Just How Green Are You?

I've been thinking about how I can become more responsible in my personal life as well as through work, and realized I was already headed down the Green path without realizing the decisions I was making would have a positive impact on the earth.

No doubt you are greener than you thought as well. Below are some things I've been doing for years, if you can think of something you didn't realize, originally, that was green, please add to the list!

• Recycling old clothes through donations, as well as using old clothes and t-shirts for cleaning around the house.
• Buying clothes from consignment shops (the tank top in my picture is one!)
• Old toothbrushes are kept to scrub baseboards, seams between sinks and counter-tops, etc.
• Donating old furniture or sending it to the cottage, reupholstering old furniture
• restoring original hardwood flooring and and baseboards, etc. rather than buying new
• shopping at Habitat For Humanity's ReStore (Cobourg & Scarborough)
• shopping at salvage sellers (for old flooring, windows, sinks, tubs, fixtures, etc)
• diverting old cast iron fencing to salvage sellers rather than sending to the dump
• using vinegar as a cleaner around the house
• shopping at auctions
• moving furniture around in the house to use in different ways rather than discarding it when it no longer serves it's original purpose

I probably do more, and just haven't realised they are Green decisions I've made, but that's what I've come up with for now.

Of course, we consciously made Green choices such as changed all our light bulbs, keep the heat lower and wear more layers in the winter and higher in the summer to limit use of the air-conditioner, turn off lights leaving a room, recycle organic food waste, plastic, glass, and paper.

My goal now is to recognize when I have a choice of going Green or leaving a bigger imprint on the environment and to make the Green choice.

Dane Caldwell, Home Staging - Lead Design Consultant

www.2-hounds.com