Natural and Sustainable

Here are some three strategies to move past the eco-anxiety we all that are environmentally conscious may be feeling in today’s current world.

• Work to slow down the environmental destruction: Join an environmental activism group. Document the overwhelming destruction on some of the ecosystems throughout the world. Attend a protest or two or three on what you believe. Write letters to your mayor or state representative. Lobby to help shut down the biggest industrial polluters. It will ultimately psychologically transform you. The real anxiety reduces is a sense of taking on responsibility and getting active within your own beliefs.

• Get involves in making and creating a more sustainable world to live in: Help build a garden at a school or local church or even a community park in your own area then venture out and help other communities. Start bicycling instead of driving. Hang your laundry to dry. Commit to buying locally farmed food and produce. Implement a grey-water recycling system in your current home or office. Changing your job, or even moving to a place where you can reduce your impact will help. You will be more optimist and happiest when you feel like the work you are doing is the closest to the ideal of designed in conjunction with nature, rather than in ignorance of it. Rise above the “ignorance is bliss” comments.

• Shift your outlook on the world: Learn about more sustainable practices and how you can change your own living style. Spend more time outdoors in nature. Study traditions and see that is world is an unified whole. Spread the word and get with others to share in your changes. Don’t try to cope with this challenge all alone.

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Always recycle your newspaper. Newspaper is one of the most important papers to have in your recycling bin when the collection time comes. Make sure your Sunday comics end up in the right place at the right time. Who knows, you may see them again and again and again.

1. Recycle your magazines, all of them.

2. Bring your own bags to the supermarket.

3. Support your local economy and curb excess fossil-fuel consumption by shopping close to your own home.

4. Install the Energy-Star approved double-pane windows in your home for better insulation.

5. Take the bus or train whenever you can and give you car a break.

6. Buy energy-efficient appliances that carry the Energy Star label.

7. Go for bamboo when you are looking for new flooring, cutting boards, towels and even sheets and curtains.

8. Clean the refrigerator coils on your own fridge. It will help you refrigerator gain better productivity.

9. Turn off all the lights when you go to exit a room, even if it’s the garage.

10. Install low-flow showerhead in your own showers and take shorter showers. This will help, especially when you are pressed for time. Pretend you are always in that same rush and it will help shorten your shower time.

11. Eat more vegetables and cut back on the refined sugars.

12. Get yourself and your family their own library cards.

13. Ride your bike regularly. Take a ride for fun and ride to the grocery store if you are close by and live in a town.

14. Don’t let your faucet run while you wash the supper dishes. Better yet, don’t le the water run when you and others brush your teeth as well.

15. Leave only your actual footprints when you take a trip somewhere and never harm plants or wildlife when you visit the state, county or city parks.

16. Unplug the electronics such as your VCR, DVD players, TV, and even your cell phone charger when you are not using them. Place everything of this nature on a surge protector and flip the switch.

17. Use better-for-the-environment, greener cleaners in your own home and talk to others about changing their cleaning habits as well.

18. Baking soda is the best cleaning agent on the market. It is all-natural and will remove just about anything. Use it for your teeth as well. Instead of the harsh and chemical, dye-laden toothpastes on the market. It will even remove soap scum from the shower.

19. Wash your clothing in the cold water cycle. Only use hot or warm water to wash your bedding and heavily stained clothing.

20. Cover pots on the stove when you are cooking to prevent losing excess heat and wasting the energy the stove is creating to heat the food in the pot.

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Support Green. Support people, politicians and companies who work to make the world a better place.

• CFLS: The Philips Soft White CFL comes in a recyclable packaging and according to Philips, they claim that it contains the lowest mercury levels of any CFLs on the market. To find a CFL disposal site near your own home, visit Earth 911

• Local Eating: You can’t get anything better than something that is organic, locally grown and even purchased from your neighborhood farmers’ market. So Support them. Do it for yourself, your family and your local farmer. Find farmers’ markets in your own area by visiting Local Harvest.

