what have you done for your earth lately?

c'mon share with me your earth-friendly practices whether big or small. here are some simple things my kids and i do in our quest to take care of our mother earth:

i don't use anything made of leather (dead animals) anymore. have passed on (*sob) my uber trendy leather bags to my mom and use vinyl, canvas, plastic and recycled material bags now. ditto for leather shoes (*more sobs).

we recycle. my mom makes a mean compost of food waste and now her garden is greener. literally greener.

we segregate and reuse. we also recycle old clothing by cutting it up for dishrags and dustcloths—this also cuts down on paper towel use.

we go to the grocery with our eco bags and hardly have our stuff put in plastic bags. it's trendier. do try it out at your friendly neighborhood SM stores. the managers of stores find it so cute that they actually GIVE us their ecobags to use (Marks and Spencer, SM, etc.)

we sew our own canvas bags. purchased canvas cloth from the textile store in Uyanguren and sewed away. the girls love it so much they sew almost everything now.

we pocket our trash or just place them in our bags and wait till we get home and unload. in my opinion, teaching kids to be responsible garbage throwers will go a long way.

we print less and e-mail or use electronic files instead.

we use energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs for our most-used lights. although they cost more initially, they save money in the long run by using only 1/4 the energy of an ordinary incandescent bulb and lasting 8-12 times longer.

my grandmother planted shade trees (mango, talisay) and painted our house a light color.
did you know that reductions in energy use resulting from shade trees and appropriate painting can save up to 2.4 tons of CO2 emissions per year? (each tree also directly absorbs about 25 pounds of CO2 from the air annually). cool right?

how about you? HAPPY EARTH DAY mon amours!!

peace and light!!