Category Archives: Green Step By Step

Plan Regular Vegetarian Meals – Green Step By Step

While not every family is up for going completely vegetarian, most can enjoy the occasional vegetarian meal. Incorporating vegetarian meals into your regular rotation is a great way to cut back on meats, which are much less environmentally friendly as well as less healthy when eaten in the usual American excess.

Decide how you want to go about it. You might try buying a vegetarian cookbook or you can check out vegetarian recipes online.

Think about how often you want to go vegetarian. I try to have any lunches that I’m not eating as leftovers be vegetarian and I also regularly cook vegetarian meals for dinner. For you it might be once a month, once a week, whatever works.

It can take some experimentation to figure out what works well for your family. Some people have a very low tolerance for changing their eating habits and you may have to go more slowly. On the other hand, you may hit upon a well loved vegetarian meal that quickly goes into rotation for your family. Mine loves Sand and Shells, for example.

Eating vegetarian meals gives you a lower environmental impact from that meal, and you’re likely to be eating something healthier as well. You might be surprised at how delicious some of these meals are.

Stop Using Paper Towels – Green Step By Step

Paper towels are in many ways a wonderful convenience. I can admit that. But they’re also really wasteful. Use, throw away. Many recycling programs won’t even take them. The fibers in them are too short.

About the only good thing you can do with them is compost them if they don’t have any harsh cleaning chemicals on them.

Better yet is to get used to using cloth towels. It adds a bit to your laundry, but perhaps not as much as you might think.

I love my microfiber cleaning cloths. For general cleaning they do a great job and last a long time. But for most jobs any appropriately sized towel you already own will do the job. But microfiber holds a lot of liquid as a rule, and doesn’t leave as much lint behind all the time.

Making the switch may cost a little upfront, but think about what paper towels cost you over a year. You will save money overall.

Reuse Glass Jars – Green Step By Step

Washing out and reusing glass jars is not only easy, it can be habit forming.

The glass bottles I use the most of are spaghetti jars. They’re great for holding things that I buy from bulk bins, such as popcorn or flax seed. They hold a nice quantity of these products and I find them easier to organize.

Having a baby means that I occasionally buy baby food. Not often, since I make most of mine, but store bought is easier when traveling. And that means baby food jars.

Some people like these for crafts. I’ve given some to my kids to keep some of their smaller craft supplies in.

Larger jars don’t come around too often, but sometimes they’re really useful. The really large pickle jars are nice for holding coins if you like to keep your change until you have a bunch to bring in.

Jars that are bigger than a spaghetti sauce jar but not too big are nice if you like making sourdough starter. I tried this my first time in a spaghetti sauce jar, and there just really wasn’t enough room to work with, even throwing a lot out regularly.

It’s always important to remember that reuse comes before recycle and after reduce in priority. You’re pretty likely to buy some foods in jars. Make the most of what comes with the food and reuse jars when you can. Recycle the rest or find a friend who needs jars.

Donate Old Clothes and Other Reusable Goods – Green Step by Step

So you don’t have a use for those old clothes or other stuff around the house, but they’re in good enough condition that someone else could use them, send them off to your favorite charity.

This is especially true for clothing. Clothes that are still in excellent condition can be resold. But charities may also take clothes that aren’t in such good shape and turn them into cleaning rags. You can do that around the house too, just be sure that they really have reached the end of their life span as clothing.

You may also be able to find people in your area who enjoy doing crafts and need old clothes to make rugs and such.

Another option would be to hold a garage sale and sell the stuff yourself.

Non-clothing goods can be more difficult, especially if you’re talking electronic goods. Look around for a good electronics recycling program.

Don’t forget to consider reused items when shopping for yourself. Thrift stores can have amazing deals on really wonderful clothing. So much more affordable than going to department or specialty stores.

Use Reusable Shopping Bags – Green Step by Step

The number of paper or plastic bags you can generate simply from grocery shopping is pretty horrifying if you think about it. Even if you send them in for recycling, that’s a lot of waste for something that a reusable bag can do so much better.

You can get reusable shopping bags at many stores for a dollar or so these days. They aren’t bad, but not all of them last well. If you’re looking at the long term, do consider spending a little extra for a quality bag. Then you’ll also have your choice of materials and style, rather than a store logo or something.

More and more stores are giving nickel discounts for bringing your own bags. Target and CVS are starting programs; it’s not longer just the little guys.

The challenge is in remembering to bring your own bags, of course. Figure out if keeping them by the door, in the car, in your purse, with the shopping list or something else works to help you to remember your bags.