Happy Earth Day!

I've been trying to be more responsible when it comes to our family's carbon footprint. When you have a large family, sometimes it seems like we make a HUGE impact on the environment in many ways. This past year we starting to recycle. I used to save our recyclables and take them to another town to drop off. What a pain! Finally our town (after much upheaval and controversy) made it possible to have curbside recycling. Of course the upheaval and controversy only made it possible if you paid for recycling. For $7.50 a month, we can get a bimonthly pick up. It's totally worth it. We used to have 4+ overflowing 30 gallon trash cans each week to be hauled to the landfill. Now we only fill 1/2 ONE 30 gallon trash can. Our recycling 45 gallon bin is completely full or overflowing every two weeks. I feel this is making a difference even if we do have to pay for it. You pay for it one way or another. I wish the majority of our town could see this.

I made reusable napkins. One yard gave us 6 napkins. I made them a little smaller than what I saw other people in blogland doing but this size works just fine. I have 2 more yards of fabric to make into napkins too. It only took about 90 minutes. We don't normally use napkins or paper towels but the kids like to wipe their mouths and hands on their clothes so hopefully we learn some manners as we use our fun napkins.

I hate plastic water bottles. I really don't see why we have to buy water when we can get it out of the faucet for pennies. However my husband feels differently. The kids follow his lead. I am really going to try to get rid of the plastic water bottle usage this summer. We found aluminum water bottles on sale a couple weeks ago and everyone picked one out. We are going to use them on vacation and throughout the summer. Everyone knows their color and I'm hoping it will cut down on the number of cups we have to wash every day too by using the same water bottle throughout the day.

Happy Earth Day to you!