Also, I freaking hate the words "green" and "eco-friendly," but I have to use them. I just feel like such a hippie and/or yuppie when I do. I don't care about how cool this is, I just really like life and going outside and I'm worried about all the chemicals I flush down the drain and put into my body every day. I also acknowledge that some of this stuff is just a marketing ploy, which is why I try to do research into the products before I buy them.
So far this year:
January - Replace my toothpaste with one made from natural and organic ingredients. I use Tom's. Now conventional toothpaste tastes weird to me - like a lot of chemicals all having a metallic-colored party on my taste buds. (I ran out this month, so I switched to Burt's Bees because it was on sale.)
March - Bought all 'new' clothes and household items (like a cheesegrater) at Goodwill and other secondhand stores.
April - Switched out my old mascara for Physician's Formula Organic Wear Mascara (and at half off it cost less than anything else in the store). So far I really really like it. It is kind of a weird consistency in the bottle but it definitely makes my eyelashes look nice, and they don't get all hard when they dry like with normal mascara.
Okay, that brings us to now. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do for the next few months. I really want to only buy organic and/or locally grown food one month, but I also don't have enough money to do that, so maybe I'll try to go with half. July I'm going to try to become a bike commuter and only fill up on gas once. Feel free to suggest anything!
Very inspiring! This is a hard one but I tried it for a year. It nearly drove me crazy but made me very aware. Stop consuming one time use disposable plastic for a month. It will influence many of your grocery shopping habits. The farmers market became my friend. I brought my own bags everywhere. I bought a lot of bulk foods like oatmeal and beans in paper bags. You can carry your own spoon everywhere like a hiker to avoid plastic utensils. Even avoiding one category of plastic could be enough of a challenge, ie plastic bags.
ReplyDeleteGood luck,
Serenity
Also- to get cheaper organic food at the farmer's market you can always go at the end of the day and say do you have anything that you can't sell because of bruises or minor damage or whatever that i could buy at a reduced rate? I have gotten boxes of apples to make pie and they otherwise would throw the stuff away.
ReplyDeleteSerenity
i do want to do that - the reusable plastic thing. I'm already okay at not using shopping bags, although if chilidog isn't around i often forget. he's so much more conscientious than i am.
ReplyDeletei can't go to the farmer's market because I work during all of them. :(
also, nowhere near here sells in bulk, except candy. there is a crazy amount of bulk candy, but no actual food. it's ridiculous. there's a whole foods all the way across town, and a local-organic store in the ritzy park of town, but they're super far away, i think the gas it would take to get there would make the whole thing moot.
maybe i'll save that for later in the year, when i'm out in washington.