In honor of Earth Day, and my little earth conscious Grace

Grace loves PBSkids.org. I set it as my home page so she could find it easily. And on Monday she discovered and announced that Earth Day was coming up and we need to be nice to the earth. She's been talking about it every day since. Because "PBSkids.org is so smart," she told me.

And in honor of Earth day, we set up a recycling center in the garage. It was all her idea.

Let me tell you how I feel about recycling and you'll know how much I love this kid.

I loath recycling.

Don't flame me, please. I'm being honest.

Let me say it again:

I loath recycling.

It's a mess and I find it irritating because I feel like I have extra garbage cans in my house--and they are always full. And I always forgot to take it out on recycling day. And then I ended up with four weeks of recycables in my house. Ick.

I loath it. In fact, when we moved in November, I quit recycling--cancelled my recycling service and everything. The garbage can was my friend.

I cancelled it and I actually didn't have much guilt over it. Mostly because I had read in the paper that at the local garbage transfer station they picked most of the recyclables off the conveyer belt as it went by. They claimed a pretty high percentage, too. Like 75% or something. It made me wonder why I was paying for recycling service at all.

Anyway, I also realized, thanks to Tracey, that I am "As green as I can be." She even created this nifty little logo.



So, despite my loathing of recycling, I am in fact As Green as I can be. Here's my list, which I'm sure is not complete:

*In the last 5 years I have not used a single chemical on my lawn.
*In the last 3 years, I have only purchased a hand full of packages of disposable diapers.
*I don't recall the last time I purchased paper napkins. For the last year and a half we have used cloth napkins.
*I'm super stingy with my paper towels. They have three jobs in my house, and that's all I use them for.
*In general I use my things until they die.
*If I don't need it anymore, I do my darndest to pass it on.
*If I need it, I try to buy it used before I look for it new.
*My cleaning supplies are very minimal. I use soda and vinegar as much as I can. And when I can't, I use about 1/4 the recommended amount of whatever it is I'm using. I've found it works just as well.
*I'm working on taking better care of myself. It's a selfish effort, but I do think it counts. I'm making ME green!
*I want a garden this summer.
*Everyone in the house has a water bottle. And I do my darndest to not buy bottled water.
*When I get a latte, I try to keep track of the little sleeve as long as I can. Every little bit counts, right?
*And compost. I want to compost. I had chickens that did that for me, but then we moved. I passed the chickens on to a friend. They compost for her now. And give her eggs. They are selfless birds, those chickens.
*The magazine subscriptions we have were gifts . A grand total of three. And one of them is bi-monthly. I don't get them for myself because they just pile up.
*I stopped getting the newspaper. Maybe recycling will be easier now that I don't have that coming every day. That was the bulk of my recycling anyway.
*I wear my baby. All those plastic gadgets they say you need for babies? I don't have a single one. I had a bouncer. Borrowed it from a friend. Passed it on to another friend.
*I own re-usable grocery bags. I need to get better at getting them in the car on grocery trips. That got a little messed up with the move. But now I'm all accountable you know.

So, I'm as green as I can be. And I'm working on being greener, for what it's worth. I hope you can forgive me for hating to recycle. I'm not totally un-green. And since I got called out by my 5-year-old, I guess I'm back in the recycling business.



Happy Earth Day!

And happy GREEN babywearing!