What personally do you do that helps make this Earth a greener one?
For the options that you DID select, how easy were they to implement?
Some were easier than others. Recycling in my area, until recently, was either non-existent or would require me to haul stuff miles to a recycling center.
I have always been interested in reusing things, however. One of my fellow Master Gardener's is known as the Compost Queen in our county, and I am her Compost Princess, because I'm the next most avid composter (sorry, don't do worm composting!). Composting is *much* easier than you think.
For your "other" category, my business is to help my clients xeriscape and use plantings wisely in a way that will support our local wildlife. It used to be you never saw, say, bluebirds around here. Now our area is full of them, because part of my work with the project to have our "city" (Chamblee) declared a National Community Wildlife Habitat (first in the SE U.S.!) involved...you guessed -- helping neighbors and businesses tweak their land to support the local wildlife.
We've had several years of droughts here in Atlanta, but my front yard, which is more a butterfly garden than anything, is doing just fine, and with no watering. When I do water one area, which is infrequently, I use a drip irrigation system that uses as little water as possible and delivers it only to the plants that require it. Very little water is lost to evaporation. NEVER EVER USE A SPRINKLER DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS!!! 80-90% of your water just evaporates. What a freakin' waste!
At some point in the next few years our kids will be out of the house and a smaller car will do for when I'm not on the job. I'm waiting with bated breath for plug-in hybrids to come out (like they are in other countries). Frankly, for an around town car, I should need to use very little fuel of any sort.
Here's a good site on that:
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?p=868185&posted=1#post868185
And by all means, watch the documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car?"
Toxic household and garden chemicals: Well, first off I'm an organic gardener. As for the house, I'm a chemist and I'm cheap. I know darn well how the marketers manipulate us to buy their overpriced crap when mere soap and water would do just as well. In some case, isopropyl alcohol can be used where a disinfectant is absolutely necessary (think "raw chicken" ack). I have never seen the point of buying scads of cleaning materials and wasting my money and breathing toxic fumes.
Now, with the corn allergy, I'm even more careful about what I use.
Also, for those of you who use anti-bacterial soaps...STOP! The World Health Organization has been trying to get us stupid Americans to knock it off for years, but we're all too bloody scared of GERMS and are clueless that we are helping breed superbugs. sheesh. Just use good old soap and water and *friction* and it works just as well and won't harm anything.
Oh, by the way, that hand sanitizer stuff is very dangerous for children, since it's ethyl alcohol and about 120 proof. If you have gluten allergy, you are also poisoning yourself -- it's grain alcohol after all.
For those options that you did NOT select, why do you not do them?
I "work" at home or if I work elsewhere, it requires a spacious vehicle to haul plants and equipment. Taking public transport with trees and shrubs is not much of an option. And it leaves me with a vehicle that doesn't get 35+ mpg. I do get 25mpg in town though (I always beat the mileage ratings, even when the car is old, because I know how to minimize gas usage by how I drive.)
We did choose to live where we do because it was close to where we worked at the time. It's a 5 minute drive -- well that's grown to 15 minutes for where my husband is now. Still, for Atlanta that's a very short commute. He mostly works upstairs these days anyway, but occasionally he has to show up on a client site.
As for other reasons why I don't walk or bike, anyone living in Atlanta could probably tell you it's hardly set up for pedestrians. The grocery store a mile from us closed, and even if it were open I'm stuck with shopping at a variety of health food stores and markets to find things I can actually eat, so that gets interesting. I certainly make my shopping trips most efficient by clustering them, but then I've always done that. It's just a more efficient use of my time (not to mention gas).
I don't dishwash by hand at home, but I selected the dishwasher I have to use the most minimal amount of water. Frankly, I make up for that bit of water loss by using grey water in my landscape. It's amazing how much water gets wasted in the shower just in the process of getting wet all over. Stand there with a bucket and collect it, and move it away when you're rinsing the soap off.
Oh my...this is rather long. Uh...sorry sometimes I type too fast for my own good, and this is a subject rather dear to my heart.