Just another day in Paradise.

Just another day in Paradise.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Save the Bees

With so many worthy environmental causes and efforts out there - phasing out plastic bags, hybrid cars (or in my case, walking where we can), solar panels, reducing indoor air pollution, recycling etc. it takes time and practice to become more "green" but I think it's fun to contribute to the effort w/out having to get all freaked out about global warming. So here are my top three things I am going to focus my efforts on:

1. Creating less trash. One way, besides buying less to begin with is to get rid of junk mail and catalogs. http://www.catalogchoice.org/ is a good site that will contact publishers on your behalf. http://www.greendimes.com/ and http://www.govspot.com/ask/nameofflist.htm can also reduce your junk mailings.


2. Going Loco. Being a locovore as much as possible, meaning buying locally grown foods to support farmers in your own area and eliminating the shipping waste. Plus, food just tastes better and stays fresher longer when it hasn't had to do a lot of traveling (especially over an ocean).


3. Saving the Honeybees. Maybe it's because we go through so much honey at our house but I have a soft spot for bees right now. Even the one that stung me on the foot at the beach last week...or maybe I stepped on it...anyhow, Colony Collapse Disorder is threatening our food supply and we need their pollination skills! At this point I'm not sure how I can help, except to plant flowers and buy more (local) honey but here is an even tastier option - buying certain flavors of Haagen-Dazs (http://helpthehoneybees.com/) goes toward the cause. Now that's something I can help out with.


Maybe next year I'll get crazy and start a compost pile but for now I'll stick with these three. What environmental cause do you care most about?

3 comments:

Erick & Norma said...

Great ideas Lynn! I'm going to have to check some of those websites out. Hybrid car is next on the list, if we can budget it in or some other type of fuel efficient vehicle. Erick also was talking about shopping local. I've also tried to reduce waste by buying less at a time when grocery shopping. I ended up throwing a lot of stuff out by the end of the week because we weren't using it all up. Congrats on all your efforts :-)

alise said...

Fair trade and organic (local if possible) is a big deal to me. Which means, buying things that do not use slave labor/grown organically. It does get overwhelming. As you know we've boycotted Walmart and try to support local businesses. We do what we can. If we move to San Diego, we have a garden, compost, chickens, goats, clothes-line and the like lined up. I've switched to green household products. I'm scared of all the chemicals. And, although the hybrid was costly for us, it was so worth it! Great topic

alise said...

and IS grown organically.