Being Green?

[Kaynight]

I'm not that green, I mean yeah I recycle but I'm not going to stop driving my car or stop enjoying life the way I want to enjoy it. People expect me to care and they're suprised when I don't, but hey you can ride your bike everyday and be like a super-greenie but don't come down on me because of the way I live. There's nothing I hate more than people telling me I'm so evil because I drive a car or do other "bad" stuff that is bad for the enviroment.

[RheaZen]

I bike.

[Obscure_Trash]

i'm not very green myself... every once in a while i get worried about this and that pollution, etc.

 

but most of the time i just shrug and say "eh, whateva."

Why? Just asking because just about everybody else in this thread has posted the opposite, so you make me curious. :3

[Kaynight]

I bike.

Cool, how long does it take you ride to work/school/uni? In traffic it takes me 45min-1hr in the car I'd hate to think how long it'd take me to ride and what time I'd have to get up in the morning lol.

[Ethril Dragon]

I live in the Great North West, one of the greenest places in the US. I'm over in Vancouver WA so we use power from our Dam as well as the wind turbines in the Columbia River Gorge. Not only that, but many restaurants and companies are using green materials. Like plastics made from corn and compost-able silverware. Burgerville for example is one of the leading sustainable and green restaurants in the GNW.

 

As for what I do personally? I recycle. I also put all my food stuffs into my compost bin. Also I give my neighbors chickens whatever left overs that I don't eat but they eat. In return my neighbor gives me eggs. I make sure to buy products made from recycled materials. Instead of buying 1 use batteries, I use rechargeable batteries. I use the bus system too. The buses suck in the area I live, but I do the best I can to make it work. When I can't, I drive to the closest park and ride, and take the buses from there. The last big thing I do, is I support the local businesses that use recycled materials or are considered to be "green" and sustainable.

 

[Bantzville]

I bike.

Offtopic, Rhea I love your dragon in your sigy.

 

I also bike around to places though where I live it's just hills where ya look, so it's a hard biking up and down hills. But get of exercise out of it, which helps me and my dad who is ageing more now.

[Kai]

If you use any form of motorised transport you're horribly unsustainable.

[RheaZen]

Takes me about 10 minutes to get to school on bike. Good thing the area is flat...

[Lindala]

lightbird, actually a friend of my family got a solar panel set this summer, and he says, that in the appropriate setting and with the right solar panels you can heat the water with solar power even in winter here. (Is also from Latvia)

 

But for me, well... We used to seperate the plastic from the rest of the trash, but then we realized that the plastic container near us is NEVER open, so we can't dump our plastic trash there. We gave up on that, and now just do little things like save energy and water.

[Kai]

It's funny how many people think making insignificant changes will lead to tangible impact.

 

"Little things" will not "save the environment". Huge sweeping government policy change will.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Kai

[kiffren]

Though I believe in helping the environment, I do not believe in global warming.

 

If you look at the earth's history every so often it goes through an ice age. We are about due time for one. The Earth has always been capable of balancing things out. Yes, we are screwing with the environment. No, I don't think it's going to be the end of the world.

[hunter4thelife]

My mom takes "going green" to the extremes. In winter she keeps the heat at 55 degrees, when it is like below 10 outside, last year we had a really bad storm and it was below 30 and everything was ice covered. That heat kicked on soo many times that day. And the AC in the summer is set to 90, jeez kill me. And im only aloud to take 10 min showers, if its past 10 mins she shuts the hot water off. It's annoying, what do you guys think of that? lol

[kiffren]

My mom tried to shut the hot water off after 10 minutes for me. But then I just took super long cold showers. It saves her water to let me use the hot water. lol.

[rubyshoes]

My mom takes "going green" to the extremes. In winter she keeps the heat at 55 degrees, when it is like below 10 outside, last year we had a really bad storm and it was below 30 and everything was ice covered. That heat kicked on soo many times that day. And the AC in the summer is set to 90, jeez kill me. And im only aloud to take 10 min showers, if its past 10 mins she shuts the hot water off. It's annoying, what do you guys think of that? lol

I set my AC to 84 in the summer and the heat to 60 in the winter. My showers tend to last less than 5 minutes and I turn the water off when I soap up and put the shampoo in my hair and then turn it back on to rinse off.

