Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

April 22, 2012

Greener postures

Your Maine neighbors are taking a variety of steps – worm composting, recycling, green cleaning – to make their lives more environmentally friendly.

By Meredith Goad mgoad@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Meredith Wood-Masteka and her husband care about the environment.

But they both work full time and have two children, so running a completely Earth-friendly household can be a challenge.

Still, they do what they can. They both drive older cars. They go to local farmers' markets so they can buy fresh foods that haven't traveled 500 miles to get here. This year, they'll be growing some of their own food in raised beds.

The couple shops at secondhand stores for children's clothing, and stocks up on children's books at summer library sales.

Instead of upgrading to a larger home in the suburbs, they have stayed in a smaller home in Portland. It's cheaper to heat, and they don't have a long commute to their jobs. They use a green cleaning service to clean their home so they aren't exposed to toxic chemicals.

Sometimes, they have to make compromises. Wood-Masteka would like to use cloth diapers, "but I just don't quite have the energy to do it."

"I'm still using disposable, but at least they don't have bleach and they're chlorine-free," she said. "So it's a bit of a baby step. Whether it be from a financial standpoint or a time standpoint, if you can't go all the way, it doesn't mean you can't do something."

Today is Earth Day, and lots of families will be thinking about ways they could make their lives a little more environmentally friendly.

The steps that make the biggest difference are actions that revolve around transportation and energy, says Judy Berk of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. That means walking, carpooling or biking to work instead of driving. Or making your house more energy efficient.

But if you don't have the money right now to do a major energy overhaul, there are lots of smaller things people can do around the house to make a change and shift their way of living.

 

Joe Walsh, owner of Green Clean Maine, a cleaning business that uses only environmentally friendly cleaners, said there's "just more and more demand all the time."

Walsh said his business has been growing 50 percent year over year. Most of his customers just don't have the time to do the cleaning themselves, he said, but when he goes into homes to do an estimate, he finds people are much more educated about the issues than they used to be.

"More and more people are coming to me already educated about the dangers of traditional cleaning products and the benefits of cleaning without them," he said. "I've been impressed by that."

Earlier this month, Walsh was asked to speak at a meeting of the Holistic Moms Network. The Portland chapter, one of 120 chapters across the country, started two years ago and has 22 members. New members arrive every month to their meetings, where they invite experts to talk about different topics on holistic health or "green living."

Julie Wagner, who leads the group, says everyone in the group is on their own path, "but everybody is interested in changing up their life and taking small steps toward a greener lifestyle."

"If you think overall about holistic living or living green, it can be really, really overwhelming to think about that perfect place, whatever that might be, because it's different for every person," Wagner said. "I only have two children. My friend has five. So what she expects in her house and her family, and how she expects to live green is different than what I expect about how to live green.

"We make different choices. And I think that's the key to what Holistic Moms is about. It's about making baby steps, because when you make those small changes, they're easier to hang onto. They're more manageable."

(Continued on page 2)

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