By Sherry, enjoying all of the flowering trees in northern Virgina
As I was setting up this post I realized I didn’t know a lot about the history of Earth Day so here is a little information from the earthday.org website:
Edith: I do as much as I can except turn the water off while I’m brushing my teeth. We compost all food scraps except meat and recycle everything possible, resulting in one small grocery bag of actual trash every week. I use rain barrel water for the garden, print drafts on the back of previously printed drafts, and drive a Prius with very conservative driving habits. I walk everywhere within a mile of home.
super-insulated our walls and ceilings and installed an efficient gas boiler and an on-demand water heater. On the other hand, I refuse to sit around my house with a hat and mittens on in the winter, so we do turn the thermostat up to 70. But see item about insulation… I’m sure I could do more, like ride my bike everywhere within five miles, or capture warming-up shower water for the garden or toilet. I have my limits, though. And I live in a very hilly town. Now if I lived in California…
Sherry: It will surprise no one that I think garage sales are one of the best way to recycle things. If you don’t like garage sales it’s easy to contact a charitable organization to come pick up things you don’t want anymore. Or you can take them to your favorite thrift shop. Nothing drives me more nuts (okay, my husband occasionally does) than seeing useable items set out on the curb for garbage. And, yes, I’ve rescued my share of things from the curb.
Barb: I can’t say we do anything extraordinary. We’re regular recyclers and our Massachusetts house is very efficient having been totally gutted and rebuilt ten years ago. We drive a small, fuel-efficient car. But all that just seems like common sense in cold, densely-populated New England. So instead, let me talk lobsters. I did a lot of research about lobsters and lobstermen (which is what they are called, even when they are women) for Musseled Out, the Maine Clambake book that comes out next week. I came away so impressed. The lobstermen of Maine take huge responsibility for the fishery. They’ve watched fish stocks collapse around them and they know the consequences to their living if it happens with lobsters. They can’t and don’t take lobsters that are too small or too big, and if they catch an egg-bearing female, she is notched with a V on her tail, so she can’t be taken even when she isn’t bearing eggs. The lifecycle of lobsters is complicated and poorly understood. The tiniest hatchlings (super lobsters) can drift for miles and miles before they settle on the bottom. As a result, the lobstermen and the Federal government have had many disagreements about how to preserve the fishery. But the lobstermen, who are all small businessmen, not corporations running giant ships, and who observe the fishery daily, have been consistently right. Now they are under threat from things far beyond their control–the warming and increasing acidity of the North Atlantic. Already the lobsters have moved northward and the shell disease that has devastated southern New England has crept into Maine. We’ll see what happens.
Julie: My house is energy efficient, I recycle, and I try to get foods and products that are good for the environment. But the biggest thing I do is that I rarely drive. I live in Somerville, so I get places by taking buses and trains. And I walk. A lot. Over 10,000 steps a day on average. I have not made the car free leap yet. but I drive under 4000 miles a year.
Liz: We’re big recyclers too. I wish I could say I didn’t have to drive much, but I do. I try to do little things, like pick up trash when I’m out walking, or participate in volunteer projects through my work to help beautify local parks or other areas.
Readers, what do you do to conserve the environment? How will you celebrate Earth Day?
At our house we recycle, drive fuel efficient cars, and plant as many trees as we can in the city. I also do nearly all my shopping at the farmer’s market. In the shop I own most of our artist make new creations using recycled items. We have plants that have been upcycled from gently used clothing, jewelry that was once bottles, and rugs weaved together from discarded tee shirts. Every little thing counts and helps contribute to a better world.
Agree, Kim!
All of the above, plus I have used only reusable water bottles–filling them in the tap–for the last ten years, and reusable shopping bags since 2001. For the last six or seven years I’ve had a vegetable garden, and I do some canning and dehydrating. Mostly freezing, though. My husband hunts deer and turkey on our farm, and we have half a freezer of venison.
The resuable water bottles are great and the bags. When I hear about the floating island of plastic in the Pacific it gives me the chills!
When we first moved here, I was gung-ho about putting in a garden, and started composting. After a few years I found my lot didn’t get enough sun to grow anything (except sorrel, for some reason), so the compost is still sitting there, improving itself. Well-aged!
Our 1870 Victorian house has the large, single-pane windows typical of its era. We have been diligent about finding or even making storm windows throughout the house (I once heard Norm Abram say that wooden-frame ones insulate better than the modern aluminum ones, which warmed my heart–so we can be historically correct and efficient).
We recycle, and I go to farmers’ markets when I can–the one in our town keeps moving around and still hasn’t figured out what they’re doing. And our thermostat stays at 68!
I remember that kind of storm window from an Indiana house – tough in the in-between seasons, because you can’t easily open them when the weather is nice. Like today!
I use a refillable water bottle. We actually don’t have recycle bins in my condo complex (and never had them at any apartments where I’ve lived either. If we did, I’d make a point of recycling, too.
I’m amazed you don’t have recycle bins — when we lived in California we got bigger and bigger recycling bins and smaller and smaller trash bins!
The houses do, but the apartment and condo complexes don’t.
I should point out I very rarely use stuff I could recycle. That’s good and bad, obviously, given my no recycling bins situation.