When my son was just 6 months old, I started to switch my daily routine into something that was more eco friendly. I had attended a seminar about household toxins and it opened my eyes up in a different way. With a small, crawling, drooling baby at home I began to think about what he was touching and consuming. It was the start of many years of change.
I think for many of us, the process to go green isn’t something that happens overnight, but something that we gradually, with thought and care, begin to do. Then, once we have a new routine and habits formed, it becomes part of our every day lives.
Even after seven years of being more eco-conscious, I am still learning about ways to be a better consumer and a more green citizen. There is so much to learn, much of it overwhelming, and with access to websites and news updates, there seems to be an endless amount of information.
I’ve written about my attempts to be more green by reducing toxic exposure, recycling and composting more, buying sustainable products etc. on this blog before and the one message I hope is relayed often is that these steps don’t need to all be taken at once and that many small changes over the course of time add up.
The other thing is to ask when in doubt. There is so much information out there, much of my guidance has come from not only researching for myself and reading blogs or websites, but from friends who have done the research too, that sometimes just asking someone else will help narrow the search.
Blog advertiser terra20 is a great resource for information on how to go green, how to find eco friendly products and what a lot of the jargon means. Not only do they provide a whole store full of wonderful green and natural options for the home, our skin, our children etc. but their carefully crafted blog posts (like this one on cosmetic FAQs) are well researched, and written so everyone can understand them. We don’t need to be eco-experts!
Enter to Win!
Have you made the change to go green in some/many areas of your life? Have you switched your cleaners? Your make up? Are you a green lunch kind of family? terra20 wants to know what made you make the switch – was it information you read, an event you went to, chatting with friends over coffee?
To Win a $100 Gift Card from terra20, simply comment below and tell us:
What made you make the switch to something that is more eco friendly? If you haven’t switched yet, what do you find is the biggest impediment or what would help you take that next step?
Comment below for your chance to win!
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Details: Giveaway is open to Ottawa area residents, excluding Quebec. One random winner will win a $100 terra20 gift card to be picked up in either store, to be determined with the winner. Giveaway closes on Sunday Monday, November 25 at 9 pm EST. One entry per person.
I kept hearing about Nellie’s and finally made the switch, just for the kid’s clothes at first. It’s great, it smells nice, and it works really well. I do need to buy more though…
i started around the same time as you – when my son was about 6 months old. i was using ivory snow to clean his clothes and i kept noticing a rash on his cheeks. i switched to an organic cleaning detergent..then dishwashing soap, hygiene products, and replaced all cleaning products too. what a difference! i told l everyone i know to do the same..
I don’t really remember when during my adults years I switched to healthy home and personal care items. I do remember cleaning my apartment in university only with Seventh Generation, so it has been at least 17 years!
We do not use disposable products in our house, with the exception of toilet paper. Even that has been tinkered with and we have tried family cloth, but decided to wait until the girls are older to revisit it. Anything that can be done more environmentally, we do. I hang to dry 90% of laundry (year round, drying only towels in the dryer). Use alternatives to the car as much as possible, and teach the children that our world is precious and to respect it.
The area we’re probably greenest is in food storage. We no longer use disposable containers.
I also try to clean with vinegar and baking soda instead of harsh chemicals, but that’s probably an area I could be more diligent in. I find that in general, the cost or ease of finding products is the biggest barrier. Terra20 has helped with that.
I’ve always had sensitive skin so my laundry detergents and soaps have always been unscented, but it was when we started cloth diapering my daughter that I learned about laundry detergents and switched to Nellie’s. We also use reusable dryer sheets and balls and I hang a lot of our clothes to dry.
Thanks for a great giveaway 🙂
It was actually the blogging world that has lead me to a greener lifestyle! So much great information and encouragement that I have been convinced to make some of those changes.
We have always been great for not taking plastic bags at stores, composting, re-usable lunch containers.. but now I am switching the household cleaners. The one area I need HELP in is cosmetics! I need to eliminate the chemicals I am putting on my own face/boyd! If I won the gift card I would head straight to the cosmetic counter!!!
I was a little late to the game, but have started to make the switch. When I started really reading labels I didn’t like what my kids were being exposed to. And once I tried and saw that the cleaning products and laundry stuff worked as well as my “chemical” ones it was a no brainier for me.
