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Go Green Moving Tips
Moving is a new beginning, a time to start fresh. Unfortunately, moving itself comes with baggage – a lot of waste produced from packing up your things and moving them to your new home.
In recent years, the moving industry has followed much of the rest of the business community by offering more environmentally-friendly options for your move. It's increased the use of recycled and recyclable packing materials, and uses more earth-friendly trucks instead of the smoke-belching monsters you usually see on the road.
There are many easy ways you can make your next move a less impactful one on the environment.
1. When looking for moving companies, look for those that follow environmentally-friendly practices.
One such firm is Go Green Moving, which touts its bio-diesel trucks, moving pads composed of 100% recycled cotton, and rentable crates for packing your belongings.
Whatever moving company you choose, ask about measures they take to reduce waste. The more movers hear about these types of requests, the more likely they are to offer them to future customers.
2. Moving companies generally prefer that consumers use new cardboard moving boxes to ensure stability, but this means a lot of cardboard boxes get tossed after only one use.
Reusable crates, which come in a variety of sizes, eliminate that waste. They're sturdy, but unlike cardboard, they can be used repeatedly.
One company that offers reusable crates made from recycled plastic bottles is Earth Friendly Moving. The company drops off the crates before you move and picks them up afterwards in its fleet of bio-diesel trucks.
If you're using a moving company, you can also them if they have crates you can use or know where you can get them.
3. It's amazing how much packing material you use on your move, but be wary of trying to use less, because you might just end up breaking a lot of your belongings.
However, there are ways to cut back on the environmentally-unfriendly packing materials that are typically used such as packing paper, bubble wrap and Styrofoam peanuts.
Old newspaper is a good substitute for packing paper, but don't use it to wrap your items because the ink can rub off and smudge your items. Instead, use it as a buffering material in your boxes to prevent items jostling together and breaking.
It also makes it easier to unpack – you can just recycle the newspaper, and unpack items from the packing paper.
Other good alternatives are old sheets, towels or linens.
Finally, you can buy packing peanuts that are biodegradable instead of Styrofoam.
4. When cleaning up your old and new places, look for environmentally-friendly cleaning products. Most retailers now carry a good selection.
5. One of the most environmentally-friendly methods for your move can actually occur after the move is finished: adopt environmentally-friendly practices in your new home.
Sign up for renewable energy and switch out your incandescent light bulbs for CFL’s!
Before you unpack your kitchen, decide how best to set up your recycling area so that's easy to separate out recyclables, and scope out compost opportunities in your new home's backyard. Getting organized right from the start makes it easier to be green.
Next, register with the Mail Preference Service of the Direct Marketing Association to put a stop to your junk mail.
Finally, now that you have a new home, think about adopting a new attitude to the amount of items you accumulate. With the hard work of moving still fresh in your mind, it might be relatively easy to decide that “less is more” and begin to cut back on the amount of items you own. Accumulating fewer things in life is one of the most earth-friendly practices you can follow.
