Contact – About – Sitemap – Search
For Today. For Tomorrow.
Header
Text Size: A A A
Ever Green Ecological Services > Advocacy > Doing Your Part

Doing Your Part

Living Green

We live in a world with options, and saving the planet is one choice you CAN make. That's what living green is really all about – making different choices. And the best part is, the more you use your dollars to vote for the products you want, the more competitors will enter the marketplace and the more choices we'll have.

You don't have to stop shopping; you just have to shop smart.

 

Transportation and Fuels

  • take the bus or your bike more often
  • car-pool more often
  • choose a fuel-efficient vehicle, or one that uses renewable fuel sources with lower emissions

Food

  • choose local to reduce the amount of emissions from travel and storage
  • choose organic to reduce the amount of environmental toxins from pesticides and herbicides
  • support restaurants that choose local and organic
  • choose packaged foods with the least amount of packaging possible; make it individual-sized with your own, reuseable containers

Housing and Power Consumption

  • choose green sources for power and water
  • choose higher-efficiency appliances to reduce or eliminate dependence on petroleum products
  • turn off lights
  • use less water; take shorter or fewer showers, turn off the tap while doing other things

Personal Care and Hygiene

  • take short showers
  • fill the laundry machine or wait until you can; same goes for the dishwasher
  • use eco-friendly cleaning products
  • use plastic-free sanitary options or consider reusable options like sponges and cups
  • choose petroleum-product-free for things like shampoos, face washes, cosmetics, lip balms and fragrances

Pets

  • choose organic and/or natural foods
  • choose biodegradable bags for poop-scoop duty
  • avoid clay litters
  • spay or nueter your pet
  • adopt from shelters

Special Events and Milestones

  • buy what you know will get used or give gift cards
  • wrap in reuseable fabrics that can be regifted
  • buy local
  • donate on their behalf (everyone loves to know they've inspired)
  • give service certificates (eco-friendly salon certificates, yard or house care, babysitting, meal-prep)
  • use real dishware and cutlery, or choose disposable that's compostable
  • avoid paper-products, or buy recycled that's compostable
  • choose venues that choose green

Clothing

  • choose organic and renewable source fabrics (have you felt bamboo?)
  • support local designers to reduce shipping emissions

 

 

 

 

“the practice of recycling pushes us in the right direction, toward the development of the technologies of sustainable material use, and toward the creation of less materialistic, more socially and environmentally engaged ways of living. There is no greater hope in any other direction. Indeed, in the long run there is nowhere else to go.”

– Frank Ackerman "Why Do We Recycle?" Island Press, 1997