Little Steps to a Greener Life

Going green isn’t about big wholesale changes to your lifestyle. Moving toward greener living is more about the smaller steps, the smaller and easier things we can do, each one taking us a bit closer to the greener life.

You may already be taking some of those smaller steps. For example, most cities today have recycling programs with curbside pickup. It couldn’t get much easier than that. Recycling paper, plastic, and aluminum keeps a huge tonnage of waste out of the land fills, each year.

Neighborhood driving is another one. We’re not talking about the commute to and from work, although that is another area to consider for green living. What we’re looking at is the driving around town, running errands. Driving to the grocery store and back home, then to the video store and back home, and then to the kids soccer game and back home. It all adds up to a big waste of time and energy, and who has time these days? Try to plan your trips for the day or even week, to do as much as you can in one round trip. If you really want to go all out, try to plan it so your doing only right turns. UPS redesigned their delivery routes that way and saved millions in fuel and time, not having to wait to make that left turn at the lights. Not only greener, but it can also be a safer drive, not having to cross traffic on a left turn.

Around the house, you can replace your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent ones, or the new LED bulbs which use even less than the fluorescent. Turn off the air-conditioner whenever you’re out of the house for most of the day. If you have the room, hang your laundry on a cloth line either inside, outside, or both. The sunlight will even help bleach your whites, how green is that? Fix any hot water leaks, and if you want to do one better, replace the hot water tank type heater with a tankless water heater.

Moving to a greener lifestyle doesn’t have to be a big difficult change. Going green is a progressive process with easier smaller steps along the way.