Mother's going GREEN Day 103 - Tree Planting

Tree planting or in this case tree rescue. My husbands place of work was getting rid of some of their potted trees. Apparently they were going to be replaced with different more attractive trees. These trees were headed for the garbage.

Now trees are very important to the environment just in case you did not know here are some interesting fun facts:

-- Trees keep our air supply fresh by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.

-- In one year, an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driven up to 8700 miles.

-- they provide shade and shelter, reducing yearly heating and cooling costs by 2.1 billion dollars.

-- A tree does not reach its most productive stage of carbon storage for about 10 years.

-- Trees cut down noise pollution by acting as sound barriers.

-- Tree roots stabilize the soil and prevent erosion.

-- The death of one 70-year old tree would return over three tons of carbon to the atmosphere.

any for many more facts on trees visit this site.

Because of this, my husband took the opportunity to rescue a couple of these trees and we have planted them in our garden.

In my opinion we should not be replacing trees but just growing more and more.

Mother's going GREEN Day 85 - Trip Planning

This concept, Trip Planning, is not something new for my family. I would say I have been practising this since I had children. It is only lately that I learned it is a green action. Just goes to show you that some of your habits and actions maybe green and you don't even know it yet.

Trip planning is planning your trip so that you are not running multiple errands separately. This is especially important when you are driving.

For example if you need to say go to the post office, pick up some milk and drop your kid at an extra curricular activity - then you plan out your trip. Not go and pick up the milk in the morning, return home and then after lunch go to the post office and return home and then late afternoon deliver your kid to his karate practise. Instead you leave a little early for the karate pick up the milk and go to the post office on the way to the karate lesson. This saves huge amounts of gas, energy and reduces your carbon emissions.

Since I am using karate lessons - you can guess my son does karate. Instead of dropping him off and returning home only to pick him up later. I either stay and watch the practise or I take my little ones and go for a walk and do some 'window shopping' again saving some milage, gas, and carbon emissions.

On a side note I was impressed by my husbands green action. I came downstairs after settling our little one down for the night and noticed our garbage can in the middle of the driveway with the lid open in the pouring rain. Puzzled by this I ask my husband what he was doing. "I am washing it out. I figured instead of using the garden hose to rinse it out. I would collect some rain water in it instead and use that to rinse it out." was his confident response. WOW was my reaction - this green thing does rub off on him in little ways. Way to go hubby for thinking green.