Earth

I've been thinking a lot about our environment lately. Last month on Earth day I watched the special on ABC that Diane Sawyer did and was very impressed by the sheer amount of information they gave on consumption in the world and it's effect on global warming. It really convicted me of the over consumption that we do in our own home, particularly on our paper towel usage (we go through tons of paper towels) that can be completely eliminated if we just use cloth towels and wash them. I think of the acres of trees that can be saved if I do that. But this is not a recent concern of mine, as it was some of the motivation for me to use cloth diapers when John arrived a few months ago. Not only does it help the environment, but it has saved us hundreds of dollars already.
I am starting to think of using cloth for other basic necessities as well, besides just towels to replace the paper towels, but cloth napkins as well, using hankies instead of kleenexes, switching to cloth maxi-pads, and investing in some canvas grocery sacks. I realize this will increase my laundry considerably, but someday when it comes time to replace our washer and dryer, hopefully we'll be able to afford a more energy-efficient, larger capacity washing machine. Oh, and as our light bulbs burn out, we're also investing in the florescent bulbs. If we do it a few bulbs at a time, the extra cost of the bulbs won't be so much at once. I realize these are simple changes, but habits ARE hard to break, and it will take a while to adjust to doing things differently. So, these are changes I really hope to make, but it make take awhile to wean my family off of.

On a related but slightly different note:

I was also pretty astonished and kinda mad when I discovered that my laundry soap was tricking me into using more soap than is necessary. Ok, perhaps you all would think, duh of course we knew that, but I didn't. Did you know that in the measuring cup cap there are 3, sometimes 4 different lines you can use for different size loads? My soap said, for regular sized loads use line 1, for large loads use line 2, and for extra soiled loads use 3. But additionally there was a line 4 on there.....what for? To get you to use more, and therefore buy more, and the plastic used to make that laundry soap container gets thrown out and more waste goes into the ground. I figured that a capful was what one needed for a load of laundry, but in reality I only needed about one-third of the amount. I need to call the laundry soap companies and suggest making refills for the containers in more environmentally sound bags or something. Or, perhaps I'll just make my own laundry soap from now on.