Some useful information, some anecdotes, some rantings, and some inspiration
from my quest to make my family and perhaps the world around me A Little Greener Every Day

Years ago when my husband and I got rid of all of our music cassettes (we donated them), we made a list of all of the ones we wanted to replace on cd. From the hundreds of cassettes we got rid of, we came up with a long list that we wanted to replace. Of course, we couldn’t run out and buy them all at once. We had discovered a marvelous used cd store in the same shopping center as our favorite movie theater and started replacing them with used cd’s, one or two (okay sometimes more) at a time. It became a regular part of date night. Dinner, a trip to the used cd store, then a movie.

We started replacing the music this way because it cost us a lot less. Eventually, the store started selling used dvd’s also. The prices there were so great that we even gave each other permission to buy used music and movies as gifts for birthdays and Christmas. My kids don’t even realize most that the dvd’s and cd’s we’ve ever bought for them are used.

What we didn’t realize at the time was that we had also started restocking our collection in an environmentally friendly way. Instead of buying new, we were buying used. You know the mantra – reduce, reuse, recycle. We were resuing someone else’s old cd’s and dvd’s. When we feel the need to thin out the cd collection, we now recycle the ones we don’t want by taking them to the used store.

Buying your music online in the form of mp3’s is another way to make your music collection greener, also. There is no physical product, no production waste, no packaging waste, no trash created when your 3 year old cracks the cd trying to take it out of the package.

I will confess, though, that once in a while I do buy my cd’s brand new. I have no idea if it makes a real difference or not, but I have it in my mind that buying a just released cd in the store counts more than purchasing it off of someplace like iTunes. When there is an artist that I really like who is putting out a new cd, and I want to show my support for tht artist, I buy the cd new. I think the last time I actually did it was with Edie Brickell and New Bohemians’ last album Stranger Things put out last year. I felt like buying the physical cd on the first day it was released was a show of support for my favorite group. Did it really make a difference? I have no idea.

But I do know that buying the majority of my music and movies either used or through an mp3 format does make a difference.

I’m veering from the green today to let everyone know that we are in the middle of Banned Books Week (Sept 29-Oct 6). The purpose of BBW is to celebrate our freedom to read and write whatever we want even if others find it undesirable.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for parental censorship of what my children read, watch and listen to. I believe it is my responsibiity to do so. But parental censorship is different from banning books altogether. I have an 8 year old whose reading level is really high, but I wouldn’t let him read The Catcher in the Rye (yet). But there are other books that are on the top 100 challenged books list that I think my 8 year old should be reading including Madeliene Lengle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It’s the book that changed my life when I was a kid, and I have always been dumbfounded by the fact that there are people who want it taken out of school and public libraries.

Ms. L’engle died early last month, and I can think of no better way that I can honor her than to encourage everyone to read banned books and to cherish the freedom we have in our country to read and write whatever we want.

Here is a link to the 100 top challenged books:

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=85714

It’s an eye opening list, isn’t it?

I go through a ton of printer paper. As a writer, I need to proofread everything I write, and for me that means printng out a hard copy. Some writers can proof from the computer screen. I don’t feel comfortable doing that. Sometimes I need to print an article out two or three times as I go through the editing process. These edited papers always end up in the recycle bin.

I have found a treasure trove of free paper – right in my kid’s backpacks. Every day they come home with announcements from school – always printed on only one side of the paper. They also come home with graded worksheets (again – only one side of the paper is printed on). I used to put all this paper in the recycle bin – anywhere from 5-15 sheet of paper every night. It occurred to me at the beginning of this school year, that I can print on the back of those papers.

I know – not a particulary earth shattering realization. I should have realized that a few years ago. But sometimes I’m slow. So now, I put all of those papers in a bin on top of my file cabinet. When I need to print out something to proof, I let the local grammar school supply the paper. When I’m done with the proofed copy, then I recycle it. I reuse THEN recycle.

Not an original concept, I know. But one we all need to take into consideration more often. What else can we reuse before we recycle it?

As I have been researching for my new green column in Primal Parenting Magazine, I am coming up with so much green infromation and it can’t all go in the column. I’m starting this blog so that I can get more information out there.

It’s going to have some tips, some statistics, some rants, some inspiration, some ideas, some insanity, and who knows what else. It will often be about green topics, but it’s my blog, so sometimes my posts will be about whatever I feel like.