Living lightly on the Earth now is imperative if your children are to have a world to live on in the future. Kahjuks, many people think that being eco-conscious costs too much. Sellegipoolest, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to go green at home and frankly you won’t have to give up the things that make life easy and convenient.

Here are eight accessible ways to think green around your home:

  1. Sustainable wood means wood harvested from carefully managed forests or reclaimed from old sources – buildings, discards, old furniture. Bamboo, says the Sustainable Woods Network, based in Oregon, is actually a grass rather than a wood. It regrows quickly with little cultivation.


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  2. Sustainable cotton, according to the California-based Sustainable Cotton Project, is grown organically: no chemical fertilizers, no pesticides, hand-cultivated on carefully supervised plantations. It’s used in consumer market clothes, bedding, linens, furniture covers and all manner of fabric products.


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  3. Shopping carefully at the right places can put sustainable, Earth-friendly products in every room in your home. Google “green shopping.” Mega retailers like Lowe’s, Wal-Mart or Dillard’s, recognize the huge swell of grass roots interest and now carry green items in nearly every department. Specialty all-green stores like Ocean Springs’ Mississippi’s Forever Green are springing up all over.

  4. Savvy consumers can dress their bed with bamboo sheets, blankets and coverlets made by companies like DreamSack või Caldrea. Though that conjures images of picking wood shards out of nightclothes, the truth is slathered in luxury. Bamboo is stripped, processed and turned into fabric, then woven and polished. The result rivals the finest Egyptian cotton in texture, often at lower price points.

  5. Think you have to dispense with convenience items like disposable plates, plastic cups and paper towels? Not so fast – look for Earth-friendly disposable table items – bamboo derivative plates, plastic cups from corn oil. Organic dish cloths and dish towels are widely available and most are antibacterial.

  6. Decorating and remodeling products ranges from granite-like counter tops fabricated from recycled glass to planet-safe flooring and furnishings.

  7. Planet-friendly personal care items are easy to find, though reading labels is the way to be sure of what you’re getting. Organizations like Consumer Reports caution buyers to ask questions with an eye to fact-finding when considering terms like non-toxic, Looduslik, environmentally friendly or biodegradable.

  8. There are lots of household products out there. Consumers say organic laundry soap makes clothes seem cleaner and softer, without leftover residues. Surface cleaners tend to smell better without the artificial odor of chemical esters, the olfactory footprint of traditional cleansers. A whisper of essential oils makes homemakers feel their home smells fresh and healthy.

Put down your bottled water and think organic. Sustainable. Post consumer-recycled. The newest buzz-words of the 21st Century. A few quick changes in where you shop and what you choose to buy plus an investment of time to read labels carefully will turn you into a green-thinking expert in no time.

Kirjutatud 7/10/2009 by Maryan Pelland. Maryan is a professional freelance writer, in print and online, with a strong web presence at Ontext.com, Womandaybyday.com, ja DemystifyingDigital.com. foto krediidi: jurvetson