There are a lot of common themes in green living. Green choices like recycling and driving a cleaner car appear frequently on the mainstream news and in public awareness programs, but there are other facets to green living that aren’t getting the same attention. Let’s explore some awesome green living hacks that are doable, environmentally conscious, and not making the 5 o’clock news.
Eating Green
I don’t just mean getting tons of spinach and other green veggies (although that’s never a bad idea). By making our meat consumption more sustainable we can help the environment and make things better for the animals, who are often treated much better outside of unsustainable and environmentally harmful factory farms.
As an alternative, many environmentally conscious omnivores are turning to grass fed and cage free alternatives, where the animals are given space to move around and eat without decimating local water supplies and producing unhealthy amounts of greenhouse gasses.
These intrepid foodies are finding that ethically farmed meat is harder to come by and more expensive than the harmful alternatives. With some clever thinking, however, these gastronomical pioneers are devising creative solutions like meals that make use of more local vegetables, superfoods like lentils and blueberries, and even mixing meat with powerful umami ingredients like mushrooms to produce more sustainable and more sophisticated blended burgers.
Energy Credits
When my uncle, a chemist from New York, first told me about this I was convinced that it was a scam of some sort. Getting paid to do nothing? If you’re like me, you probably think that that’s just a little too good to be true. Well, although you won’t quite have to do nothing, these are still the facts.
If you have solar power integrated into your home and you aren’t using the full amount of electricity that you generate from the sun, you can be eligible to receive energy credits from the power company. As with most good things, though, this won’t last forever. Solar energy has been growing like crazy in recent years and it stands to reason that the more power we generate from the sun, the less interested power companies will be in purchasing it.
Decorating Green
Simply painting your house probably isn’t going to do anything except help to plummet the value of your home and the surrounding properties. On the other hand, finding ways to be environmentally conscious when you do touch up your home can make your property more sustainable and set a good example for your neighbors.
On the subject of painting, eco-friendly paints are a must for anyone trying to live a green lifestyle. If you’ve ever had the experience of disposing of house paint, taking it to some non-descript facility in a sketchy part of town where they could “process” it, then you understand how great these paints are. For interior changes like wallpaper, paintings, and posters, make sure to turn to green printing companies that cut down on their energy usage and use recycled paper whenever possible. The same can be said for your family photos and other nicknacks.
Green Water Filtration
Many of us are dissatisfied with our tap water. It often tastes too metallic, too chemically, or sometimes just plain funky. For this reason, many of us also use water filters of some sort or another. As surprising as it sounds, however, not all water filters are created equal. Instead of purchasing a large company’s water filter made in an environmentally harmful factory, why not try investing in a carbon filter? Carbon filters take one of the most ubiquitous elements on the planet, carbon, and retool it to absorb contaminants and other troubling things in your water. It doesn’t get much greener than that…
These are some great green living hacks that you might not have heard about before. Let me know about your green living secrets!
