i'm starting with the (wo)man in the mirror....

i read a very interesting article in the star today regarding recycling (the article is also available at the star online recycling routine). of late, a lot of attention has been given to greening the earth & the 3r's. since my younger days, we used to segregate our rubbish - the newspapers & glass items to be sold to the ane who comes around to buy the items. at 5sens a bottle (which was a lot way back then...yes, i am coming to the hill soon), everytime the man came a-calling, you would see kids running out & waving him, to sell the recyclable items. we did not get all the money from selling the items though (it went back to the mother) but we would get like 20sens or so to run out excitedly again when we heard the ice-cream man (no, no haagen dazs back then) or the gula ketuk uncle.


i guess as the ane passed on, the thought of recycling your items soon phased out maybe because of the simple fact that you did not know where to dispose of the recycables (yes, moi is also guilty of such). but having an environmentalist of a daughter helped in a sense that we have stopped to ask ourselves 'how can we, in a little way make a difference?'. yes, in a household of three, what we do is only a ripple in the ocean but a little goes a long way. i want to leave to my child & all precious to me, a healthier earth. so starting with the person we look at every time we look at the mirror, we have or are trying to:

• stop eating sharks fin soup due to the inhumane way the sharks are finned & thrown back into the sea to bleed to death. for more details go here. this delicacy used to be my fave especially when i was preggers with my first child. and the irony of it is she who made us stop. so there, no more sharks fin soup. (trust me, you don't want to get her started on lecturing on how its bad or what is contained in a cigarette. she tried that on a friend once & he simply doesn't smoke in front of her)
• reduce intake of meat both for environmental & health reasons
• bring our own shopping bags instead of using plastic bags. if we happen to do improptu shopping, if we can we'll just stuff it in my handbag if possible & if we really must use a plastic bag, try to put it all in one bag.
• separate our rubbish. we don't need those huge 'brown brown glass, paper blue blue' bins (remember the recycling campaign song, err i forgot the rest). for home use, you can buy the bins with lids from ikea & stack it up one on the other (view here). its neat, can be stored/tucked away neatly without being an eye-sore to store your recyclables till you have enough to put it out for disposal.
• use environmental friendly products & organic produce.
• plant greens. i have a little garden on my balcony with greens, vegetables & flowers. would like to add more but hubby grumbling too many already. baru nak ambik the lavender rose to replant. maybe i'll do it when he's not around (not that he would notice anyway).
• reduce energy consumption when & where possible.

wanna know what is your carbon footprint? try this. it also gives you tips on how to adopt new habits for a better earth.

i'm starting with the man in the mirror
i'm asking him to change his ways
and no message could have been any clearer
if you wanna make the world a better place
take a look at yourself & then make a change

michael jackson's man in the mirror