About two months ago, I wrote some suggestions for Going Greener, and I now have some more for you to contemplate, chuckle at, and hopefully sprinkle into your life. As in the first article, my theme of saving time and money is as strong as ever in these tips. If you think these things are just too uncool to do, then please read (and reread) #5 of Adrienne Saia’s article about being cool . [You ROCK, sista!]

1. For your hair, use a leave-in conditioner rather than a wash-out one: It’s pretty obvious, but you save a lot of water not having to rinse conditioner out of your hair. And, you save a lot of time. Obviously, those with buzz cuts or really short hair aren’t having such a big impact, so for those with longer and thicker hair, I hope you’ll see the value in making this change.

But back to the water… I recently read what some celebrities were doing to go green. One actress, who shall remain nameless, claimed she only took a ’3-minute shower, because that amount of water is all some families in Africa have all week (or day or month, I don’t recall for sure)!’ I did a big eye roll on that. NOT about the fact that many people in the world don’t have access to much or clean water or both, or that we all should take shorter showers, but thinking of a multi-million-dollar entertainer with most likely multiple houses and/or apartments, and cars/SUVs, and stylists, and all her air travel, and all the food she no doubt throws out to remain Hollywood thin… Well, I guess if she really uses less water once a day, I commend her, and I take my eye roll back. Everybody has to start somewhere, right?

2. For those of you who iron your clothes, a sort of weird way to save energy and time while getting the wrinkles out of your clothes without the iron: If you don’t need a sharp crease in your shirt or blouse or pants (and boy, I hope you don’t), this works pretty well, but you feel kind of silly at first.

Bring the wrinkled piece of clothing into the bathroom with you when you shower or take a bath. After you’re done, don’t towel off: put the clothing on – yes, it’s a little hard to do – and then pat the clothing onto yourself to get it slightly damp. Then, put it on a hangar so it can hang correctly and dry a bit. Put it on before it’s all the way dry, and your body heat will take care of the rest of the wrinkles.

People at work laughed at me when I told them this, but they couldn’t argue that it worked when I pointed to my shirt. It may not work on some fabrics, thick fabrics, super wrinkled stuff, but it’s a time and energy saver when you don’t have to look your absolute starched best, or when you’re traveling.

3. Continuing with the shower theme, get a low-flow shower head: Did you know that most conventional shower heads use 4-8 gallons of water per minute? Yikes. Run, don’t walk to your favorite hardware or department store and get thee an energy efficient shower head now. They’re not expensive, and if you rent, your landlord/leasing agent will most likely not object to saving money on water. If you didn’t know how cool Austin, Texas is, how’s this: The City of Austin takes it one step further and gives energy efficient shower heads to residents! Call your mayor and suggest it.

4. Use natural cleaners: Have you ever read the ingredients and warnings on the cleaners you use? Completely frightening. I’m glad they have warnings on them to “keep out of reach of children”. Well, folks, if they aren’t good for them, odds are they’re not good for us either. Get a gallon jug of white vinegar, some baking soda and you are well on your way to cleaning without falling over from toxic fumes – and, yup, you save a lot of money. Check out this list from EarthEasy to get the full scoop on how to work with these home ingredients for a clean house. Vinegar cuts grease, and putting baking soda and vinegar down the sink will clear it out, just for a couple examples.

5. Decide to drive less: It’s not too hard to find a way to walk, bike, take the bus or carpool with someone a couple times a week (and hopefully more) to accomplish the things you normally do in your car alone. If you’re within 2 miles of a post office, a grocery store, a drug store, a coffee shop, an art gallery, a restaurant, a gift shop, a bike shop or other place you frequent – and I’m guessing the majority of you are – determine to get there by another means than a car. You will learn things about your neighbors and neighborhood (good and bad, which are equally important), and you’ll get some exercise (all good and important). If you can shop with a friend or spouse instead of going separately, well, there’s quality time for the two of you, along with saving gas and a little bit of the planet. If you haven’t ridden a city bus since high school, do it. It if makes you too uncomfortable, all the more reason to do it. Put your shades on, take it all in, and learn a lot about life, their’s and yours. (I once carried two bags of groceries and a new cat litter box on a standing-room-only inner city bus in Minneapolis, and never were a group of hot sweaty people so friendly and accommodating.) If you’re someone whose identity is tied to your vehicle… not sure what to tell you, friend, other than, get out and walk, and grow your identity in ways you didn’t know you would appreciate and reap benefits you didn’t know were out there. And save money, and the planet, also something you might groove on, assuming you’re still reading this article.

