How many "green" things do you do?

In honour of Earth Day, how many “green” things do you do regularly? You can pretty much define it any way you like it, as long as the end result is that your actions (or inactions) reduce emissions or pollution.

I think the biggest things I do are not eat meat, and have only one kid.

I also recycle and drive a small car and so on and so forth.

I exclusively use LED light bulbs in my apartment, and I don’t (and won’t ever) have any goddamned kids.

I’ve thought of a couple more since I posted the OP - I feel like I do some things, but I could do much more.

Depends on how you count, I guess

LED lights and high efficiency heat pumps at home.
Recycle (?)
Pay extra for “green” energy from power company.
Own a Prius and a Volt (and a sailboat)
Don’t print every email :wink:
I don’t throw garbage out the window while driving, or sink beer cans in the lake while fishing (like my dad did).

I take public transit all the time (though I don’t have a choice.)

I try to turn off lights when I’m not using them.

I never let the water run when brushing my teeth, and can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would.

I try to conserve water in other ways.

I don’t litter.

I recycle when I can.

I bring empty pop cans back to the store.

IMO a lot of “green” activities are trendy/faddish, and don’t really do anything to help the environment.

I recycle paper, plastic and metal
I telecommute and when I do go out in the car I always combine trips (but that saves me money)
I keep my house fairly cold in the winter and sorta warm in the summer (although with telecommuniting, I have to keep it more even than if I were gone all day) (and this saves me money too)
I opt out of catalogs, the Yellow Pages and most paper bills.
I always recycle electronics, and offer to recycle electronics for others.
I’m part of a community-wide group of people who buy and sell used kids’ clothing and toys. Keeps it out of landfills and nobody has to drive too far to get anything.

That’s about it. I am bad at “shopping local” for produce, dairy and meat. I’m sure I’m bad at watching chemicals too. I use CFLs but not 100%.

Which ones would you say those are? A lot of the stuff I do is “green” (I think), but I also do it because it saves me money (or I get money back, like recycling cans and bottles).

In the weekly trash, we recycle food scraps and organic yard debris in one bin, paper in another bin, and glass in a third bin. At a local store, we recycle plastic bags and plastic clamshells from things like strawberries. This has reduced our weekly landfill by at least half or more.

Is composting “green”? We do it because we can use the compost. We also set the thermostat low in winter and high in summer, but that’s primarily to save money, not because it’s green per se.

“Green” and frugality go hand in hand a lot of the time, I think.

I’m childless, I reuse plastic grocery bags for trash, I use reusable cloth bags for groceries when I remember, and I always turn off the lights when I leave a room. But I think recycling is largely bullshit, I’d rather dump my trash illegally (into an unauthorized dumpster, not in the middle of the woods or anything) than recycle.

Oh, and I went paperless with every company possible.

Nothing.

Not as much as I’d like. But I do some stuff.

I try to walk everywhere I can. I purposefully moved to a self-contained neighborhood to cut down on driving.

I keep my thermostat set low in the winter. (But to be honest, I do this more for financial reasons than the environment).

I recycle my paper products.

I have a push lawnmower. (But again, this is mostly because I’m frugal).

I go to thrift stores.

I live in a small house (700 sq ft). Which probably doesn’t do much for the environment, but it does keep me from buying a heap of things and using a lot of energy for heating and cooling.

I don’t have children. Not for the sake of the planet, though. I just don’t want them.

I hope choosing to be an environmental scientist counts too. :slight_smile:

Do:

Compost
Use a solar water heater
Walk places rather than take the bus when under an hour or so
Buy used
Buy digitally
Own a push mower and grass whip (rather than gas or electric equivalent)
Use wastepaper for notes and for the kids to use for arts and craft
Use rechargeable batteries for stuff where that works (e.g., not cameras, but they’re pretty good in clocks and things like that)
Recycle, particularly steel and glass

Don’t

Drive
Have AC at home
Buy newspapers or accept free newspapers
Adopt tech early/buy battery powered gadgets and toys
Own or use a clothes dryer
Litter
Water the lawn

I don’t consider not having kids as “green” as the main idea of being green for me is for future generations to have a world at least as nice as the one I grew up in, not because trees and wildlife are pretty. They are, of course, but that’s secondary for me. Some people, in my experience, say they chose not to have kids for some moral reason but it’s obvious that they just don’t want kids because they’re clumsy with them, don’t want the expense, or are just kinda lazy and self-centered. That’s fine. If you don’t like or want kids, by all means, please don’t have any. On the other hand, I’m sure there are people who based their decision not to have children solely because of the environmental impact of procreation and I’ll probably hear from one soon.

I don’t have AC either.

I don’t have AC - I have a basement. It only gets hot here a couple of days a year, and we just go downstairs those days. I guess that counts as “green,” since the end result is us not using AC. :slight_smile:

  • We live close to work. We could afford a much larger house if we lived further away, but we’d use a lot more gas (and also spend a lot more time commuting, which is admittedly the main motive).

  • I bike to work as often as possible. If my wife and I are both driving, whoever is driving further that day takes the more fuel-efficient of our two cars (Honda Fit).

  • Drive at maximum of 60 mph.

  • Only use the heater we’re already wearing 3 layers of clothing and it’s still cold.

  • Last summer, I think we used the A/C fewer than 10 times. And we live in Alabama.

  • We’ve chosen not to cut the huge maple trees on the south side of the house, because they help keep the house cool. Even though we’d really like some sunlight to grow plants.

  • I never buy bottled water, except at airports. (And I think I’ll start carrying empty water bottles into airports and filling them at water fountains; it hadn’t occurred to me until I saw someone do it on my last trip.)

  • My old desktop PC and LCD (CFL-backlit) monitor used over 400 W. When it came time to replace them, I bought a laptop and 2 LED monitors; they use less than 60W total.

  • I hardly ever use the printer. If I need to carry a document around, I’ll put it on my tablet.

When I put my gas-guzzling SUV into “Sport” mode and the “Eco” light turns off, I feel a momentary twinge of guilt.

I do a few, but many of them I do just because I prefer them - for example, using public transport or walking - and finding ways to eke out my household food (food production has an environmental impact - so wasted food is not green) - and the energy I use cooking it.

And I recycle, upcycle, re-use anything I can.