Seriously, for the purposes of a poll, you need to define green.
:dubious:
I’m going with anything that involves reuse, renew or recycle + energy saving.
My big project at the moment is turning plastic shopping bags and the sort into new sturdy reusable shopping bags and - the meta bag: a bag made of recycled plastic bags to hold plastic bags so you can recycle them.
-
We’re rather fanatical about separating our garbage.
Green & food waste is partly decomposed in the yard’'s compost heap, partly given to the green recycling. Plastic, metal and two kinds of glass are all kept separate. -
My meat and eggs I buy mostly organic, but that is because of animal welfare.
-
I funshop at Goodwill and Craigslist for myself and my kid, and I put rather a lot of effort in getting rid of stuff I no longer use to Goodwill or to Freecycle to a new owner. (Hey, it’s not more then fair that I find a new doting owner for the stuff that has served me faithfully no? It’'s not just the toys from Toy story that have feelings, you know! ;). ) I’d say that for me and my kid, when it comes to books, toys and clothes, and trinkets, about 60 % of our purchases are second-hand. We prefer to think of stuff as mostly something you borrow, rather then own.
-
I was going to say I restrict airline travel, at least for myself, but then I would be lying. I don’‘t like to travel, period, so I can’‘t really take credit for not flying when I don’'t want to. I have one kid, but I can’t boast about that for much the same reason.
-
I’ve paid for an professional energy check on my home and I’ve done most of the energy saving stuff they recommended. Wall insulation, new energy-efficient heating, double glazing.
-
My upstairs neighbour, who owns our communal roof, has had solar panels installed last year. They fuel his heating and his airco, and his energy bills are still lower then they were.
-
I think it is wasteful, dumb and unnecessary to use any pest control in one’s home and garden if you have even the slightest clue of plant and animal life.
Bugger all. I recycle half-heartedly, and don’t use much water, but otherwise I don’t pay much attention to my consumption.
Ideally I’d love to have an electric car, solar panels, and a rainwater tank, those kinds of things, but they require money, and a house I own, neither of which are in the offing.
I provide occasional supervisory cover for another work party that does near enough 100% recycling - to give you an idea of scale, in food waste alone there is more than a ton a week.
-
We drive a Prius. It is about as energy efficient as a very small Japanese car. But more importantly, we rarely drive our Prius. Both me and my husband do most of our commuting, grocery shopping and kid-fetching on our bikes. But such car-use is very common in the Netherlands. Most families have just one car and don’t use it every day, as distances are short and most things can be done on bike or by public transport.
-
I try to buy slave free chocolate and bananas. I only buy cosmetics that are not tested on animals (thank gog those are now the standard) and micro-plastic free. I have about 10% of my savings out in microloans through Kiva.
There are a lot of things I don’t do, because it costs me effort. I’m not proud of that.
For instance, in our home we like leaving lights and gadgets on, or on stand-by. We have a higher use of electricity then most similar households ( I checked). We have more gadgets, period. We leave doors open so we have to heat the whole house.
I have friends who lower the thermostat when they will be gone for an hour. I have friends who turn off the lights when they leave a room. Who have all of their rooms separated by doors so they only heat and light the rooms they are actually using. Compared to them, I’m sinfully wasteful. And I don’t see that changing, because we’re too lazy to change our habits.
I could cook and eat vegan or fully vegetaran. I don’t, even though I only buy organic meat, have at least two vegetarian days a week, and rarely eat chicken because of the factory-farming (and organic chicken is really expensive!) and the salmonella.
I don’t use green cleaners. Mostly because our cleaning lady likes her chlorine and I’ve given up protesting.
I still have three inherited cats that eat meat and produce cat litter to the landfills. I inherited them, and I plan to replace them with one cat when they die of old age.
I’m rich and I consume. More then my share. I try to dwell not to much on it.
While Luanda has some recycling facilities for bottles and cans, I suspect that because of the driving distance and other inefficiencies, our attempts to recycle would be negated. We have gotten our empregada to use greener cleaning products and no paper towels, but that is about all we can manage here.
If I ever catch myself doing something ‘green’ by accident, I make sure to slap myself repeatedly, and do the most un-green action I possibly can.
