This week we had a get together at our house. Our daughter graduated from high school and we had about 100 people come to the open house celebration. My wife worked tirelessly preparing food and getting the house ready. So it is fitting that we are working to have as little impact on the environment as we can. Our daughter has been the catalyst of change in our house. She is the one that has opened our eyes to issues like organic food, global warming and fair trade.

So some of the things we did for the party are we combined it with another family. So instead of two parties there was one. We have been friends with the other family for 10 years and it was really fun to work together. We are being very conscience of the waste. We are making sure that we recycle as much of the refuse as possible. I have literally been going through all the trash and moving as much as possible in the recycle bins.  The end of result is that we will recycle at least 75% of our waste.

Our daughter is the one that showed us the light. We have shared a car since she was 16 instead of us adding another vehicle to the family. I now take public transportation when I go to the airport. We eat better. We recycle more. We also have consolidated trips and buy organic food and use local markets. We understand that we can get “greener” every day. So I do this work, digging through the trash, with a smile on my face. What a pleasure.