April 22nd marks the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. Our Ask a Member question this month, is:

“How do you ‘go green’ at your house? What do you do to reduce, reuse or recycle at home?”

By sharing our tips, maybe, we can all find a new, easy way to “go green” that we hadn’t thought of before. After all, every little bit helps!

A big “thank you” to everyone that took a minute to answer the question, we really appreciate your responses!

“This is a good question but a tough one. As a resident of Watermael-Boitsfort, we have been separating our trash into blue, white, and yellow bags as requested by Brussels and our commune. We use the bags provided at the grocery store to recycle batteries, and have been trying to find a place to recycle our computer printer cartridges-- but to no avail. We have an Epson photo printer and it uses 6 different color cartridges so I would welcome the input from anyone who knows! When we go to downtown Brussels or to Kinneopolis for a movie, we always use trams and the metro, although at times we will drive to Auidergehm Carrefour to take the Metro from Demey. We also have a compost pile in our garden for food peelings and other items that are compost-able. We try our best but I am sure there is a lot more we can do to help the environment.” -Sue Frick

“At our house, we recycle all the essentials: paper, glass, PMC and batteries. We turn off appliances like the TV, radio and computer when they are not being used, like turning off lights when we leave a room etc. We use the "low energy light bulbs" around the house. I also donate old toys and clothes to charities. I buy local produce and prefer to buy bio. I also only use bio products for cleaning.” -Anna Hildingsson

“A very fun way to go green at home here in Belgium is to treasure hunt for antiques at the numerous TROC International shops! European antiques add a richness in home decorating that I love. Most items in TROC cost so much less here than they would in the States.” -Mary Armendariz

“We Franklins are checking our carbon footprint by using public transport as much as possible and using trains instead of planes (nicer and much more relaxing). On the home front, we separate the paper/tins and general garbage and my daily walk with the dog includes a stop over at the bottle bank. Unloved clothes are cleared out every couple of months and dropped off at a charity home. And we try to watch our water use – showers instead of the lovely bath.” -Mary Franklin

“The biggest thing we did in Belgium to be green is downsize. We moved into a small apartment - big enough for the two of us, but too small to accumulate clutter. We have to think about where will we put anything we bring into our house, so this cuts down on buying needless things. We don't have a closet, only a wardrobe, so buying new clothes means retiring some of our older ones. We also don't have a car and use public transportation whenever we want to get around Brussels. Some of the easier changes we've made are using a water filter pitcher rather than buying bottled water, replacing our paper napkins with reusable cloth, rinsing out our ziplock bags to reuse them, and taking advantage of the weekly markets.” -Dallas Stromberg

“I always save our egg cartons because they take up so much space in the garbage. I take them with me to a weekly market. In La Hulpe, on Thursday, there is a vendor that sells quiche (and fresh eggs). At the Sunday market at the train station in La Hulpe, the rotisserie chicken stand usually sells fresh eggs too. I buy a carton of eggs for myself and give the rest of my extra egg cartons to the vendor so they can reuse them to sell eggs to others.” -Natalie Fowler

“Have you heard of sunbeams? They are a group here specifically helping expats be more “green”. Here is their website: http://www.sunbeams.eu You can also sign up to get their news and updates.” -Heather Blomperk

“I recently purchased a 'kompactor' from ABC de la Photo sa via ebay Belgium. Anyway, it makes so much sense, everyone should have one!! Basically, if we compress all the waste we can...plastic bottles, cans, etc....we will stop paying to transport air. This will save on buying those blue sacks...and if it caught on, maybe the council would stop the need to collect twice a month, which would save on fuel costs.” -Heidi Bowcher