Read 'n' Seed 4: Fourth and Final Review of "Do One Thing Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices"

This week I read chapters 10-13, pages 143-224 of Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices. In my original post I only planned until chapter 12, I didn't realize there was a Chapter 13 so this post is a little longer.

Chapter ten is all about Recycling, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle".  At first it talked about paper, but we all know that we should recycle paper, print on both sides, etcetera.  This chapter also discussed what and how to recycle other things that you will probably come across in your house.  For example, the people that lived in my house before me left an old TV.  We used it for a while before getting a different one and now we just have this old fashioned TV sitting in our living room.  This chapter lead me to Earth911, you can type in the thing that you need to recycle and your zip code and the website will tell you were the closest recycling center is that will take your item.  For any type of electronic throughout your house you should look in to how to properly dispose of it so that it does not end up in a landfill somewhere polluting our environment.  It is also important to dispose of household hazardous wastes such as batteries or paints and solvents in a safe way.  To find out more about where or how to recycle those things you can visit www.epa.gov/epawaste/index.htm.  Also in this chapter the author talked about websites such as www.freecycle.org and www.craigslist.org where you can trade or sell appliances that are still in working order.

Chapter eleven, "Skin and Hair", was a lot like what we talked about for our Eye Opener last week.  It talked about how a lot of products that we use have chemicals in them that can be absorbed into our blood stream that are not good for us.  The author talked about the website that we used for our Eye Opener, EWG, to find out more about the products that you already use.  What I found most useful from this chapter was to look at ingredients on everything you buy.  If you look at the ingredients on the food you eat, why not the things you wash your face with?  A big thing was to look for words that you actually know, things like aloe are in a lot of beauty products, we know where it comes from, and unless you have an allergy to the plant, it won't harm you.  Another useful tip is to look for things that do not have a fragrance added, unless it is a natural fragrance.  There were also lists and lists of good and bad ingredients in the "Choose its and Loose its".  The only thing about this chapter that I did not think that I would try out was reusable feminine hygiene products.  Gross.

Chapter twelve was titled, "Clothing".  The first thing I learned in this chapter was that if every person chose one organic t-shirt instead of a cotton one we would keep 250,000 tons of chemicals out of our air, water, and soil (p. 190).  I don't know if I've just seen them in the wrong place but most organic t-shirts that I've seen have been more expensive than the non-organic one, which is why I think I was sort of stand offish towards this chapter at first.  Then I got reading about recycling clothing.  This is something every college student on a budget probably has done, or at least thought about.  Plato's Closet, a second hand clothing store has been my best friend in college just because it's less expensive and I can sell clothes back, I didn't really realize what I was doing for the environment. Besides Plato's Closet there are so many different places you can go to to get recycled clothing, there are also companies such as On & On Clothing, which takes recycled clothing to make designer clothes.  Another thing this chapter talked about was fairly traded apparel, meaning that they were made by fairly paid workers in factories monitored for safe, humane working conditions (p.200).

Chapter thirteen, "Walking, Biking, and Ride Sharing" is about exactly what it sounds like; walk a little more, ride your bike, and carpool.  If every American spent 30 minutes a day walking or riding their bike instead of driving we'd cut carbon dioxide emissions by 64 million tons and lose 3 billion tons of excess body weight a year (p. 216).  I have figured out that I drive about 40 minutes a week, five minutes each way from work, four times a week.  Just thinking that if I walked back and forth every time I went to work I could make a pretty big impact the environment, and my body (especially since I'd have to walk up 21st on my way home) is crazy.

This book has been a lot of information all at once.  I really want to start living a greener and healthier life but it is intimidating to know where to start.  I really liked that they did the "One Green Thing" from every chapter, that makes it a little easier to put these changes into perspective.  The three biggest things that I am going to take away from this book might seem small, but I feel like they are the way that I can make the biggest impact in my life at this point.  I have sworn off disposable water bottles, I have started incorporating organic fruits and vegetables into my diet, and I am going to be a lot more aware of what is in my beauty products.  To me this means that I am on the right track to living a greener and healthier lifestyle.  The overall being green lifestyle still seems pretty far away but I am going to keep making little changes, one by one, to get there.  I have been renting this book from the public library but I do plan to buy it so I can continue to make the changes I want to make when I am ready to make them.  Some things that I would eventually like to do is make the cleaning products they give recipes for and buying the right light bulbs when I move at the end of the school year.  This book helped me realize that even though there is a lot of information out there and a lot of things you can do to make changes in yourself and in your environment, one step at a time makes a difference too, which makes me feel at peace with where I am in my life right now.  I definitely recommend this book.  It is an easy read, and contains a lot of resources that we can all benefit from.  The way that the author makes you realize that you can live a greener lifestyle easily is pretty empowering and I think that anyone who is enjoying our Environmental Health class would more than enjoy this book.

Chapter One: Free yourself from the bottled water habit (p. 3).
Chapter Two: Chose organic and locally grown produce (p. 16).
Chapter Three: Eat small fry like sardines, rather than big hunks, like bluefin tuna (p. 35).
Chapter Four: Skip red meat at least one day a week (p. 56).
Chapter Five: Never microwave food in plastics. Use tempered glass or ceramic instead (p. 65).
Chapter Six: Wash most of your laundry in cold water (p. 81).
Chapter Seven: Switch to a green lightbulb (p. 92). Chapter Eight: Take a shorter shower (p. 109).
Chapter Nine: As you use them up, replace conventional cleaning products with green formulas (p. 117).
Chapter Ten: Receive and pay bills online rather than using snail mail (p. 141).
Chapter Eleven: To reduce risky exposure as much as possible, choose personal care products whose list of ingredients do not include the word fragrance (p. 153).
Chapter Twelve: Buy less new clothing, and when you do, ask if you can see it in green - that is, made with sustainably produce or recycled fibers (p. 190).
Chapter Thirteen: Spend thirty minutes a day walking or cycling instead of driving (p. 215).