going green and saving money

I am an environmentalist at heart. I believe in not wasting things. When I see the excess around, I recoil. One day I saw a coworker, after washing her hands, pull out about ten paper towels in rapid succession like bullets out of a gun. I cringed. I talked to her and showed her how hands could be dried with just one paper towel. She laughed, but agreed to it!

I save plastic knives and forks, wash and reuse them a lot more times. At home, I use a cloth towel to wipe off water instead of paper towels. The other side of a sheet of paper is empty. I use it to write shopping lists, to do lists, etc, or give them to my toddler to scribble on. I do not believe in using only one side of a sheet of paper, although this is what the majority of this country does. All the bulbs in my house are of the new fluorescent kind, looks like this may also save me some electricity bills.

I have hired a home energy efficiency service to check out if and where any heat is leaking from the house. I fixed a leaky furnace, and a leaky backdoor through which cold air was coming in. In the first month itself, I saved 30% on my electricity bill!

I never buy bottled water, unless it is an emergency. I drink out of the tap (when it is clean of course.) When I lived in another state earlier, I paid to have things recycled. Yes, they charged me for the option of having paper, cans, glass, etc recycled and I gladly paid for it. Even now, whenever there is an option to recycle something, I drive it down to the recycle center. I do not skimp on toilet paper though! LOL!!!

As far as possible, I look for the recycled materials sign on any product, where most or the entire product is manufactured from recycled materials. This is how I see it. The fewer things we use now, the more we can save for future generations. One of my all time favorite quotes is – “We have not inherited this planet from our parents, we merely borrowed it from our children.”

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