Green Sparks: 12 Ideas to Help Make Your Life a Little Greener

It’s not easy being “green”—especially in our rural communities. Certain aspects of our lives out here on the prairie make going green more difficult than it is for people in more populated places.

The distances between our homes and our workplaces and schools is great—so reducing driving doesn’t happen very easily. There’s no convenient public transportation to take instead. Most towns don’t have curbside recycling, and many have no recycling program at all, so if we want to keep our recyclables out of the trash, we have to haul our items ourselves. And many “eco” options for products are not available in our stores, which pits shopping local versus buying “eco” from elsewhere.

But that doesn’t mean we have to give up on green thinking altogether. Many people in our rural communities are doing what they can to be more environmentally conscious, in spite of the difficulty in doing so. (Our pioneering spirit in the face of adversity is still intact, apparently.) We’ve compiled a list of ways people in our area are doing great green things. Read on for inspiration! Click the links at left.