My Green Tips

Cut flowers are beautiful but most are treated with pesticides and flown thousands of miles — using loads of precious fossil fuels.  Unfortunately cut flowers die in just a few days.  Consider buying potted indoor plants that, hopefully, will live happy, long lives.

Buying locally grown food supports local farmers and minimizes the environmental costs of transporting the food to market.

Do we really need to eat asparagus flown in from Argentina in the dead of winter?

You can also skip the buying part and grow the food yourself. Some of my favorite memories from being a kid are in the garden. This also gives you a piece of mind if you are concerned about chemicals that might have been used in growing the food you buy at the store. You can’t get any fresher food than picking it right off the vine yourself!

Here’s a link to find a farmer’s market in your area: http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/localfood_dir.php

According to National Geographic between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed each year.

Next time you go to the store to buy something that’s probably already packaged in three layers of plastic make a different choice. Plastic bags are often not biodegradable and are usually made from petroleum. Also consider the energy used to produce these bags and ship them to the store.

So should I choose paper or plastic?

The best answer is None of the above.

Either refuse the bag if you can carry the items without it or bring your own bag. Many stores now sell reusable shopping bags but you can use any bag. I recommend the heavy cloth bags like ones they’ve been selling at Trader Joes for years. They are durable, will last a long time, you can wash them and best of all you won’t have to worry about a flimsy plastic or paper bag ripping and spilling your groceries all over the place.

If all else fails choose paper over plastic. Although energy is consumed logging, milling the paper and transporting it to the store it is a natural and renewable product.