What is your guilty 'green' pleasure?

I live in California where there is a perpetual drought....

My fav thing to do is take a long hot shower

To make up for it I recycle alot, use a reusable water bottle, turn off lights, buy natual products, encourage organic growing, drive a gas efficient car, etc.

What are you guilty of doing thats not so great for the planet?

I am just as bad as you.
I take long hot showers.
We grow our own fruit and vegies and do not use any chemicals.
I also eat alot of organic and natural foods.
I drink Silk.
We recycle.

I recycle as much as I can, and can still improve in that area. I do what I can to eat local/sustainable/organic. For the majority of my water drinking, I do filtered tap water in a glass (at home) or reusable bottle at work. Occasionally I do get a bottle, but not nearly as much as i used to... there are a lot more things I'd love to do, but I'm a renter, in a large apartment complex, it's not easy to do a lot of the things homeowners can do.

I do drive a gas guzzling SUV. It averages 16-17 MPG, which I'm told isn't TOO bad for an 8 year old SUV... but it's all I can afford, it's paid for. I'd LOVE a hybrid... but I cannot afford payments.

My community doesn't have anything set up for recycling. The next town over, 30 miles away, at least has a place that takes aluminium and copper.

I take long showers. I do not pay for the hot water since our complex provides gigantic boilers for the hot water. It is almost an unlimited supply of hot water. The only problem with having to share the hot water with a lot of other apartments is when someone along the line flushes their toilet. OUCH!!!!

I guess the one thing I feel guilty about is not recycling glass bottles. Our town has a recycling program but doesn't take glass anymore. You have to take it yourself to the local center, and only on a Saturday morning. I've taken my glass there a couple of times, but more often I just throw the bottle in the trash.
I know, shame on me.

On your list, I'm guilty of long hot showers. My real guilty green is my hot tub. I hate the fact that we are using electricity to heat it.

I drive an SUV but it's not too horrible on gas. I have to, in this state, so I don't get stuck in our blizzards.
I take long showers but I don't do it every day because I don't wash my hair every day.
I recycle, I am Vegan which cuts down on environmental waste from food industry animals, I don't use plastic bottles, I use aluminum ones. I don't run water during dish washing or brushing my teeth. I garden so I try to grow my own veggies. And for insects, I spray diluted hot sauce on my plants instead of pesticides. I reuse plastic bags, I don't use paper or plastic throw away items.
I try hard to do all I can.

Hot showers would be mine. I started recycling when we bought the house (at our last apartment the recycling bin was disgusting, and you had to walk across trash to get to it). I keep forgetting to get one of the bins from the city but we've been taking the cans/bottles/newspapers to the recycling center instead.

I drive a gas guzzler. It's an old van - 1990 - and what I can afford. Even then I don't drive a lot these days.

Hmm...I don't do anything listed in the poll.

I wish I had more control over my heat. There is a huge oil burner in the basement- controlled by our building management. I don't even want to know how much oil gets burned every winter.

I drink a lot of water out of bottles. We do recycle those bottles though.

I have 2 gas guzzlers. 1st one is a 1979 chevy Blazer it hasn't been driven for quite awhile but is great in snow storms. 2nd is a 2001 Dodge Ram truck my husband drives in the winter. I drive a 1982 Corvette that is a semi gas guzzler. The only vehicle we have that saves on gas is the Harley and my husband drives that in the summer time. Right now I am stuck with all my gas guzzlers because they are all paid for and I don't have vehicle payments.

Another gas guzzler. I drive a full size Ford Truck. With my landscaping business I need it plus we heat our home mainly with wood so we need the truck to pull the trailer of firewood (we cut our own-now working on clearing the fenceline on our property up north).

I do many many good green things though. Recycle, compost, use clothes line, own veg garden, programable thermostats, flourescent light bulbs so I way offset the truck gas usage.

I love long hot showers. Especailly now that its so cold!

Originally Posted by whuckleberry

Hmm...I don't do anything listed in the poll.

I wish I had more control over my heat. There is a huge oil burner in the basement- controlled by our building management. I don't even want to know how much oil gets burned every winter.

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except we have an incinerator for garbage and it is used to heat the water too so I don't feel so bad about it - it cuts down on landfill at the same time as heating the apartments.

Originally Posted by icklemiss21

except we have an incinerator for garbage and it is used to heat the water too so I don't feel so bad about it - it cuts down on landfill at the same time as heating the apartments.

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That's good. I wish ours served as an incinerator!

I'm addicted to hot showers, more so now that it's cold. I have a lot of problems with my back, and sometimes the only thing that makes me feel better is a really hot shower. My apartment complex provides the hot water, thankfully.

I also have two (sort of) gas guzzlers. One's a 1994 minivan, the other a 1981 Buick Century. The Buick, sadly, does better than my van. The van gets around 15-17 around town; the car gets between 17-18. Now that they've changed the gas to winter blend though, they're both probably going to do worse. But they're both paid for, and they're both reliable. I don't drive very far to go anywhere, either, so it balances itself out. They are both kept well-taken care of, though, so they do a lot better than cars that are neglected.

I do recycle like crazy, though, and we do awesome on our electric bill by switching out all of our lightbulbs to lower-wattage ones and keeping the amount of lights on to a minimum.

You don't have a "not any of the above" voting options.

I drive a car that gets good mileage, not the best, but pretty good seeing as I use it mostly for local trips. We don't own an SUV which around here in suburbia is so very common.

I recycle every thing. Our garbage company recently provided us with by-the-sink compost bins. I cook lots of fresh foods with things ideal composting. I had to set up a mini galvanized steel trash can outside the kitchen door to hold the overflow.

My car trunk is full of bags that I use for buying foods and other things. I even have mesh produce bags. Lots of produce don't need any bags, like garlic, potatoes, apples, etc.

I only buy water bottles when I forget or cannot bring my own container.

As for showers, Jen and I always take quick showers. It is DH who takes the longest showers! All of our shower heads are low flow as are 2 of our 3 toilets.

Of course, I take my showers at my club where they do have low flow showers. It doesn't make any difference in the length of my showers, but it does save on our water bill!