Earth Day 2010

Tomorrow is Earth Day.

Last year I posted a rundown of all the little things I/we do to keep it green.

I have been trying to think of what we have added to this. One good thing that really isn't a green movement but defiantly reduces our waste going to land fills is Otis is finally out of Diapers. he has gone three weeks with out wearing a diaper. Yeah.

We have increased our reusable shopping bag use to 75% of the time. I also bought these handy little bags from amkdesigns. I can't wait to start using them at our Bailey's.

This is the first year I have been able to use compost from our bin in the garden. It still could use a bit more decomposition though. Our rain barrel is up and running for the season. The Region of Waterloo has a rain barrel program where you can buy a rain barrel for $30. We could really use another one but I have no way to get it home. It is so big it won’t fit in my trunk.

I have more than doubled my vegetable gardening space to over 140sq/ft. We will also be adding a large garden at the foot of our property. I have plans to add as many edible plants as I can to it. Currently I have seeds for calendula and nasturtium. I was also thinking Oregano and Rosemary would be a good addition. If you have any suggestions I welcome them.

This year Dave and I have a list of foods we would like to can and freeze. I am excepting canning jar donations is any one has any they are not using.

The last addition I would like to make to our outdoor green efforts is a cloths line. Right now I can’t decide if I want an umbrella style line or an actual line across the yard. I will have to put a little more though into it.

Local News

The Record has an article today about the Kitchener City councillors approving a $4.1 million project to buy and install one of the largest collections of solar panels in the region.

Looks like some of my Bull Frog power will be coming from my own city.

Awesome

Earth Day

I try some days more then others to decrease the amount of waste Our family sends to the land fill. I won't lie We need to put a bit more focus on this in our house we have let it slip recently.

We struggle with the garage and garbage day. I really miss the days of running the garbage out whenever we would like. In an effort to combat this issue. I purchased a garbage can size recycle bin to hold it all and a metal strip to hold the recycle bins we will use for paper. This way if we miss a Garbage day as we regularly do. We will have enough storage for said recycling.

We also started the Green Bin program last fall. Things have fallen by the wayside with regard to this hopefully we will be on track once the garage is back in functioning order. We are almost there.

I have decided to use the DivaCup for a few reasons. It has been one month so far. There are definite pros and cons. I may write a review post once a couple of months have passed. I haven't really decided if I want to expose that sort of thing online yet.

There are many other places we have made "Green" changes. I wouldn't really call them changes as we have been doing them for a long time now.


We use CFL Bulbs, we try to use rechargeable batteries most of the time and when we don't they are recycled. We own many reusable bags but only use them 25% of the time. Yet another thing to work on.

Recently we have moved to Bullfrog Power. I had promised myself that once we could afford it we would make the switch. The recent months have led us to do this. Yeah.

Happy Earth day to you.