6. Back to the water: Let’s talk about laundry. Do not, repeat, do not do laundry until you have a full load of darks or whites (or both, if you don’t really care). Do some hand laundry if you need to. If you just recoiled and said, “eeeuuu!”, let’s just get past that, put a tablespoon of laundry soap in a sink of cold water, swish the piece of clothing around so it’s completely wet or submerged, and let it sit while you have a glass of wine or cup of tea to think about the ‘ordeal’ you just went through. For most stuff that isn’t really dirty or soiled, you then empty the sink and rinse the piece really well, then roll it in a towel and hang it up somewhere to dry. What’s the big deal? 5 minutes, most of which you spent doing nothing. Perhaps you will feel connected to your ancestors who beat clothes on rocks at the river’s edge, perhaps you’ll just be thrilled you can wear your favorite thing tomorrow and didn’t waste money and time with the washing machine. Either way, it saves water, energy and money for that laundry emergency.

7. Also on the topic of laundry: Change the way you dry your clothes. Put the majority of your clothes in the dryer for 8 minutes max, then hang dry them on a drying rack or outside on a line if you are lucky enough to have one. I put them in for that short amount of time to avoid the way they’re stiff and scratchy if you don’t, and it gets wrinkles out to a degree. It saves on the life of your clothes, towels, sheets, etc., too. Another tip – ALWAYS empty the lint filter before each load you do – especially important to do this at the laundromat as lint builds up fast. Having a full lint filter means the dryer can’t work as efficiently, i.e. wasting energy, and it doesn’t get your clothes as dry as fast as it would with an empty filter. I do dry my sheets and pillow cases all the way if I have to sleep on them before they would have time to get dry; they dry fast when they’re by themselves in the dryer, too. (Yes, I’m cheap, I only have one set of sheets for my bed.) I had one friend comment that she would n e v e r dry her clothes on a clothes line outside – “Low class.” Sigh… Classism… perhaps we’ll talk about that another time. It’s the mother and father of racism and sexism and every other -ism. It certainly has huge and deep connections to why going greener even came about.

8. Stop buying so much bottled water: The cases of small bottles of water are a problem, folks – all that plastic and all those miles to ship it to you… Buy a couple filters to keep at home and work instead (Brita, Pur). Fill up a reusable bottle or a stainless steel thermos and you’re set. Or, – gasp – just drink your tap water if you have read the report from your city and it’s in good shape. There are many great articles out there about the craziness of the bottled water industry – the people of Fiji, where you get your cool square colorful bottle of water – sometimes don’t have good water to drink! And Fiji water has to fly a very long way to get to you. Not green at all. There’s plenty of stories revealing that some bottled water companies just use tap water – and sell it back to you at a gazillion dollars a gallon. If you do buy bottled water, choose a local or regional source that is reputable. So, save a lot of money and be much greener by cleaning up your water act.

Some people are already experiencing ‘going green’ fatigue, as it’s still all over the media. New companies are springing up to meet and/or create the demand for greener products, so that means more ads bombarding us, and more to figure out. It can be overwhelming, and when you continue to see litter everywhere and SUVs twice the size of your car going 75 mph on the freeway, you wonder, “why bother.” My determination was steeled a while back when a 30-year-old person I know bragged about being from the “disposable generation” – she thought it was ridiculous to reuse anything. Um, if you think you are throwing something away, there is no “away”, darlin’.

Some people are really into going greener for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps they’ve checked their carbon footprint (a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide). Perhaps they are into the DIY thing, one of my personal favorites. DIY stands for Do It Yourself, whether it’s make your own clothes, do your own interior design, home improvement or other things you can do without spending much money and time on expensive products and services. Perhaps they’re scared by the recent food scares all over the news. If you’ve haven’t heard of the Slow Food movement, it suggests you slow down, know where your food comes from, enjoy your food as well as get off the fast food circuit.

I’m of the belief that going greener makes life better as far as your home environment, your health, your budget, and your time. I can’t think of negative impacts from going greener, other than the time required to learn about it and transition to it, which to me, isn’t a negative really. The great thing is that it will benefit not only you in the long run, but the rest of us, too. And, you will have some fun along the way, and a little more self-respect, too, which never hurts.

Similar articles that might also interest you:

Comments