Getting Started Living Green
 
When you think about "green living", some people think about living in the woods having to grow or kill everything you eat and make everything you use. Green living simply includes doing things to help the environment be viable for future generations.

Our ancestors green living was rough and life was short, for most people. Green living has grown you don't have to like shed your possessions and live in a hut. Here are a few steps you can take you make your life a little greener.

Green living means reducing your negative impact on the Earth. It means conserving energy, buying local organic products, reducing your carbon footprint, lessening the use of petroleum products and conserving water.

Buying local will reduce your carbon footprint, items that you buy have to be shipped to the store where you buy them. This takes carbon which is released when gasoline is burned. The manufacture of packaging requires the use of electricity which has a carbon footprint.

Trees need to be cut down, transported and processed to make packaging has a large carbon footprint. Sealing plastic wrap add to this.

You should try to reuse stuff if you can. It takes a lot less energy to reuse something than it takes to recycle it. Before you throw something in the recycling bin, think about whether you could reuse it.

Use products that don't end up in landfills like cloth diapers instead of disposables or cloth towels instead of paper towels. Buy concentrated products because they come in smaller packages. If you have use wire shirt hangers from the laundry bring them back so they do not end up in the landfill. If you buy polyester carpet make sure it is made from recycled soda bottles. Replace burned out light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs

House Paints, Finishes, Fabric & Furniture is leading the green movement, as increasing consumer demand for eco-friendly products force manufacturers to create paints with fewer hazardous compounds.

Getting started living green will not require large changes to your life; it may lead you eventually in the direction of major change. These are just small changes you can make to decrease your impact on the earth. You don't have to change your life overnight. Integrate green living into your daily routines over time. Small steps can make a huge difference over time. Together we can make a difference.

Americans perfectly manicured green lawns aren't so green. More pesticides are used on lawns per acre than are used on farmer's fields. High concentrations of insecticides wash down into streams from rural areas. Theses insecticides eventually end up in the food chain. If you eat fish they will end up in your body.

Chemical fertilizers supply a vacant kind of food to plants. This is like the empty calories we get from eating refined white sugar. It is a good high but you can't live on it.

Flourishing organic lawns are about the soil, not just about feeding the grass and killing weeds and bugs. Your soil needs to be alive with the right variety of beneficial microorganisms. The right mix of microbes feed and protects the plants from disease. The green gardener feeds the beneficial microbes and helps them do their work.