Ok, how many people out there go to department or food stores and use their paper/plastic bags, raise your hands. Now, how many people out there, go to those same stores and use their own bags? Raise your hands. Not one of you reading this should have raised your hands during the former question, but I’ll bet at least half of you did!

Ok, another question. How many of you out there go into a drive-through for your favorite McBurger, raise your hands. Now, how many of you park in the lot and walk in every time, raise your hands. See? Some good Mind Petals readers raised their hands on the first question again.

Now I’m gonna cross you up. How many people out there go into a bank drive through, again, raise your hands. Now, how many people always walk into their bank without going into the drive through, raise your hands. The Green Guy just crossed you all up, because there is no correct answer for this one.

Although I always take my own shopping bag or box when I go to the store, and I always walk into a fast food burger place after I have parked in the lot, I rarely get out of my car and walk into my bank. I will almost exclusively, unless I have a huge transaction to make, go into the drive through and transact my business there, and I’m being as green as the next person. How could this be, you might ask?

When I go into the drive through at my bank, I turn off the engine and literally park next to the automated teller. So, regardless of how much time it takes me, my car is not running, and would not be running even if I walked inside.

However, that doesn’t work in a burger joint. Granted, it’s still a drive through, but one almost needs to keep either driving or idling the entire time. I mean, first you order at the speaker, then you get in line with the other cars and essentially keep slowly moving forward until you get to the window. There is virtually no time to turn off the car and all that idling and slow driving can be spewing almost twice as much garbage into the air then if you just drive normally.

Oh and, by the way, there is an axiom in the auto industry called the 10 second rule. If you idle for more then 10 seconds, shut the engine down. 10 seconds are the break even point for emissions and fuel economy for your car. After that, shutting the engine off and then restarting is much more efficient as well as cost effective as far as gas consumption goes.

Now then, this whole article is all about taking green to heart. You can do these things to help, everyone can, and imagine if everyone would. It just isn’t that difficult.

Granted, there are some very well made reusable bags out there, and I have a few here now, but my first ever bag was 8 plastic bags placed inside each other, and then I duct taped the handles together! It was very easy, and I used that bag for years, literally. It was tough, and with all 8 handles taped together, they were solid. I never had a problem with it, and I kept 24 plastic bags out of the landfill. (I made 3 of them.)

As far as drive throughs, I rarely go fast food eating anyway, but when I do, I park and walk. In banks, I always turn off my car engine, even when I go to the ATM, no matter how cold it is, and I live in Wisconsin where it gets plenty chilly.

I take green to heart every day, and just by doing the few simple things I listed above, there is no reason that at the very least in these instances, you can take green to heart too!