Not only am I a vegan, I also believe in buying locally. I hope to learn how to grow my own food.

Rather than throw out plastic grocery bags, I have a wire frame I hang it on for garbage. I haven't bought a plastic garbage bag in years. Since deli, dairy, etc. containers are good enough for the product sold at the grocers, they're good enough formy leftovers. Why buy plastic containers?

I compost all my Kitchen scraps using a kitchen composter purchased at Costco. It does use electricity, and takes a little getting used to (i.e., I've found that if I chop everything into smaller pieces they digest easier). The kitchen comoster starts a culture by adding a little sample of your soil, then after adding a mix of sawdust and baking soda it uses a rotation/heating process to make compost within a week. After having the machine a few months I've been able to add compost to several spots in my yard. I still compost on a larger scale but the kitchen composter is a handy shortcut!

I use flow restrictors to save water, and take it one step further. I turn the water down to a small stream for hair washing/rinsing, then off for soaping up, finishing with a higher strength short burst for rinsing prior to exiting the shower.

We are saving for an energy efficient water heater, but in the meantime, because it takes just over a gallon of water flow to get the hot water to the kitchen sink (we wash dishes by hand) we always fill up gallon jugs of the cold water to use later for houseplants, deck pots, or even to wash our vehicles.

I bought an old house with asbestos siding. Because of the age of the house, it was likely that the walls weren't insulated at all. But because of the siding, it would have been messy and cost-prohibitive to check the existing insulation. So I got Nor-Pac to come out and put up vinyl-clad steel-based siding with an insulation barrier that brings it up to R-11, even with no insulation in the walls.

In addition to all the other ideas I already posted, I also pay my bills and shop online, eliminating postage, gas, etc. I add vinegar to my wash to eliminate the need for chemical fabric softeners.

Overpopulation is at the root of EVERY environmental problem that we have. While things like recycling are valuable, having fewer kids is a hundred times more valuable.

I have been doing much of this my whole adult life. 1. Compost! 2. Dry clothes outside or on drying racks 3. Growing food/herbs, etc. 4. Saving water in the shower by letting it run into a bucket till it warms up, using water in bucket for pet dishes, watering plants, etc. Also use water that has been used to warm thermoses, etc. same way. Put bottles of water in toilet tank. 5. Always use cloth bags for shopping. 6. Wrap gifts in re-usable materials, receiving blankets or cloth diapers for baby gifts (use diaper pins to secure), re-usable shopping bags instead of gift bags, diaper bags full of goodies for baby gifts, baskets, etc. 7. I am now a grandmother but when raising my children in the 70's/80's, used cloth diapers, which were dried outside. 8. Repurpose, re-use, recyle EVERYTHING. Plant in all kinds of objects, from old toilets, wheelbarrows to old kitchen pots. 9. Give green gifts, such as potted herbs, baskets, etc. 10. Always shop thrift stores, Habitat for Humanity bldg. supplies, on-line classifieds, etc. 2good2toss is a favorite. 11. Buy fixer homes, update, fix, etc. w/recycled, found materials, etc. Much of the material comes free and would go into landfill if we didn't rescue. 12. Garden w/regional plants that need little water, NO high maintenance lawns, utilizing found objects, rocks, bricks, etc. 13. Scour backs of home improvement stores for 'free' materials that would normally go to landfill. Much good wood found this way, and stores are happy to have us haul it away for our home/yard improvement projects. There's much more but that's all I can think of right now.

Have any green ideas? Post them here!