Once the sun burns out, this planet is doomed. You’re just making sure we spend our last days using inferior products.
I recycle stories and spread bullshit
I try to eliminate waste wherever I can around the house; conserving by turning off lights, using CF, having a smart system for HVAC control, running pumps and filters for the shortest amount possible, restricting watering, showers, etc. A lot of green features were built into the house too, double pane windows, radiant barrier, extra insulation in walls and ceiling, double thick stucco, etc. Also we easily have twice as many recyclables as trash each week, collecting paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminum and glass. Sometimes I feel a little silly taking a small piece of plastic out to the garage instead of just throwing it away, but it’s part of the pervasive mindset that you try and be green everywhere, no matter how seemingly insignificant. I’ve also gone completely organic in the yard and landscape, no chemical fertilizers, insecticides, etc.
Everything I do is green.
Nothing. I recycle nothing (other than steel), drive an old truck with big V8 engine, use a burn barrel for trash, and routinely burn scrap wood in the backyard.
Publicly supported the building of two commercial wind turbines in my town.
Recycle at home and at work
Compost
Do not use chemical fertilizers, weed killers or pesticides on lawn or garden
Use hand clippers instead of weed whacker
Use snow shovel instead of snow blower
Use rake instead of leaf blower
Buy Earth-friendly cleaning product when possible
Use energy/water efficient front loading clothes washer
Buy recycled paper products
Reuse plastic containers, jars, bags
Use compact fluorescent bulbs at home and work
If you only count all the seedlings I’m raising indoors and in the cold frame, there are hundreds of green things I’m doing (although that wording has a slightly creepy aura, seeing as I stick to mammals (and one mammal in particular).
I recycle cans, bottles and papers. In the winter I burn wood pellets, a sawdust byproducts, for heat. Pellet stoves are low emission, 50 times lower than old wood stoves. I convinced my employer to stop providing styrofoam cups to employees in our office. Previously we were using 100,000 styrofoam cups per year - now it’s a handful for guests. They should also be replacing the paper towels in the restrooms with Xlerator dryers. Doing away with both the cups and the towels will greatly reduce landfill waste.
StG
For me, doing al this green stuff is really a lot like following religious rules. I think I put a lot more mental, spiritual, physical and financial effort into being green then many people put into being religious.
And all I get in return, is more knowledge and guilt. And I don’t even get to comfortably condemn people, because I know how preciously little I do.
Funny how the “Green ?- Schmeen !” crowd manage to seem cool and manly in their own eyes. I must admit to feeling mocked. Well, I guess that is how religious people feel when I mock them.
I do a lot of green stuff, but I also do lots of stuff that is probably wasteful. And trying to quantify how green you are is nearly impossible.
Green:
-we recycle like crazy. In our neighborhood the homes are all about the same size (like most neighborhoods, I guess) and have around the same number of people- 4 (like us), maybe 5. A couple are empty nesters. But we routinely have at least three times as much stuff by the curb on recycle day as all of our neighbors.
-we compost.
-we conserve water and electricity, and use low-flow showerheads and toilets, and CFL’s and LED in most fixtures. I’m getting around to swapping the CFL’s for LED’s when they burn out.
-we reuse and repurpose stuff all the time.
-we have a geothermal HVAC system.
-we have snow shovels instead of a snowblower for our 120’ driveway.
-we buy cars with as high MPG as we can (within reason).
-we keep a vegetable garden.
-we shop with cloth bags.
On the other hand, we consume lots of stuff; we drive everywhere (no public transit in our area that would make commuting realistic); I have a big lawnmower/tractor (for a big lawn); we use gas-powered outdoor equipment (tractor, tiller, power washer, weed whacker, etc); we have two kids; and we keep our home at comfortable temperatures throughout the year.
I’d say overall we’re probably neutral.
Recycle.
No A/C.
Bring my own grocery bags/bins.
That’s all I got.
For the purposes of this board, I really think we don’t. 
That way lies endless nitpicking about what the definition of “green” is - I just wanted a discussion of what people are doing. If it feels green to you, I’ll take it.
I’m still curious to know about what things we think of as green actually aren’t.
Ain’t that the truth. Just by being a Canadian, I know that I’m consuming way more than my share.