By Mez Moffat, Member of Baranduda Landcare, participant in Nest Box Watchings, Clean Up Australia Day and Plant Trees events.
Living lightly is great terminology to use with our children and as a parents of three boys, we do our best to live as lightly as possible. When asked to write an article here, I was unsure what to discuss.
We sat as a family to create a list of the things we do that help our environment. I was overwhelmed with my children’s responses and the list speaks for itself. These are only half the ideas but I’ve chosen them as possibly new ideas for other families with children. We hope you will read a new idea and implement this in your family too. Enjoy!
- Each birthday we plant a tree as part of the special day’s celebration.
- Left over water from drink bottles is tipped into the kettle to be boiled for safe re-use.
- No Glad Wrap – only reusable containers in our home!
- Teaching children to decide if clothing is REALLY dirty or can be worn another day to lessen washing.
- Fly swats – no sprays/chemicals!!!
- 2 composts and a worm farm- such fun to dig in!!!
- Turn all switches off at the wall- the children do this automatically now but the adults need reminding!?
- Wake up and open curtains – no lights on during the day – let the sunlight in!
- If the shower is too hot, turn the hot water temperature down, not add more cold.
- Gradually changing whole garden beds to drought tolerant plants and adding water saving crystals.
- Water plants overnight with automatic sprinklers and pots with water from the washing machine.
- Walk, ride, scoot, run, jog, slide whenever we can.
- We keep and reuse almost every envelope – always handy and saves paper= trees!
- Our children know how to keep our shower and bath clean and hence, chemical free, by rubbing the surfaces down with a towel straight after use to keep damp and mould away! Takes 2 minutes and saves lots of hard work!
- 3 bins under our sink : BIG recycle bin for MOST things; compost bin for MOST food; and small landfill bin for other ”hard” rubbish. Easy to see and use!
- Grey Water is collected from washing machine and used on pot plants- with the children helping to carry buckets.
- We grow and eat vegies that are in season- lots of them! We have 13 varieties at the moment. Harvesting is the best afternoon activity ever!