Fifteenth Step

Today was simple. I have a confession: We have been throwing out steel cans and aluminum cans for a while now because even after our attempts to clean them out, their messiness/stickiness was infiltrating all the recycling containers. So today I rescued two cans and since I am now taking the recycling every one or two weeks and am only using one container, it shouldn't be a problem. Plus my spouse does not get in on the vote because his garage is no longer involved. Smiles, honey.

Sixth Step

OK, another small, simple step. I have to be honest, for a while now I have been throwing away recyclables upstairs because throwing them down the laundry chute to the basement and then finding them throughout the clothes and having to sift them out and bring them up to the basement landing was getting annoying. So excuses, excuses--I finally dug out some little boxes from the bathroom trash and saved them from the landfill (hopefully--sometimes I'm not sure I trust those recycling companies...not for any informed reason, but because the bins are always overflowing in our town). And I put a little box for recyclables that is probably too small under the table next to the stairs for easy take-down-the-stairs capability. I will find a bigger one if necessary, maybe big enough for paper from the office now that our town has paper recycling instead of just newspapers. There is no curbside pickup, so I take everything when I'm out and about.

Little boxes and plastic bottles in the trash are the little things I've been guilty about for months and "meaning to do something about" for just as long. My brother, an environmental expert, says that recycling is not the best thing you can do--reusing and not using in the first place is better, along with making your home more energy efficient. But this mom is glad to at least be doing something. Hopefully I'll be able to take bigger steps like composting or collecting rain as times goes on. But again, no guilt. I just want to be a good steward of the resources we have on this earth and use them wisely, without making life impossible for me or my family. BTW, we got to Chicago OK after an exhausting day! The kids are in bed and I'm about to be. Another BTW, don't you love our desperate peach toilet and lime green plastic tile? Now that is a bathroom that could use some LOVE.

First Step

Okay, it's way late, so I'll be quick. Yesterday I took a small step. After forgetting for months and just being lucky to get both kids and my coupons inside the grocery store, I finally BROUGHT IN the reusable bags with me. And remembered to ask the clerk (guiltily) if she could use them, along with reusing some plastic bags I had. It's kind of a pain for them! Instead of using those handy rotating plastic bag things, they have to dump everything into a huge bag on top of the "bagging island," or uncrinkle and open the old plastic bags, many of which were from a competing store. But by having my big reusable ones, I liked not having to lift so many dinky plastic bags, and knowing they weren't going to break and tear like our plastic friends. I even remembered to bring into the store and recycle an old bag of plastic bags that had been in my van for a few months waiting to be remembered along with my reusable bags. My pregnant brain must have taken a field day, because I also got the recycling into and out of the van in one day (I'm not counting that as my step though, since I have done that each week for the past 4 weeks--before that, mounds of recycling would pile up in my garage until I found out my husband was about to lose his sanity over it). So woo hoo for one small step into making natural living a reality!