, or picked up things at secondhand stores. It hasn’t been that hard. Every time I get bored with my clothes, the season changes.

[meowmaps]

I need to be more mindful of making sure I have my reusable water bottle with me when I go out so I'm not tempted to buy bottled water. I've definitely improved in this area.

I also want to cut back on ordering take-out or delivery food because it always comes in single-use plastic or styrofoam containers. This would be better for my wallet and health too.

We have reusable grocery bags but when we do instacart it always comes in plastic bags. I want to look into this and see if we can request that they use paper bags.

I'd like to incorporate Meatless Mondays into our food routine and cut down on red and processed meat.

We definitely recycle more than we throw out. And even though glass isn't accepted anymore we set it aside and take it somewhere it is accepted. We're a one-car family. We have a hybrid but hope to replace it with an electric car when it's financially feasible. We haven't flown in over two years (with the exception of one business trip for my husband) and we have no plans to fly this year. This limits where we can explore but we're OK with just road trips right now. When we fly again we'll try to do it as efficiently as possible and continue to do road trips when possible.

[picaflora]

We're putting in solar panels this year - put the deposit down in Dec. It should fully offset our elec energy use including charging our EV. It'll be grid-tied, not a battery backup.

Convince H to go back to biking to work. He did it a lot in 2018, but his work was crazy busy for awhile in 2019 and he fell out of the habit. I would bike to work, but I have to cross a highway and there isn't a safe place to get across. If H bikes I take the EV, and we have a "zero carbon" commute

Re work a large part of the front yard to plant ground cover instead of trying to keep the grass alive. Once it gets established it won't require any water use, and it'll cut down on how often we use the lawnmower. The solar panels will be a ground mount in the backyard, so we'll have less grass there too.

H needs to decide here soon if he wants to put in another garden bed or just stick with the one 14x14 we have. We can get free composted soil from the city, but it goes quickly.

[arehopsveggies]

Things I’m doing-
Dryer balls
Bring my own grocery bags
Rags instead of paper towels, cloth napkins
Trying to cut out ziplocs
Thinx underwear and cloth pads. I LOVE thinx. Life changing.
Bar soap from a local store, bar shampoo
Cloth on the swiffer

Areas I’m struggling and need to figure out-
What to use instead of ziplocs in the freezer
(Have tried reusable ones but didn’t have the hand strength to close them)
Straws, especially for the toddler with swallowing/choking issues. A reusable straw doesn’t seem to work nearly as well for him. I rewash then until they’re gross though.
Plastic flosser thingys- so much easier for me with the lack of hand strength. I have not been buying them for myself even though it’s so much easier for me. But I buy them for the kids because I just can’t get their teeth flossed any other way