Make Your House A Reusable House

You can apply green building features to your house. You can invest in eco-friendly furniture. You can even landscape with the environment in mind. However, one of the best ways to go green at home, is to make your house as reusable as possible.

First of all make sure that you’re only bringing goods into your house that you really need. Purchased goods take energy to manufacture, and most come with too much packaging. When you do purchase goods, make sure that they’re both recyclable, and if possible reusable. Look for items that can perform more than one duty. For example, no one needs a food processor, a blender, and a food grinder. One of the above will do the work of all three.

Items that can make your home reusable:

• Cloth napkins over paper napkins.
• Cleaning rags (made from old ripped clothes, or old towels) over paper towels.
• A spray bottle filled with homemade cleaner instead of brand new plastic bottles of cleaners.
• A hand soap pump filled with homemade hand soap or bulk hand soap from the co-op.
• Refillable shampoo and conditioner bottles.
• A juice pitcher - make concentrate juice instead of buying large bottles. Or you could make homemade juice.
• Drink water from the tap, not bottled.
• Bulk foods instead of packaged. Use reusable bags or containers to store bulk food in.
• And more - what can you think of?

Every time you don’t purchase something brand new, you save energy and transport gas. When it comes to paper products, you save even more (think trees). This week try to limit the amount of brand new goods you buy, and see how it goes. You’ll be making the world a little greener.