by Chris Taylor

Photo by: Viriato Martins

In my first article, I was lamenting the fact that it feels a little ridiculous to be worrying about saving the environment when sometimes I am so tired that is hard to find the motivation to pick out different clothes to wear from what is laying on the floor from yesterday.

However, every once in awhile, I’ll come across something that I hear is good for the environment AND that seems reasonably easy for me to pull off.

Let me provide some examples of “greener” living that we have done lately in our household that don’t demand much of us:

1. Christmas lights.  I bought some new Christmas lights this year because after years of not doing much holiday decorating, I figured that kids like that kind of thing and I need to get onboard with the fun stuff of Christmas – for my daughter’s sake of course.  During the bright light of day, nothing seemed out of the usual, but that night I turned on the lights to admire my new holiday cheer and what to my wondering eyes should appear but these crazy-colored Christmas lights!  That’s not at all what I expected!  Those aren’t the lights I remembered from my childhood!  I pulled the boxes out of the trash to find out what kind of nonsense I had just purchased, and I noticed that these new-fangled lights use 1/100^th the amount of electricity of traditional lights!  Are you kidding me?  Knowing how much my electric bill went up last year and again this year, I am now FULLY onboard with my new-fangled, crazy-colored lights.  They look absolutely beautiful to me.
2. Rain Barrel.  I am a civil engineer and I do a lot of work with stormwater management.  So I am attuned to this kind of thing.  Rain barrels are simply 55-gallon drums that sit underneath the downspouts of your house.  A hole and screen in the top of the barrel allows rainwater from your downspouts to go into the barrel.  The barrel has a hose attachment near the bottom and a spigot about 1/3 the way up from the ground.  The basic idea is that you collect and store rain water, that can later be used to water your lawn or gardens or whatever, instead of letting it all rush out during a storm which creates surface runoff.  You can buy rain barrels for like $50 or you can make your own.  Either way, they are very easy and quick to install, and it is something you can do with your kids.  I was skeptical about these things at first, but after installing one myself, I realized that they really are easy to install and we do actually use the water, especially during the drought months of summer.  $50 may be a lot for some people, but then again, do you realize that for every gallon of water you use from your spigots and facets, you pay for both the supply of water and then again for the treatment of the water you use  – at least where I live.  And take it from a civil engineer, fresh water is going to become more and more of a commodity in coming years, which also means more and more expensive.  Do a “Google-search” or ask around and I’m sure you’ll be able to find rain barrels in your area.  As it turns out, an outdoor education center right down the road from us has a program where classrooms of kids help them assemble these rain barrels as a part of their outdoor education program.  They also have like 50 of these things all around their entire facility that have been in use for years.
3. Compact Flourescent Lights.  Ok, people.  Really.  This is an easy one.  Next time you are in Home Depot, Lowes, Sams Club, or wherever, buy a pack of these things and change out your bulbs.  I haven’t committed all of the benefits to memory, but I’ve heard and read enough about these things to know that they really are an easy way to dramatically lower our energy consumption and do something good for the environment.
4. Recyclable Grocery Bags.  I’m not going to lie.  I had zero intention of going this route.  Why not?  I don’t know.  Any excuse I could give you would be totally lame.  BUT, I was in the grocery store just this morning with my daughter picking up a few things and they have this new rack of recyclable grocery bags on sale by the checkout counter.  These bags are light, stuff-able, surprising strong, and cost $1 each.  I thought I would give them a try and if they were too much of a bother for whatever reason, I would just go back to what I’ve always done.  I figured it was worth a try at a whopping $3 investment.  Well I can report that they worked very well.  Of course they would.  Why wouldn’t they, right?  What’s the big deal, right?  I suppose it was just a matter of changing my routine a little.  Ok, maybe you don’t do the grocery shopping in your family.  Are you the one who buys the tools, tile, and work gloves?  Great.  Why not use the same recyclable grocery bags the next time you go to the hardware store.  I know I’ve collected more plastic bags from Lowes and Home Depot in the past few years than I care to admit to.  So from now on, I’ll use the recyclable bags.  I’m not too manly for that.
5. Look, maybe a guy at the plastic bag manufacturer just lost his job because I am switching to recyclable bags.  Maybe I should be doing this instead of that.  Maybe I should be doing a whole lot more.  What works for me may not work for you.  We can argue all day about the finer points to all of this.  I just think that what really matters is that we all try to do our part. 

Chris Taylor is an OrganicGreenDaddy reader who wrote in to share what he knows about being a “green daddy.”  If you have an idea for a post, contact us by clicking here!