Many of us are now switched into green habits. We turn off appliances at the wall, we aim to catch public transport more often and we take our own bags to the supermarket. We are aware of the ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ campaign. We don’t litter, we quietly regift and many of us have downsized to smaller cars.

However, when we look around at our beautiful world, we can see that it needs our help. Women have traditionally looked after the home, and the Earth is simply an extension of our home.

Educate yourself on where things come from. Buy locally and support your local growers. Check out the on-line animated story which tells us about who is really paying for the cheap ‘stuff’ that loads up our supermarkets and cheap discount shops. This stuff is engineered to be disposable, over packaged and in many cases made by exploited workers; mostly women and children in developing countries. (www.thestoryofstuff.com)

Apply yourself to buying less but buying quality. Buy beautiful natural fabrics, well fitted clothes, hand-made wooden toys, appliances that you may have to lay-by because of the cost. In most cases, you will be able to pass on the clothes, toys and appliances to your family and friends. I still use an old electric mixer (with the lovely milk bowls) that I bought from an opp shop back in 1980; mind you it only has one speed – fast.

Repair rather than replace. A pain I know, you have to find a repairer in the first place (and they are rare souls), but things can be fixed and yes it may even be at a greater price than buying a new one, but sometimes it is just a minor repair, and you get change from $20.00.

Try going vegetarian. This is particularly tough if your home is over-run by carnivores. So, try being vegetarian when you go out as a starting point. Eating meat takes up a lot of resources (land, energy and water) and going vegetarian is one of the most effective actions you can take to ease the strain on our Earth.

Help promote businesses with strong green policies. If they don’t have one, don’t use their services but tell them why! As consumers we can have a huge impact on encouraging businesses to ‘go green’ and imagine if all businesses put the environment on their agendas along with their profit and loss statements.

When it comes to the environment, we need to become aware that we are living way beyond our resources. We are currently using the equivalent of 1.4 planets (according to the Global Footprint Network). This is just not sustainable! Anyone know of another Earth for sale? Price no issue.

from

Aunty Darling