Looking Beyond the Light Switch

Being environmentally friendly is “in.” For years you’ve been told to switch the light off when you leave the room and turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth. These actions, though helpful, are just the tip of the iceberg.

To live green you need to look beyond the light switch and the faucet. A good next step is to take into account the ingredients – carcinogen, chemical and preservative – in the products you consume on a daily basis, such as the pesticides on the food you eat and the preservatives in the personal care products you use. The uncomfortable truth is, living sustainably is a complete lifestyle shift that requires you to be conscious of how your purchasing decisions impact the planet.    

Making the change is already daunting but making matters worse is all the misinformation that is readily available. So, whom can you trust? Here are three expert resources that give you the facts: 

1. Adria Vasil

To date, Vasil has written three books that make up her Ecoholic series: Ecoholic, Ecoholic Home and Ecoholic Body. Her books illustrate how you can do anything from greening your food to detoxifying your home. Vasil’s accompanying website also features a list of trustworthy sites on sustainable beauty, clothing and health.

2. Tovah Paglaro

Paglaro, better known as David Suzuki’s Queen of Green, uses her blog to not only answer questions submitted by readers but also to provide do-it-yourself tips, recipes and how-to videos. Her approach allows you to make changes simply by using common household items. 

3. The Skin Deep Cosmetics Database from the Environmental Working Group

As the world’s largest personal care products safety guide, Skin Deep compares “the ingredients on personal care product labels and websites to information in nearly 60 toxicity and regulatory databases.” Each product comes with a rating of low hazard, moderate hazard or high hazard so you can make informed decisions for your health and well-being. They also provide EWG guides on other topics, such as pesticides on products, healthy cleaning and the Meat-Eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health.

A word of advice before you begin to embark on this transition: Don’t tackle everything at once. If you do, it won’t take long before you feel overwhelmed and lose the drive to make the necessary changes. Instead, focus on one part of your life at a time, whether that’s cleaning products or personal care. Once you’ve got one area in order, then move on to the next. Slowly but surely you’ll transform the world around you and build a lifestyle that will benefit both you and the planet. 

And of course, we’re amassing our own sustainable living resources here at A\J: check out the Sustainable Living section of our site and the new Green Living blog from our partners at Green Living Online.

Inderjit Deogun believes the earth deserves saving. With her nose almost always stuck in a book and her brain on the environment, she has found her calling in both literature and climate change. Inderjit has a background in traditional publishing and communications.