Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. What have you done for your planet lately?

Personally, I've been trying to use less whenever possible, recycle as much as is feasible and curbing my more materialistic tendencies. I've also tried educating my friends and family, but there's a fine line between educating and nagging or preaching and I'm always struggling to figure out where that line is.

For example, how can you persuade a new mom that buying a second hand stroller is just as safe as buying a new one? You're basically arguing against an emotional response, and there's no winning that one.

Lately I've been thinking more and more about what concrete changes I can make in my day to day life, and I've been inspired by Vanessa's experiment to do one thing a day that betters the environment. Since I know I won't be able to come up with something new every day, I've decided to try something a lot simpler: something new every month. And hopefully, if this sticks, I'll switch to something new every week. We'll see how it goes, but once a month is something anyone should able to do. And whatever that "something new" is, it will continue to get done from then on. If I decide to stop using something, that change is permanent.

For this month, I'm going to stop using paper towels in the kitchen and reverting to good old fashion cloth towels. We never used them before we moved to the US and survived just fine, so I'm pretty sure that habit won't be too hard to break.

If you're thinking of making a change, here are 50 simple things you can do.