Green living can often seem not only intimidatingly complicated, but also prohibitively expensive. If you compare the costs of organic meats and vegetables to antibiotic-laced varieties in big grocery stores, it seems you not only have to be mindful but also wealthy if you want to be more environmentally conscious.
Luckily, living green doesn't have to mean dressing in overpriced hempwear, living in a yurt, or selling your car. Here are 10 relatively affordable ways to green up your life:
1. Eat Less Red Meat - Cutting down on the amount of red meat you consume each week, can drastically lower the greenhouse gas emissions associated with red meat production. Even lowering your weekly hamburger intake from 2 to 1 burger can have a significant positive impact on the environment and save you a few dollars.
2. Eat Less - The average American consumes over 3,700 calories per day, compared to 2400 calories per day for people in India. By eating less, we'll likely improve our health and consume fewer resources both in terms of food and future health care costs.
3. Don't Buy Bottled Water - The bottles are tempting. They are convenient, easy to pack around, and theoretically cleaner than most water from the tap. Leaving aside that several varieties are less healthy than tap water, it is estimated that 86% of all plastic water bottles end up in landfills (or 3.1 billion bottles in 2004). Nalgene bottles or good old fashioned canteens are less expensive than bottled water and safer in the long run anyway.
4. Shopping as Necessity, rather than Past-time- Shopping for shoes never looked more tantalizing than when Carrie Bradshaw ogled her Manolos and purred "hello, lover" or when she proudly declared "Shopping is my cardio!" The simple truth is shopping less means buying less. Most of us have plenty of stuff, and many other ways to spend our free time than cruising the sales to buy more crap we don't need and can't afford. The upside to cutting back is that shopping then becomes more of a treat.
5. Expose Your Kids to Nature - Some people argue that kids with less exposure to nature are unable to care about what happens to the oceans and the air. Even an occasional trip to a national park can accomplish wonders in your family's consciousness. Plus, appreciating nature is much cheaper than a trip to Disneyland. On the other hand, many of our kids have a lot to teach us about living a greener life.
6. Don't Drive a Hummer - Obviously, most people don't have $50,000 lying around to buy this bitch of a gas guzzler, but many of us drive cars with under-inflated tires and worse gas mileage. Other than buying a Prius or other expensive hybrid, we can decrease the amount of gas required to move us from point A to point B by keeping the engine in good repair and the tires filled correctly.
7. Frequent Fruit and Vegetable Stands - Rather than buying expensive organics at Whole Foods or your local supermarket chain, take advantage of summer and check out the fruit and vegetable stands or farmer's markets in your community. To find one near you, go here.
8. Avoid Over-Packaged/Processed Foods - Chips, crackers, and breads are not only packed with hard to pronounce mystery ingredients, they are also usually chock full of high fructose corn syrup, one of the biggest culprits in our growing childhood obesity epidemic. You'll save money by sticking to the outside aisles of your grocery store as well as keep little Billy from getting fat before his time.
9. Give Time, not Stuff - Buy Nothing Day isn't just for the holidays anymore. Gifts of time and activities versus stuff are often far more creative and enjoyable than another plastic gottahave gizmo that will break in two weeks anyway. Theater tickets, a trip to the zoo, an evening sunset picnic are fun gifts to give and receive.
10. Green Like You - It's easy to feel guilty and shameful about your lifestyle. You may feel you'll never measure up to the environmentally conscious standards you read about or see around you, especially if you live on the greener-than-thou West Coast where I live. But it's all about progress and baby steps rather than perfection. If I don't compare myself to my composting vegan neighbor, I'm more likely to be successful in my efforts to live green.
While I'm often scared into apolitical stupor by tales of ice caps
melting, sedative-laced water, and tainted soil, I've also begun to
realize that if I don't take even the smallest baby steps to change my
wasteful ways, I'm making the world worse, one soda can in the trash
receptacle and one unnecessary car trip at a time.
More by this author:
10 More Ways to Live Green for Less
10 Mysteries of Modern Parenthood
Stuff White Parents Like
Is Your Child High Strung?
[Photo Credit: Virtual Tourist]
