Earth Day is a big deal in the SF Bay Area, but I’ll leave the public displays and überpreaching to others who get into those kinds of things.

I do my part by being frugal.  I’m not making any particular effort, it’s the way I was raised.

My parents had very little as children, to say the least, and these immigrant families had to struggle just to survive.  My Mom and Dad were always cognizant of their use of anything, so it was part of my world not to be wasteful, which results in kindness to your pocketbook and the environment.

Here are a few “green” things I do:

I’m big into funnels.  Funnels that funnel from large containers into small ones.  I do this with vinegar, soy sauce, cooking oil – whatever I can buy in large containers at places like Smart & Final and Costco.

I also have a large set of professional, food-grade plastic storage bins that I use for flour, sugar, rice, cornmeal, and about 25 other dry products.  Not only do they make access to these things easier, particularly flours, but they save the world from all that packaging.

I buy enviornmentally-friendy cleaning and laundry products from Costco – their own line.  There is a multi-use cleaner (great for the black surface that lives under the grates on my KitchenAid range, by the way – no streaks), dish detergent and laundry soap.

I use spray cleaner and bacteria-resistant cloth towels for clean-up rather than disposibles.

I make sun (or counter) iced tea in a one-gallon jug and do not buy bottled drinks.

You’d be amazed how little things like this add up.