If you feel like you are doing your part for the environment by taking your box of recycling to the curb, consider how much went to waste in the construction of your house.  According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) study, an estimated 8,000 lbs of waste is created from the construction of a 2,000 square foot home.  The majority of the 8,000 is wood, cardboard, and drywall.  Almost all of that waste ends up in landfills.  More than one green builder I’ve met first looked into green building after growing increasingly disgusted at the tons of debris carried away on a construction site.  Much of the debris was either unnecessary material or material that could be salvaged or recycled.  The problem can be solved by streamlining the material coming into the construction site and better managing how the waste is separated and where it ends up.

A focus on waste reduction comes with three major benefits:

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Once upon a time I could hit the local Outrageous Outgrowns, Zwaggle and haggle online for eco-friendly finds, or find green parenting ways to make a difference by showing how to host a kids’ clothing swap among my pals.

But when kids get a bit older and media peer pressure kicks in, tweens and teens are ripe for consumption junction mall rat mentality, sometimes even calling gently used items ‘gross,’ or being turned off by wearing their own friends’ castoffs in a swap-n-shop format…

So how do you effectively combat commercialism and turn brand influence on itself?

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