Shades of Green

With Earth Day this week, it seems an appropriate time for this sort of thing.  Although it was not especially Earth Day-inspired.  Just happens to be about the same time.

I have been rethinking our habits.  Our consumable items.  Our trash.  The whole she-bang.

The thing is that it's such an unruly can of fish - once you get into one area, another pops up that needs to be addressed.  (Can of fish???)

I don't even remember where I got started.  It may have been when I purchased toilet paper the other day.  I don't know about anyone else, but what else do we buy for the sole purpose of throwing it away??  What a ridiculous thing to spend money on.  Constantly.  (We have 3 girls in our house, and I work from home, so we use quite a bit.)

And then what about paper napkins or paper towels?  Why don't we composte our food waste?  Shouldn't I be buying more organic food?  Or at least food with ingredients we can pronounce?  And if I'm worried about what goes in our bodies, what about what goes on our bodies - shampoo, soap, etc. - it's all full of chemicals!  And then what about cleaning - more chemicals in the house, releasing fumes whenever I use them.  (Ah - a pitch to support my lack of cleaning!)  It's so hard to know exactly what items to change and the best way to change them.

So I'm trying to get a plan.  Or several plans.  Or some sort of baby steps to get to a better place.

I started researching my cosmetics, soap, etc.  I was surprised to find that on a rating scale of 0 (best) to 10 (worst), my cosmetics, soap, lotion, and lip balm (necessities) are all ranked 2-3.  My hair spray, which I love, is unfortunately ranked a 5 (as is my shampoo, but I'm not as attached to it).  But it's much better than I would have feared.  And leaves some room for improvement.

I have one experiment just getting started.  I don't think I'll share it until I have some sort of report.  That way the whole world (or my 3 blog readers) won't know if it fails miserably.  Or maybe they will - if that is the report I choose to give.

So, there it is.  Earth Day.  Trying to make improvements.  And hoping it won't hurt too much...