We’ve had a great weekend celebrating Mother Earth. To me, Earth Day is something that should happen on a daily basis. Little things can be done every day to help.
Replacing regular lightbulbs with CFL’s (Compact flourescent light) is one very easy thing we can all do. I pledge to have all of the lights (18) in my home changed to CFL’s by the years end. Right now half have been switched over. Thanks to a post on TreeHugger, I got a free CFL at Home Depot today. They weren’t exactly handing them out, or even advertising this. I had to go to the customer service counter and ask for one. Still, easy enough.
Being Earth Day and all, I thought now would be a good time to introduce my family’s new earth friendly vehicle. She is a 1983 Mercedes wagon- turbo diesel, which means she can run on biodiesel. What is even more impressive about her is that she has been converted to run on used vegetable oil (from restaurants). We managed to make a deal with a restaurant owner- He saves all his used oil and we pick it up on a weekly basis. It’s free to us and saves him having to pay someone else to dispose of it. Besides being labor intensive for my wonderful husband (getting, filtering and storing), it really feels great driving around petrol free! So what if we smell a little like chinese food as we drive down the road. A whole heck of a lot better than the smell of diesel or gasoline.
There is so much more that I do on a daily basis, like recycling, conserving water and energy where I can, eating vegan, buying thrifted etc. I just want to do what I can to tread as lightly as possible on this beautiful green earth. I do it for myself and for my very precious children, ALL children really, because they are our future and what a great way to really let them know we care.
I love my CFL’s! They are so bright and last for a long time and make me feel sooo earth friendly!
happy belated earth day sista;) love Aunt Jenny
I*heart* your car. I am on the look out for an old Mercedes diesel myself. Thanks for the inspirado. ( we set up and outdoor clothesline for Earthday this year.. last year we bought a composter. maybe next year I get my dream car.)
Your children are so beautiful, looks like a fun filled Earth day.
Woah! That’s awesome, a veggie oil car. I am SOOOO freakin’ impressed! Good on you, your family are champions!
(p.s. the Australian government announced this year that they are phasing out incandescent light bulbs over the next 3 years, so after that we’ll all only have the energy efficient ones, that’s cool huh!)
We also changed all our bulbs to CF and saved 50 bucks on our last hydro bill! We are also trying out a few LED lights (available on ebay) but since they don’t cast as much light as the CFs you would have to be wise where you placed them.
Like Flossy mentioned- Canada too is on the way to phasing out incandesent bulbs- Yahoo!!
Now I need a BioDiesel car… Does the car have to be older to run on biodiesel??
I hope you don’t mind that I used your link with the little earthy guy above… to add to my blog. I couldn’t find one on the website.
What a delicious bit of info. Glad to see there are other people who are conscious about our Earth!