I thought with all of this talk about going green, I’d better do some work on my own…
STEP 1.
Celebrate my love of Zipcar by creating a totally cool fansite (called ZipKarma…url mapping coming soon!) on Ning! (I’ll write more about Ning soon)
STEP 2.
Start moving my blog over to awesome green host, Sustainable Websites…the switch is happening this weekend, I believe. Thanks Ivan!
STEP 3.
Start composting again (at the office and at home). We’re doing it at the office and just waiting for the stuff at home (home is complicated as we have building serviced garbage and recycling, but no compost…so it will have to start with us carrying our compost to the office every morning).
…
We’re really trying to make an effort to make those day to day things ‘greener’…and it isn’t too hard. Some basics that we already do?
- Shop at Trader Joe’s and buy the environmentally friendly cleaning products (I hear people heart Rainbow Grocery as well)
- Recycle madly. When someone throws a pop can or a juice container in the garbage, I make a point of telling them to recycle instead
- Rinse out all of our jars & break down any packaging we have from food and recycle.
- Walk as much as possible. Take public transportation. Use Zipcar when we absolutely have to.
- Replace all lightbulbs with energy efficient models
- Donate old stuff (clothes & furniture) to the Salvation Army & try to buy second hand and refurbished (both of our MacBook Pros are refurbished)
- Use all paper products sparingly
- …including trying to have a [nearly] paperless office. We’ve cut our ‘filing’ down to next to nothing. We get all of the bills we can electronically and pay them electronically.
- Read all of our materials online. Only buy the actual paper magazines and newspapers when there are articles we want to clip.
I’m sure there are a gazillion more things we can do as well. Eating in more often? Buying at farmer’s markets? Less travel (jet fuel makes me want to cry)?
An interesting note about Zipcar: they just launched in Vancouver (like, yesterday), and from what I can garner from my peers, they’re facing a lot of negative reaction.
Why? Because Vancouver has a venerable, much-loved car co-op (http://www.cooperativeauto.net/) and Zipcar is the first (and only, I believe) direct competitor in the city. Everybody has good, positive feelings about the co-op, so they’re not digging the American corporate competition.
That is interesting…
Well, everyone loves their individual services and Zipcar is definitely an ‘outsider’.
However, think about it this way. Going with your local coop is like banking with a co-op bank. Better local service. Friendly. Giving back to the community.
But it doesn’t mean you don’t want to also bank with a bigger, national bank…because you’ll also need to access your accounts (going into branches) in other cities.
I picked Zipcar because I can go to Boston, New York, Toronto, London, etc. (and now Vancouver) and be able to book a car. I have in many places already.
It doesn’t cost anything to join…here anyway…so I can’t see a reason why you can’t belong to both. Plus, as car sharing gets more popular, you may need alternatives.
Alternatives are always a good thing. Local and global.
Appreciate this link to Sustainable Websites Tara. I’m going to have to check them out. My family, in conjunction with our move back to a rural lifestyle, has been making small, incremental changes in our consumption and energy usage habits.
We’ve gone the the CFL route and have one more room to outfit with those. We’re trying to leave paper behind as much as possible, cloth napkins, no more paper towels (I’m particularly excited about the Mabu Cloth, dorky I know), use the clothes line and not the dryer, and I recently built us a compost bin out of an old dog house [which you'd know if you followed my tweets
- can't imagine why everyone doesn't (self-effacing humor)]
Ideally, we’d cut the cord as much as possible, grow much of our own food, go solar, never leave home (kinda joking). Baby steps I guess.
But again, thanks for that link. I probably would have never noticed them.
Great post!
You should check out our website Green Options, we’re all about giving people the information they need to green up their lives without moving into a cave.
Here’s our Tips ‘ the Day:
http://www.greenoptions.com/tip_o_the_day
We have a ton of great information on the site, you might be interested in signing up for our 30 Days to a Greener You, an email eCourse that helps ease you into a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.
Cheers!
Shea
Don’t forget bicycling! (and support the development of bike-friendly initiatives) It’s cleaner than public transport and better for your health.