Round One: going green gradually goals

This journey would not be complete without setting goals and since I feel you can't go natural, green, organic or environmentally friendly overnight (well, you probably can but ...), it's best to start with a list and check back and see how we're doing.

I happened upon a website called Practically Green. You take their quiz and it gives you tips on being even greener! Our score came up that our family was "solidly green" but still had some work to do on improving. If I would have taken this quiz two months ago, I'm pretty sure I would have scored lower so we have made some strides since we started.

The one thing I really like is it easily helps you understand why your family should do the action you're not doing.

For example: Why is "Buy hormone-free dairy regularly" green?

Hormone-free dairy products avoid the use of the bovine growth hormones rBGH and rBST. The European Union, Japan, Canada, and New Zealand have banned use of the hormones over concerns related to both animal and human health. The Cancer Prevention Coalition and American Public Health Association have asked the US Government to ban manufacture and sale of these hormones due to concerns about it causing excess levels of IGF-1 which can in turn causes breast, colon, and prostate cancers and reduce resistance to other forms of cancer.

Hormone-free does not mean organic or that the cow had access to pasture so some of the nutritional and environmental benefits of organic milk are not necessarily the same for hormone-free milk.

They also help on where to buy and how to buy. AWESOME! Exactly the website I need to help me stay in check.

So, where does my family start? Here is our green list:

1) Eat more local and seasonal food
2) Line dry our clothes
3) Use green/natural beauty products (for mom, dad and toddler)
4) Carry and use our own shopping bags, using more reusable products
5) Learn to compost
6) Car pool, bike or walk more
7) Get smarter about recycling
8) Reduce the amount of energy our family uses
9) Buy green household cleaning products
10) Reduce our water usage

Over the next week, I'm going to focus on what each one of these goals means and where we'll head with them. If you're out there reading and have some advice, suggestion or comment, I would LOVE to hear them I couldn't do this with out the help of all the new sites, my friends on Facebook and fabulous folks I have found on Twitter.