• Hybrids: The Toyota Prius (48 mpg city/ 45 mpg hwy) leads for a fifth straight year in a row as the best hybrid purchase anyone can make. The Honda Civic Hybrid (40 mpg city/ 45 mpg hwy) also places high with U.S. News, and CNET.

• Biofuels: Not everyone knows how to make up an alternative fuel in their own garage, but there is help. By going to Biodiesel America you can find someone that can and has. You can start today in converting your own vehicle to take an alternative fuel source.

• Bioplastic: Opt for a durable, reusable carryall like the compact Chicobag or Baggu tote. And some markets now offer their own, like Safeway, Fred Meyer, Whole Foods, and even Wal Mart now.

• Bamboo Clothing: Bamboosa and Certaintees are tow of the most environmentally responsible brands that carry the best clothing line from bamboo materials. Their clothing is soft and durable and will last a lifetime if they are taken care of.

• Mineral Makeup: Companies like Larénium Mineral Makeup and Afterglow Cosmetics, they are both free of nano-particles and bismuth oxychloride. Companies like Avon and Mary Kay also have their own line of mineral makeup that is great for your skin. Just be careful when picking a mineral makeup product and read labels.

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Save water all the time. Take shorter showers and if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down, when it comes to your toilet that is.

You can help improve your lawns, your families and others exposure to lawn chemicals by raising awareness in your town about how dangerous lawn care and how much better the use of organic turf is. Here is a rough draft of how you can start change within your own community, as well as try to change your very own town into become a more conscious lawn care community.

• Get your neighbors involved: The quickest and easiest ways to get them involved with the change is to educate them. Post pesticide-free lawn signs in your very own yard. Then talk to them about how important the change is for not only the environment but for their own health as well.

• Create a demand for it: Request that the local nursery in your own town and the surrounding towns carry organic fertilizer and even organic and quality organic lawn products. There are several products right in your own pantry that can be used for your own lawn care.

• Be the example of your own talks: Growing your own organic grass in an organic way, is to lead by example. When you are questioned as to how you are growing your beautiful grass, tell your questioner what you are using and how your change to organic lawn care and fertilizer is helping your grass and you earth.

• Get active in a political way: Writing to local officials in regards to the concern about lawn-chemical use in the community will spawn change. Urge them to consider the change in making it harder to use chemical pesticides and passing local pesticide ordinance that are stricter than state policies.

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Gather up your old mobile phones and give them to Eco-Cell. They will in turn refurbish or recycle your the phones instead of sending them to the landfill. And we all know there is already plenty already there.

• When you buy a new carpet, ask the showroom to unroll it for 2 weeks before delivering to air it our. Low for low-or no VOC paints carrying the Green Seal and carpets with the Carpet and Rug Institute tag; these labels guarantee few emissions.

• Plug gadgets-especially your cell phone charger, computer, and all its peripherals-into a surge protector strip. When you turn off the strip, it’s like you have actually unplugged them completely and they are just draining the power still.

• Can’t invest in a new model of fridge just yet? Then keep your fridge full,. since it takes more energy to cool an empty space in your fridge. Just don’t overstuff it, cool air can’t circulate when food is crammed against the top and sides of the fridge.

• Don’t use a snow blower to clear your driveway or sidewalk of snow, instead use a Wovel, a wheelbarrow-like shovel that lets you clear your driveway without straining your back. When spring comes, trade your gas mower for a lightweight, push-operated reel mower instead as well. This burns more calories and not carbon, which is a great change.

• A glass door is safest for the shower than a shower curtain. Wipe it daily to prevent mold and mildew. If you don’t want the expense of installing one, choose a curtain made of nylon or a natural material. Hemp cloth won’t leak through, so no liner is needed for that choice. Just close the curtain to let it air-dry, and wash it every few weeks.

• When washing your laundry, set the temperature gauge to slash your household’s energy use. But, wash sheets on hot to kill dust mites and reduce allergies. A study found that washing bedding in hot water killed 100% of dust mites, compared with only 6.5% in warms water.

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Unload your truck, the lighter your load, the less gas your car consumes. Ending up saving you money and also helping the planet.