In this series, “Back to Basics”, I am covering the essentials of “going green” by focusing on the basic principles of green living. First in the series was Reduce and today we will cover Reuse, or as I like to call it, repurposing!
The very point of reusing items to take a once useful item and use it again to suit your new need – you’ll quickly see what I mean. It’s remarkably easy and extremely frugal. And if you’ve been reading this site for awhile, you know how much I …

As I was planning this post I came across an article about Starbucks’ recent national break to re-educate their baristas with the intricacies of espresso and cappaccino making (Google “Starbucks 3 hour break to find various articles on the subject). As I read over that particular article it kept occurring to me how often people confuse their message and purpose by over-complicating matters and getting lost in the details without minding the big picture.
This inspired me to write this series of posts, which I’m calling “Back to Basics”. Our basics …

From their website:
It started with a question: How can we inspire people to take action on climate change?
The answer: Ask the people of Sydney to turn off their lights for one hour.
On 31 March 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour – Earth Hour. This massive collective effort reduced Sydney’s energy consumption by 10.2% for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year.
With Sydney icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House turning …

Among the Green Community, there are great proponents of organic, fair-trade, locally grown produce. But the reality is not everyone can afford to pay the organic prices at the large-chain grocery markets, not to mention the fair-trade mark-ups.
First let’s set up the order of importance in purchasing these items.

Local always surpasses organic -there’s less tax on the environment as a whole. Plus with local foods, most of them are from smaller farms that don’t douse their produce with ridiculous amounts of chemicals so a good washing in a plant-based produce …

A few weeks ago I did a post on ditching both paper and plastic bags to go reusable to which Matty, from Green Eggs & Planet, left this comment:
Excellent post — I too am trying as hard as possible to get into the comprehensive habit of ALWAYS having a bag with me. Maybe a post about how to establish some new habits with regard to that?
As promised, I have some great tips to get this green habit going.
Mostly, becoming eco-friendly comes down to thinking ahead as we humans tend to …

As I said yesterday, I am currently pregnant with our first child, just at 8 months along. With all of this baby mania though, I haven’t forgotten about my dedication to the environment.
In fact, I kind of freaked my Mom out. When I explained that yes, I would be using cloth diapers, I thought she was going to pass out.
“That’s a lot of work!” she protested.
“Yes,” I sighed. “Yes it is. But it’s been for the environment and our pocket book.”
“Not when you calculate in all that laundry!”
“Yes, even then …

Today we will be focusing on the fun chore we all deal with. LAUNDRY.
Laundry, to be honest, is a chore I can just never keep up with. It seems that as soon as the weekly wash is done, there is already another pile that needs washing.
But does that have to do with being nice to the environment? PLENTY.
Being in an apartment, you have three typical scenarios you are dealing with: a local laundromat, an apartment complex laundromat or (I’m jealous if you have this) your very own washer and dryer …

For this post, I will be forgoing the typical recommendations for the stages of the environmentally-conscious out there because I just want to share a great find with you.
I have no idea what brought me to ReusableBags.com but I LOVE LOVE LOVE them!
For example, I hate that I haven’t had many options to get rid of those horrible produce bags that even “health food” chains are using! What to do?
How about an organic netted cotton produce sack for a whopping $4? Brilliant!

Shopping bags are also an issue. In general you …

Being kind to the environment (and your wallet!) is so much easier than you think, especially if you are in an apartment. Why especially? You are already living in a smaller space with less stuff and by definition should be consuming less energy than the person who lives in a house (think of the heating bill, which is a great example). Congratulations! Bet you didn’t even know living in an apartment could be an environmentally-friendly start, did you?
For my first tip, I’m going to recommend you start the New Year …