Happy Earth Day!  What are some of your favorite ways to reduce, reuse and recycle?

• I've driven a Honda Civic Hybrid for the past 4 years (people are probably sick of hearing about it, but I love my little car)
• We compost vegetable scraps / leaves etc (have been doing this since I was a kid – it means we have luscious gardens with no chemical fertilizers, meaning we can actually eat what comes out of them)
• We recycle everything possible (also been doing this since childhood – yay for Mom!). Reuse or try not to purchase anything not recyclable — sometimes this is hard to accomplish, and we still do end up with almost a full bag of garbage at the curb each week 😦
• I use my pile of canvas bags when shopping — I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who shops at our local grocery store who does this, which is a shame.
• We do our best to conserve gas/electricity/water. For us this means motion sensors on a number of room lights, compact flourescent bulbs where feasible, high efficiency furnace, low-water-usage washer & dishwasher (both Fisher & Paykel)
• I try to buy organic / local foods whenever possible, which ironically is rather difficult in this rural community. BUT, this season I discovered a local organic farm which has subscription weekly food deliveries, so I signed us right up — we got our first little "winter" box a week ago: stored beets, carrots, potatoes, and fresh spring greens. I can't wait till the real growing season starts!
• We try to be good corporate citizens as well… when we built our new manufacturing plant and office space 4 years ago, we opted for a "green" building (Silver LEED rating), mostly meaning recycled materials and high-efficiency lighting and heating (for example motion sensors in various office spaces, and heating and lighting such that we're consuming the same amount of gas and electricity as the old facility but with triple the production capacity and many more pieces of heavy equipment). Also, a portion of the electricity we purchase is from a local wind farm.

All this is not meant as bragging, it's just an issue that I'm pretty passionate about. [My daughter calls me a hippie and my husband calls me an eco-freak, but I assume those are meant as compliments!]

But I know I could do more, like air dry my clothes rather than use the dryer, not use the computer/electronics/microwave so much, drive less, try harder to buy even less stuff than I do, etc.

I do try to walk softly on this earth, but there are many aspects of today's society which make it difficult. All we can must do is keep trying.

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