“Großer Geist, bewahre mich davor, über einen Menschen zu urteilen, ehe ich nicht eine Meile in seinen Mokassins gegangen bin.” – Indianisches Sprichwort

some eco-friendly points i do right now:

- the plants in our garden are very bird-friendly: no thuja hedges, but bushes with berries…
- the leaves under the bushes are not raked over the winter to give the little animals some shelter… (you should see the eye-rolling of my neighbor; yes, the one with the thujas;))
- all organics go to the compost
- i seldom take a bath but prefer showers (and not every day: better for the skin, too!); saves a lot of water
- plastic, paper, glass etc are recycled; we bring them to a collecting point every second week…
- when the kids were little, we were very conscious about the toys… avoiding cadmium (or other harmful) – containing plastics etc. (i remember red and orange plastics often contained cadmium!)
- we have a new heating installation since 2 years now. the installation was not cheap, but now we only need a third of the gas amount! (so it will even pay off for our purse…)
- i mostly use only two cleaning solutions in my house: vinegar (against the limescale) and soft soap (for the water to clean up the floor). not much more needed…
- i´m riding all the ways in our little town with the bike… we only have one car in our family
- our car was bought considering the mileage

update: i forgot to mention: i don´t put on the washing machine on mondays! the reason therefore is that the energy companies plan their nuclear power plants according to the times of highest energy consumption. and that is very high on mondays, as most housewifes didn´t wash on sunday and start being busy on mondays… so you can straighten out the energy usage if you make a lazy monday, hehe… (good excuse, hugh?)

well, i´m no saint at all;), i could improve for sure:

- in general i prefer ecological produced food… but if it isn´t available where i buy most of the rest, i often don´t go to another place (too lazy…)
- i´m not a fashion victim; but i think i would prefere the look of clothing over the fabrication – i don´t ask about explicitly (though i´m happy to see an eco-label inside; but that´s by chance, not because i had demanded for…)
- i did not use cotton diapers when my kids were litte… it was much more comfortable to take pampers etc…
- i love to have it warm in the winter. i could reduce the temperature in the livingroom two degrees for sure… but i love to wear t-shirts only inside the house (so we could reduce our heating; but the new installation somewhat salves my conscience;))
- making art i sometimes use things with the inscription “only use outside; take care for good ventilation”. well, the odors tell you they can´t be healty and are for sure not eco-friendly… but sometimes it´s just hard to abstain…

seit ein paar jahren gibt es im november den “world usability day”.

hier ein foto von 2006;)