Ed. Note: Jeff's a video producer and director, he worked on GoGreen TV with us. Here's his TRUE story! Really very inspriging for us to see the crew going green, even before we launched!
At the grocery store checkout they now ask me “would you like to round up your purchase to the nearest dollar for charity.” That is a small donation from one person, but I bet at the end of the day when they add ‘em all up, it equals a pretty tidy sum.
During the production of several video segments for GoGreen TV, I learned quite a bit of new information about green living topics from the various experts. It inspired me to make some immediate changes when I got back home; easy changes just to get the ball rolling to see how far it goes.
I started by implementing a recycling program here at the house for aluminum, glass, plastic, newspaper and magazines. The bummer is that we do not have curbside pickup in our neighborhood, so we collect everything in big bins in the garage and then periodically take it up to a recycling business nearby (combining it with other trips of course). They even pay you for the cans; I’m pretty sure going to get rich doing this. But it amazed me to see how much recycling we accumulated so fast. And we used to throw all that stuff away!
We stopped buying the one gallon plastic containers of bottled water at the grocery store. Every week we were going through five or six of those things. Instead, we bought some three-gallon reusable plastic containers from a local water store and go there to refill them. Unfortunately we could not easily get any plastic containers that were made of that special plastic that is not supposed to leach any chemicals from the container into your water, but it is a start.
I am now also happy to report that our household is now powered 100% by renewable energy sources. How is that an easy change? It was just a phone call. The power company offered us a choice on where they buy the electricity for us. They make some of their own renewable power from solar, but they buy most of it from a wind farm in New Mexico. Our commitment to their renewable energy program allows them to buy more power from alternative energy sources instead of traditional fossil fuel burning power plants. Even in the heat of the summer we estimate it will only cost us an extra ten dollars a month or so.
In the new building we just built I will be insulating like crazy. I hear there may be a bit of a kickback from the State government on the purchase of insulation. I still need to check into that. And I am looking into energy efficient ways to heat and cool the new building as well.
So, like I said, it is a start. And it was easy. I know that our contribution seems tiny when you consider how much other households throw away and how much energy some businesses use. But just like that small donation at the grocery store, if enough people make a lot of SMALL changes it will really add up to a huge difference in more ways than one.
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