Well, with the huge cloud of pollution hoovering over the world’s best athletes, we could think “what’s wrong with people?” “why would you expose them to that monster?” But hey, that’s life money.
We can’t really sweep away China’s pollution, but we can certainly do something locally, thinking globally. And with this in mind, we have tried to make some choices to make our lives a little greener.
- For instance, we don’t turn on the AC until it’s 85F inside the house, and then we’ll set it to keep it around 79F, which is quite high for the standards around here, trust me.
- We both drive to work, and sadly there’s nothing we can do about that. My car will do 36 mpg, which is not so bad, but eventually I’ll have to get a new one.
- About recycling, we recycle all packaging, glass, paper and cardboard. We keep all glass jars and re use them when we buy nuts, cereal or dried fruits in bulk. Of course, we do a sensible disposal of batteries and oil, and try to reduce waste to a minimum.
- We’ve tried to switch to low consumption bulbs, but about 3 of them broke the moment we installed them, and for now we’re using normal ones.
- To store food we always use reusable containers.
- We don’t use paper towels unless we have many people coming over. If it’s just the two of us, fabric.
- We have a big box of reusable paper (paper printed on just one side, etc) that we use for notes, printing, etc. when possible.
- I use a mooncup, which has reduced my footprint as well as making much more comfortable “that time of the month”
- We got a Brita, which I hear is much better than buying bottled water. Yes, the filter is disposable, but apparently is much better than bottles and bottles.
- At work, instead of using plastic water cups at the water dispenser, I fill up my Nalgene.
- We use our pressure cooker a lot. It dramatically cuts down the cooking time, since to cook, let’s say, a chicken with vegetables, it only needs to be 5 minutes on high and then 10 more at the lowest our stove will go. Way better than 1 hour on medium heat, right?
- We are really responsible for switching off appliances we don’t need or the lights in empty rooms (although for now, we don’t need artificial light until 9.30PM since our appartment has extraordinary natural light.)
- We only take showers (not baths) and turn off the water while we put shampoo and shower gel on, thus saving many litres of water.
- We swith off the oven a few minutes before it’s done, so it cooks with the remaining heat and not using up more electricity. The same goes for the AC in our cars, which is off a few blocks before we get home.
OTHER THINGS WE CAN WILL DO
- We have quite a few fabric shopping bags that came all the way from Germany (it’s hard to find fabric bags here in Spain!) and we should use them more often.
- We should cut down computer time and read or go out more (not easy being soooo hot here).
- We could buy more in bulk and cook bigger batches of food, and maybe try some recipes with more raw ingredients.
- Although we’re not vegetarian, it would be interesting to introduce a few vegetarian recipes into our menu.
- Explore the possibilities of buying more locally and organic.
- Start using a bucket in the shower to collect all the water wasted while we wait for it to warm up. This water could be used to water the plants around the house, clean, or even to flush the toilet the next time we have to.