About a year and a half ago, I wrote a few posts on living green. You can find them here and here. Pat and I continue to try to live in a way that minimizes waste, saves water, and cares for the environment. One of the things I’ve been learning more recently is that in our current life stage, we can’t do it all. Free time is scarce with 3 young kids, and if hanging laundry outside to dry takes away precious time to be present with my children, I can’t do it. Later I can, but not now.

With living green, there is definitely a wide range when it comes to convenience. I’ve ordered the following 5 things we’ve been doing from easy to more time consuming. We do our best and leave it at that.

Replace disposable sponges with reusable ones: I had an epiphany earlier this year when I discovered that you can buy reusable sponges! After trying out several different kinds that I didn’t like, I found these at a local market and love them. I use the ones shown above for dishwashing and these for wiping counters. They get dirty pretty quickly, usually after a few days, I just throw them in the laundry and hang them to dry.

Shop the bulk section when you can: I buy beans, raisins, and flours in bulk and try to bring along my reusable produce bags to bring them home in. Whole Foods has a great bulk section and if you’re in my area, Country Sun in Palo Alto is also great. *I just saw last night that Whole Foods is having it’s 20% off bulk sale next week!

Buy a Tea Ball and loose leaf tea, instead of tea bags: I drink tea every morning. After using tea bags for years and years, I finally bought a stainless steel mesh tea ball and a tin of loose leaf tea. You just fill up the tea ball with your desired amount of loose leaf tea, add hot water, and remove when it’s done. I’ve since discovered that you can buy loose leaf tea in bulk.

Make your own body wash and use eco-friendly shampoos and conditioners: You’ll read below that we recently installed a grey water system. In preparation, we needed to convert the shower products we were using to grey water friendly ones. I followed a simple recipe to make body wash and we started using Aubrey Organic shampoo and conditioner. Grey water friendly products come from companies who take greater measures to care for the environment.

Install a grey water system: Ok, this one, is very time consuming and not cheap. Pat was the one who made this happen. Grey water is reusing water from your showers, bathroom sinks, and laundry to irrigate your yard. We remodeled our house last year and during the construction phase, Pat got plans drawn up for a grey water system. We did some of the initial piping work then and more recently, had someone install a system to run from our master bathroom shower and sink, and powder room sink to irrigate our backyard fruit trees. We hope to route a line from our laundry into this system as well and maybe in the future, do a system from another bathroom into our front yard. One of the easier things to do is the laundry system. We live in the bay area and it hasn’t rained for months, water is scarce around here. Let me know if you want our contact!