By Relocation.com Staff
Don’t let the term “green moving” intimidate you -- moving “green” doesn’t mean you need to pack your things in large bamboo leaves and have them transported by a rickety bicycle.
No, green moving is simply a growing trend in the industry that revolves around changing a function that’s always been big on waste - picture all the discarded boxes, non bio-degradable bubble wrap and smoke-belching trucks - and scaling back the waste and energy.
The idea of keeping green has permeated many industries; traditional, non-green industries-- automotive, energy and housing companies, are all embracing new business practices to minimize their overall damage on the environment.
Thus, a “green” move is tangible and achievable for everyone. A global call to reduce one’s carbon footprint and be mindful of the earth has taken on resonance in recent years. Here are some easy ways you can ‘move green,’ without compromising time or money:
- This seems obvious, but stop accumulating things. Embrace the mantra that ‘less is more.’ The less stuff you move, the less gas the moving truck will burn - this also means more ‘green’ for you, as you’ll spend less money on your move. Consider holding a garage sale, or selling your stuff online on eBay or some other auction Web site.
- When packing, take advantage of companies that offer reusable packing crates. Moving companies generally prefer that customers use new cardboard moving boxes to ensure stability -- this means a lot of cardboard boxes get tossed after only one use.
Reusable crates eliminate waste. One company that rents reusable crates is Earth Friendly Moving; they offer sturdy packing crates made of recycled plastic bottles. The company drops off the crates before you move and picks them up afterwards in its fleet of bio-diesel trucks. Another firm offering a similar service is Rent-A-Crate; they use reusable moving crates.
- When packing, cut back on the bubble wrap. You can use old newspapers for non-fragile items, or even old sheets and towels for packing material. These weigh more and don’t offer as many benefit as the lighter bubble wrap, but they still do the job.
- When cleaning up your old and new residency, look for environmental friendly cleaning products. Most retailers carry them; ask if you can’t find them.
- Some moving companies are now touting their environmental friendly attributes. One firm is Go Green Moving, which markets itself heavily as an environmentally friendly firm, with bio-diesel trucks, moving pads made of 100% recycled cotton, and rentable crates for packing stuff.
Of course, even if your moving company doesn’t tout itself as being environmentally-friendly, you should still ask if they use any of the above environmentally friendly practices. Indeed, the more movers hear consumers asking for and even insisting on environmentally friendly moves, the faster the moving industry will adopt “green” practices.
- After you’ve moved, begin to think about other ways you can leave less of an environmental footprint.
Can you stop junk mail? Step one is registering with the Mail Preference Service <http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.php> of the Direct Marketing Association. It won’t stop all the stuff you get daily in your mail, but it will reduce at least a portion of it.
Set up a recycling center in your new kitchen to make separating trash from recyclable materials easier - so easy that you’ll be sure to do it.
The next time you go shopping for a nonessential item, ask yourself a simple question: when the time comes to move again, do you really want to move it? If not, trash, recycle, or donate the item!
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