…without going to join the nutjob fringe (more on that later).

* reduce your consumption of “consumer goods”

More “goods” arent necessarily good. Do they make you happy, for more than 3 days after you bought it? Think carefully about this for yourself.

I hold that it’s worse with more “goods” (I’ll call it “stuff” from now on) beyond a certain point. More stuff takes more space to keep it in. There’s a lot of packaging it comes in you have to get rid of, and a lot of packaging itself is usually wastefully ample. Then there is the trouble you have to go through if the item breaks or becomes defective during the time you own it (computer parts especially). If its an expensive item, you’ll have to deal with the bother of turning it in for repairs, waiting for it to be fixed (with the added possibility of having to have a replacement during that period), then fetching it from the store or post office etc. At some point, the item will be obsolete or simply not used; then it’ll take up space in your basement, in the back of the house, or such, until you are eventually forced to deal with it throwing it away, probably together with a lot of other crap that accumulated somewhere in your storage unit, er, house.

* What stuff you need, get it from friends, family or co-workers.

Else, buy it second hand, lots of websites from that – Ebay, Craigslist, Marktplaats.nl, DBA.dk etc.

* Bicycle rather than drive by car, where feasible.

If not seemingly feasible, make it feasible. Do the homework in regards to gettign around with bikes and public transport. If your city isn’t bike friendly, help make it so by pushing for appropirate initiatives and legislation to make it so.

It’s healthy, faster and more comfortable than walking, and you have a bare fraction of the trouble with finding parking spaces for bikes (“Velo” as the Swiss call it, with good reason). A bike is cheaper than a car. Theres little or no insurance hassle. Buy a good, sturdy lock for it for a much reduced risk of having it stolen, as well. Get saddle bags to make your bike a propre foodstuffs shopping workhorse as well.

* Sort your trash

Seperate waste in separate categories, say… organic waste (foodstuff leftovers, really), paper/cardboard, bottles, return bottles (plastics, cans etc). Having them in large or faily large bags or compartments, fx. outside your kitchen or whever practical, saves you having to dead with turning it in very often.

Use organic waste in your garden pile. Free compost!

… will be updated incrementally …