Nick Ann Street

I made the decision very early in 2007 that I was going to use as few plastic shopping bags as possible. What a New Year’s resolution, right?! Mind you the environment and going ‘green’ has become a bit of a trendy thing for the moment and perhaps some see it as a political motivation, but regardless of whether you buy into particular people telling you the Earth is in trouble or the whole global warming scare THE EARTH IS IN FACT IN TROUBLE just by the way we are using it and abusing it.

The city of San Francisco and Leaf Rapids, Canada have recently banned plastic grocery bags made from petroleum. The question isn’t paper or plastic anymore. Paper bags may not be an eco-friendly alternative to plastic unless made from recycled paper. They consume forest resources and making them creates enormous amounts of pollution. Plastic bags are hard to recycle, and they’re made from petroleum. They do not biodegrade and often are hazardous to marine life and wildlife if ingested. To help in my goal I even purchased an extra canvas shopping bag that folds into itself and can clip on my keychain from my new favorite online store. I added that to my collection of two Whole Foods reusable bags, a Vitamin Cottage canvas tote and two Safeway bags that my mum gave as a gift a couple years ago. Most grocery stores today even give you a $0.05 refund with each bag you use of your own. I have carried my own bags for a while, but often forget them in the car or to return them to the car once I have unloaded my groceries. I have worked hard to change that this year. I wouldn’t say I have been perfect in this area, but to date, I only have about 15 plastic bags awaiting their trip back to the grocery store for recycling and most of them came from people visiting and bringing goods.

The reason I have decided to post is really due to June 5th. This particular day is considered World Environment Day and if you missed Earth Day, what a great day to make up for it. There are numerous planned activities already posted in a few cities in North America – for a list click here. If there are no events organized in your area, create your own and share them with others. Park and riverside clean ups are ideal ways to celebrate, bringing in the community and drawing attention to both local and global environmental problems.

I could go on for days on little tiny ways of changing your habits to benefit the environment, but I will start with just a few positive ways to reduce your emissions of global warming gases:

• Ride your bike to work at least once a week rather than drive (A few sites of interest:Transportation alternatives at www.transalt.org, or www.sightline.org for a bit of humor in A Year Living Car-lessly and Bicycle Neglect)
• Replace five lightbulbs in your home with compact flourescents and save half of your annual lighting bill while cutting your carbon dioxide emissions (see the light bulb product report brought to you by the Green Guide)
• Sign up for green energy from your local power provider. To find out if your utility offers wind power or other renewable options, call your power company or visit the U.S. Department of Energy’s Green Power Site.

Many of you may have heard of Earth Day (April 22) – some are very familiar with this particular event and others have maybe just heard in passing that this day existed. Some schools do full days of activities in relation to preserving the Earth and educating the importance of the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I do believe Nick even commented on our particular activities that day in a post. Not even a week later in April from Earth day is Arbor Day – a tad bit more familiar to some. Both ‘holidays’, if you will, were commemorated this year in our household and I am really proud of that. I can’t say that every year I make it a habit to take part in activities related to those causes on those specific days, but it sort of went along with my New Year’s resolution for the year. Regardless of whether you take part on Earth Day, Arbor Day or World Environment Day, take part. Just the littlest things make a big difference and don’t think this will be my last post on environmental tidbits

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