Today’s blog is a report card of some sort. I will go through all of the ways we have gone green over the past several weeks and notate where he is doing good things, and where he needs work. A little bit of feedback can help create new ways to go green.
Week One-Knowledge: This week Ben was to learn about going green by finding green websites to follow. Ben has definitely excelled on this task and still spends a lot of time learning about how other people go green. I will give him an A+ for this week.
Week Two-Junk Mail: This task we are to reduce our mail; i.e. junk mail and catalogs. Ben has thus far been very good at taking his name off of mailing lists. Unfortunately, with this being the holiday season there is just no way to get them to stop completely right now. I think that we still do receive a lot of mail, and think that maybe now we should focus on getting our names off our credit card mailing lists (those checks credit cards send you). I give Ben an A on this task.
Week Three-Saving Water: This week Ben has to reduce water use in several ways. Specifically reduce the amount of baths and/or showers to only one of either per day. I also wanted him to shut off the water when not in use. I give Ben an A+ on this one.
Week Four-Food Waste: This week we have to plan our meals better and to try not to throw any food away because it has expired. So far we have done pretty well on this one. I give Ben an A+ on this one also.
Week Five-Driving: Ben has to perform maintenance and change his driving habits. This is a difficult one because it is winter, and is hard to be totally efficient on this. I think there are ways Ben can change his driving behavior that I had mentioned in my blog. I give Ben a C on this one.
Week Six-Giving Thanks: This one sort of goes with the food waste. We went to the food pantry and helped out. We both enjoyed doing this, and plan to do it again. I give Ben an A+ on this one too because he a great job organizing our food pantry experience.
Week Seven-Plastic Bags: This task is to stop using plastic bags to haul groceries and other goods, but to use canvas bags instead. This one has been difficult for Ben, and he admits that. With the Christmas shopping this week he had collected a few bags; I give him a B- on this one. He did have reusable canvas bags in his car, so I would like him to get more comfortable using them.
Week Eight-Turn the Lights Off: This task is to turn the lights off when not in use. This task we are both improving on; we both forget sometimes but will need to get into a habit of shutting it off when we leave the room. I give Ben a B on this one.
Week Nine-Green Cleaners: This week we had to find safer cleaners, get rid of our toxic ones. We are clear out of our bad cleaners, but as we continue in this process we will work on preparing our own cleaners with the supplies we all have at home. I give Ben an A- on this one simply because he hasn’t had a lot of hands on practice using/preparing cleaners.
Overall Ben has been doing quite well. He has definitely taken quite a bit of interest in this topic and I hope to see new ways we can go green. If you have any tips or advice, please leave them in the comment section below.