[kiffren]

I can't do that. The water in our house takes time to heat up, and the moment you turn it off it goes freezing cold.

We don't have AC though, and during the winters we use wood fireplaces rather than the heater.

[RheaZen]

It's funny how many people think making insignificant changes will lead to tangible impact.

 

"Little things" will not "save the environment". Huge sweeping government policy change will.

Rather true, sadly. But at least it makes us feel better.

[rubyshoes]

I live alone so it's easier for me to do some "strange" things. I live in Northern Florida so the winters aren't too bad but the summers get hot and I end up using fans.

 

Often the water here heats up so fast that I can get in the shower almost immediately after turning it on and it takes a while to cool back down.

[Daydreamer09]

My family has a geothermal heating and cooling system for our home. It saves us money on our gas bills and utilizes electricity only to start up.

We also recycle and occasionally throw our organic waste in our flower beds.

 

One thing I'd like to see us do more is take reusable bags to grocery stores and out with us whenever we shop. It sounds pretty easy to do and lowers our use of plastic bags that eventually just get thrown into the trash.

[RheaZen]

I use grocery store bags as trash bags, so that's a habit I'm not stopping.

[rubyshoes]

I use grocery store bags as trash bags, so that's a habit I'm not stopping.

I do that too. I use grocery bags as trash bags. When I had cats, grocery bags also held used cat litter. I don't throw away any grocery bag until it has been used as something else (and usually has holes in it).

Edited August 31, 2010 by rubyshoes

[RheaZen]

Hamster cage litter for me.

 

I think it's somewhat better than using specially-made garbage bags for garbage.

[Vexx]

I'd love to try to be as green as possible with things, but there's no recycling in this town. :\ Actually considering making my own compost for everything that can be composted, taking aluminum cans and glass out to the places that buy em (green and you can get a few bucks : but for now, I just try not to waste electricity/water and reuse whatever I can. Like... I use the plastic bags from the store for little trash bags here and there along with cutting them up to make stuff like this.

I know it's not too much, but baby steps are better than nothing. x\

[Kythe]

I use grocery store bags as trash bags, so that's a habit I'm not stopping.

Yeah we do that too. The plastic bags from the grocery store double as most of our garbage bags. Though we often accumulate more of these bags than we can actually use, so when we've accumulated a massive amount of them, we drive them back to the grocery store and shove them in the special recycling bin there.

 

We still do buy the larger garbage bags but only use them things that require a bigger bag.

[hunter4thelife]

I set my AC to 84 in the summer and the heat to 60 in the winter. My showers tend to last less than 5 minutes and I turn the water off when I soap up and put the shampoo in my hair and then turn it back on to rinse off.

Yeah I do the same thing, I shut the water off too when I take showers. But my mom litterally times me, its just insane. I can't even watch tv, im lucky im aloud to use the computer. even my poor turtle gets his heat lamp turned off too early, we turn it on at 7 am and she will turn it off at 4 pm. I feel bad

[Syaoransbear]

If you use cloth bags, make your own. The energy and materials used to make those bags makes buying them at the store not so much of a green choice, especially with shipping and importing. They aren't little, they take up a lot of space. You could fit maybe 30 in the same box that 500 plastic bags could fit. They also waste energy since you need to wash them after each use. At least, you should. As an ex-cashier it really sucked sticking my hand into a cloth bag full of mold. Seriously. Cloth bags are also not invincible to ripping or being lost.

 

I don't know why people just don't recycle those plastic bags. :/

 

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is a person going through the till with cloth bags but then actually BUYING small plastic bags used for garbage cans.

 

Also, another funny tidbit is that when many chain stores decided to sell those cloth bags, they ordered new plastic bags that advertised on the side of them that people could purchase cloth bags to be more environmentally friendly. Instead of using up all of the old bags first, they just threw them into the trash. Lol.

 

There's a lot of things people do they think is 'green' when it really hurts the environment or doesn't do anything at all. Being environmentally friendly is a profitable industry, and you are bound to get scammed. Do your research into the products you buy.