Being green... it's worth it.

A wise frog once said “It’s not easy being green.” This is as true today as it was those many years ago. Yet while it is not easy to lead a green life, it is not impossible. Nothing worth obtaining is easy and to protect our planet we must work at changing our lifestyles. Some changes will be harder to adopt than others, but all are worth doing.

Admittedly, my husband and I could do more for the environment and we’ve recently made some changes to our lives. Unfortunately the one area that we cannot change is our use of vehicles to commute to work. We happen to live 30-40 miles from anything and so it is impossible to walk or bike to and from our jobs. We can’t even ride together because our work locations are in completely opposite directions, even if we had similar hours. I also go to school nights and so finding a way to carpool with others is practically impossible. I’d love to live within walking distance of work to help cut down on vehicle usage, but alas, it is not meant to be at this time. That is why we’ve looked to other areas of our life to become more environmentally friendly.

The first change we’ve made was to replace all the light bulbs in our house with a more energy efficient model. They may look funkier than a standard bulb, and may cost more, but to us the expense is worth it if we can help conserve even a slight bit of energy with the use of these bulbs. These bulbs give off less carbon dioxide than incandescent bulbs do.

Our household also recycles. We recycle glass, cans, plastics, newspapers, magazines, cardboard… pretty much anything that can be recycled. In addition to recycling, my husband is also a big fan of composting. It not only saves on waste, but also helps add nutrients to the soil and works wonderfully in our gardens. To help cut down on paper trash, we’ve also requested that our names and address be removed from the junk mail listings. This has cut back on the obnoxiously large number of fliers and junk that we get each day in our mailbox. It also cuts down on paper that has to be printed by the companies that do the sending.

Another change we’ve slowly made is to change all our batteries to rechargeable ones. Instead of tossing out a battery each time it dies, we just pop it in the charger and boost the power once again. This change ties in with the fact that my husband and I like to reuse, reuse, reuse. Anything that can be reused is used over and over again in our household.

These steps will not fix the ills of the world immediately, and there are many other changes that my husband and I are looking to make in the near future. We’ve made a good start in our desires to do our part to live in a more environmentally sound manner and will continue to adjust our lives to protecting the resources of this world. It may not be easy being green, but it’s worth it.  Each day I resolve to do at least one thing that helps make Earth just a little bit greener.