One of the first green things we did when we bought our house was open an account with a water delivery service. We were spending tons of money on bottled water and creating so much waste with all the plastic bottles. At the end of any given week, my car was looking like a landfill. Buying good water in larger quantities just made more sense. At first we were using the old-school Nalgene bottles to hold our water; these were popular with the granola-ey types in the early 2000s. I was never crazy about them- they were ugly looking and the water tasted gross after hours in the plastic container. We got rid of ours when it was discovered that they were made with really nasty chemicals. We switched over to the aluminum Sigg brand bottles, mainly because of the cool designs on the exterior- but then discovered that they were also made with shady materials. Plus, the water in aluminum tasted worse than the plastic bottles.
Finally, I discovered these awesome bottles from Kleen Kanteen. They are made from food-grade stainless steel, are totally safe and leave no yucky taste in the water. Plus they come in super awesome colors and a variety of sizes. We use the 27oz classic and 40oz versions.
Another "green change" that we recently implemented was also out of necessity. The plastic bag situation in my house was out of control. We like to save and reuse plastic grocery bags, as they are handy for disposing of dog poop, kitchen waste and a variety of other purposes. Somehow though, our stash had grown to two cabinet shelves full. Since my kitchen is small and I have a slight Pyrex problem, space is a high commodity. The shelves were packed so tightly with plastic bags, I couldn't fit any more in! I finally decided enough was enough, and we were going to wean our bag collection.
I purchased a bag holder to free up the shelves. It fits nicely under the sink, and keeps the bags tidy. The leftover bags were stashed in the shed for future dog poop duty. To keep from adding to the collection, I purchased some pretty reusable grocery bags from flip and tumble. These bags are really cute, they come in tons of colors and they fold up for easy storage. They also sell reusable produce bags, which I really love. Every time I bring my bags to the grocery store, people ask me about them!
Throw in the pyrex refridgerator dishes and our kitchen garden, and I'd say we doing a pretty good job at being green.
