Living Green and Saving the Environment

Or, at least starting to learn how to live green and help save the environment. I've never been one to think too much about saving the environment but in the last few years I've started to get onboard. I'm lucky enough to live just over an hour to Yosemite National Park and it's one of my favorite places in the world. I would hate to think that beautiful place would not be here, or be as beautiful, for new generations to enjoy, in 25 years, 50 years or 100 years from now.

A few years ago, I worked on a political campaign for a business colleague and friend. She didn't win but I learned a little bit about helping to save the environment. Now, I intentionally don't live where I can walk to the store, to lunch, etc. but I can hire a gardener and use green gardening tools instead of gas powered mowers, edgers, etc.

And, I'm a salesperson for a company selling hospitality, paper and janitorial products and in the last 12-18 months more and more hotels are requesting green products. Many of our vendors that make up our product lines (P & G, Kimberly Clark, etc.) are developing more and more products that are easily recycled, and green. In addition to that, many of these companies are also changing the way they work - one is intentionally using less paper with a commitment to lower their use annually, another now builds more factories across the country so they don't have to run trucks using more gas and polluting the air, and other methods of how they can work more efficiently they would not have considered just a few short years ago.

The company I work for serves the hospitality (and janitorial) customers in the San Francisco Bay Area and it's with the hotels where we really see the changes coming. More and more hotels are requesting green products. When I stayed at a hotel in the SF peninsula last spring, I was stunned to see signs in our room instructing us in how to recycle our garbage, complete with different wastebaskets. I was quite surprised but it has helped me realize we all need to jump on this bandwagon.