From Everything Birth; steps to going green

Yes, I am stealing this from Everything Birth Blog. I read it on their blog site, and thought it was well worth re-posting. Visit them at Everything Birth Blog .

5 Baby Steps to Going Green.


Posted on September 29, 2010 by everythingbirth

Choosing to drastically change a part of your routine just after you had a baby is unrealistic. Greening your lifestyle doesn’t have to be as overwhelming as it seems. There are a few little things that you can do to make your carbon footprint just a little bit lighter one baby step at a time.

Stop using plastic water bottles. Drinking water instead of soda is way better for you, but when it take 5 times the amount of water to produce the bottle you are drinking out of, you need to stop and consider the resource you are depleting. In most cases tap water is just as good if not better than the water in those bottles. Stainless steel, glass, and aluminum water bottles are safer and more earth-friendly. There are also many companies manufacturing BPA-free and phthalate-free plastic water bottles.
Use cloth diapers. You knew that one was coming. Just one cloth diaper a day keeps 200 pounds of disposable diaper waste out of our landfills.

Switch to phosphate free soaps and detergents. This requires you to read labels. You vote every time you make a purchase at the store. Whether you avoid toxic chemical ingredients in your soap such as phosphates, or chemicals in your food such as partially hydrogenated oil or high fructose corn syrup. Avoiding these harmful items helps save our planet.
Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup and Partially Hydrogenated Oil. Any highly processed foods for that matter. Shopping around the outside of the grocery store will help with this choice. Just read your labels. HFCS and PHO are toxic for you and for the environment.

“Phosphorous is like a fertilizer. It increases algae and aquatic weed growth in water bodies,” Bernie Duffy, natural resource specialist with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, told the AP. He said too much algae depletes oxygen needed for healthy fish and aquatic life.

Sewage treatment plants and private septic systems can remove much but not all of the phosphorous from wastewater, so some of it ends up in lakes, streams and rivers.16 states ban phosphate-laden dishwasher soap
Bring your own bags when you go shopping. Not just at the grocery. Everywhere.
•Approximately 60 – 100 million barrels of oil are required to make the world’s plastic bags each year

•Most plastic bags take over 400 years to biodegrade. Some figures indicate that plastic bags could take over 1000 years to break down. (I guess nobody will live long enough to find out!). This means not one plastic bag has ever naturally biodegraded. -Environmental Impact of Plastic Bags