One step toward an ecologically sound world

Padre Mickey tagged Juanuchis for this meme, and I liked the idea; so I'm doing it, too.

Steps towards an environmentally (ecologically) sound world - what am I doing and what can I do to leave a smaller "footprint" in the world.

First, let me say that I do many things that leave "footprints" large and unsound: I use way too much gasoline with too many vehicles on our property. I drink too much bottled water even though the bottles are recycled. I forget to take the plastic bags back to the grocery store and get sick of seeing them and throw them in the trash. But, I do get paper bags at one grocery and I reuse them for our recycling. I don't have a compost heap here. We have far too many things with little LED lights and instant on/off controls; so we use more electricity. I use poison for fire ants.

Okay, so what am I doing to help the world:

1. We do recycle everything possible except table scraps.

2. I mostly drive a Prius which uses little gas.

3. I am conscious of how much water I use. We do not water our lawn most of the time. Our water shortage here is not as bad as other places, but we let the grass die.

4. I donate clothing that I have under-grown (Weight Watchers does work.) to friends or to our local non-profit thrift shops.

5. During our recent house renovation, everything possible in salvage went to Habitat for Humanity. And, we still have some light fixtures and other things to go there.

6. I am reusing old deck boards for bordering flower beds. And, we bought less toxic treated wood for the recplacement boards on the deck. We used the composite stuff for our front porch instead of treated wood.

7. We turn off lights when we leave a room. Maybe this saves the electricity that all our little LED lights use. LOL

8. We are conscious of things that should not go into the landfills and recycle batteries, ink cartridges, and such in the proper places.

9. I cannibalize old computers from other people for parts and to recycle them for use by unwed mothers to complete schooling. The remaining parts are appropriately discarded. Although I read recently that far too much high tech waste goes to foreign countries for salvage in unhealthy manner.

Enough.