I have been making small adjustments over the years to things that are more eco friendly AND body friendly. The changes were mostly due to the number of chemicals, additives, unnatural materials that are included in so many products now, so unnecessary. My next step is moving towards more eco-friendly clothing options and cosmetics, as we’ve adjusted our food, toiletry, and cleaning products already.
We’re having our first baby in March, and our easiest decision (among the gazillions of parenting choices to make!) was to try cloth diapering. It just makes sense to us – why would we commit to the financial and environmental costs of disposables when we could give cloth a fair try? We were able to borrow a lot of different cloth diaper styles from a friend, and there are loads of swap groups and store trials to help us along. Choosing to cloth diaper has also made us look at better laundry soap options, like Nellie’s, and we’re eager to make the switch before baby arrives.
I bring my lunch everyday in reusable containers and use the diva cup!
When my daughter was born I wanted to make sure she used products that were as chemical-free and as natural as possible. We used cloth diapers, purchased Green Beaver products and ate as much organic food as possible. Since then our entire family has become more green, and we’ll never go back!
Water! I wasn’t drinking enough, o with my glass bottle now I add different fresh fruit for flavour.
I read “There’s Lead in Your Lipstick,” which made me change most of my makeup products. I’ll admit though that I need to purchase some organic mascara….hard to know which ones are good, and you don’t want to spend $25 on a product that sucks!
Hi Misty! If you come into terra20, our cosmetics specialists can help you with trying out the mascara so you can see of you like it. My personal recommendation is Gabriel brand.
I changed over by starting with better shaving and facial products for sensitive skin.
we always takes bins or bags to the grocery store, so we don’t have so many plastic bags to throw in the garbage – we use our green bin, blue bin, and black bin faithfully for recycling. I buy natural/organic products when i can- not all the time though – the cost of these items is an impediment.
The area we are greenest is food storage and lunches, we use reusable containers rather than disposable!
It was a gradual switch for me, but has hit most areas of our household. What really helped me was a podcast I loved listening to that, while amusing me, had lots of information, experience and science behind it. Sadly the podcast isn’t around any more, but the change it made in my household and thinking is permanent.
Switching to more environmentally friendly products and habits for me was because of a variety of reasons including having my son and being concerned about what he eats, what I put on his skin, etc. My husbands family are the leaders of our local Sierra Club so I learn a lot from them. It is always an ongoing process though. Right now we have a litterless lunch, use reusable bags, buy/grow organic food, compost, and use only natural products on the kids but I need to to switch to more natural products for myself including makeup and deodorant which I use every day.
When our little one was 8 months or so we switched over all our household cleaners
We made the switch to all-natural household cleaning products when we got our first bi-weekly housekeeper about a decade ago and she insisted on it! We’ve stuck with it since then. I definitely like that there are so many more and better products out there and they have become more affordable over the years. Cost and availability have definitely been barriers to me over the years but when something is important, you prioritize it! I readily confess to not doing it for my own personal care products but I’ve done it for the kids’ products. Interesting.
Love using the laundry tarts, and got my mother gifts for purple urchin. Step by step…
We use green cleaners – partly because we are on well/septic and partly because we have young babes in the house. Next I’d like to try more natural make-up products to see how they are!
When I read how many carcinogens are in our basic personal care products, I was shocked. I started switching to more eco-friendly alternatives a few years ago. Why would you want to put horrible things on your body? Healthy things only, please!
I would like to be be more eco friendly but we’ve started slowly switching cleaning products and reducing the amount of plastics in the house. I’m more conscious of it when it come to products my kids use or are exposed to.
Once I started using cloth diapers and their requirement for no-frills detergent.
We try to be as environmental as possible but cost can be an impediment. Also, the lack of “real” information can be frustrating.
I’ve been using eco friendly or green products for many years now especially with 4 kids in the house. I’ve been shopping at Terra 20 for all of my cosmetics and household cleaners since they opened. I still shop at a few organic boutiques to spread the wealth around but having this g.c to Terra 20 would make my Christmas!
We have started to switch over to green household cleaners next we would like to move to switching our detergent.
We are currently waiting on our house to be built and we are planning to make the switch over to more green products when move.
I started by switching out my makeup first and then laundry soap!
The cost is a bit higher but well worth it!
Prior to having children, we were already well versed in our lunch containers; we used either glass or ceramic. When our little people came along, we started with our cleaners and gradually made the switch to cloth diapers, laundry detergent and more of our clothing options. What a great giveaway!!!