Green Your Routine for the New Year
(Family Features) - Each January brings a chance for families to make changes in their routines. With the kick off of the New Year, and a heightened sense of environmental awareness, why not use this traditional fresh start to "green your routine" and establish simple, everyday eco-friendly habits with your family.
Green living expert and mother of three, Beth Aldrich, encourages families to try little things to make a difference every day, and to look for products and adopt practices that work for them and the environment. "How you treat yourself, your family and your home all add up to how we collectively take care of our planet," says Aldrich. There are many simple ways families can be more environmentally-conscious in the New Year without overhauling their entire lifestyle, including:
- Change Your Light Bulbs: Switch the light bulbs in your house to energy-efficient, inexpensive, compact fluorescent bulbs. If every household in America exchanged five light bulbs, the energy savings would be equivalent to taking 8 million cars off the road.
- Reuse Those Bags: Buying those cute fabric bags might seem like the trendy thing to do, but they do make a difference. Just keep them in your car or better yet, assign one of your children to be in charge of reminding you to bring them to the store!
- Say No to Plastic: If you haven't done it already, give up those plastic water bottles. They last forever in landfills and it's a great excuse to buy everyone a personal aluminum canteen of their choice.
- Get Speedy in the Shower: Not only will this save some dough in terms of your water bill; saving water helps your community. A simple way to start the New Year off right is to shorten up that shower by setting a timer and make it a family game to see who can beat each other's time.
- See Green to Live Green: Keep your family's eyes healthy while helping the environment by purchasing new "green" Airwear eyeglass lenses. Now manufactured using 100 percent recycled water and packaged in 100 percent recyclable cardboard, the lenses are greener than before.
- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: Cutting down on waste can save 1,600 pounds of garbage a year. Clean out the clutter by recycling old papers and giving away outgrown clothes. Before going shopping for anything new at the end of the year sales, take inventory and identify what can be reused so you only replace what you really need.
For more of Aldrich's simple, attainable green-living tips, visit www.LighterSaferGreener.com.
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