It is incredible to think how far we’ve come in 40 years. While we are far cry from a clean & healthy earth, many programs have been established to reduce the human carbon footprint that seem to be working.
It’s easy to “go green”. Simple things like recycling at home & in your office and taking cloth or canvas bags when shopping, to buying a hybrid car or installing solar panels on your house can have a huge impact.
Here are some other things you do:
- Changing at least one light bulb to a fluorescent bulb will only cut the amount of electricity used by 3/4.
- In the winter, reverse your ceiling fans so as to push up the heat which can cut your heating bills by 10%.
- Lowering the setting on your heater by ten degrees saves 3-5% in energy costs.
- When doing laundry, try to wash and dry full loads. Better yet, if you can, cut out the dryer and air dry your clothes.
- If it’s time for a cell phone upgrade, donate your old phone to a soldier instead of throwing it away.
- Plant a tree! One single tree can absorb a ton or carbon dioxide over its lifetime.
- When boiling water, cover the pot with a lid. The water will heat quicker thus saving energy.
- Use cloth napkins instead of paper. If you don’t have cloth napkins, try using one less paper napkin a day. By doing this you’ll help keep out one billion pounds of paper waste from the landfills a year.
- Start a compost pile. Not only does it reduce the amount of waste in the landfills, the soil created in the compost pile is full of nutrients and can be used when planting trees, flowers and plants.
- Buy recycled paper.
- Buy a reusable water bottle. Plastic water bottles produce two billion tones of plastic waste and only 1 in 4 get recycled.
If you can change just one thing in your life to make it more green, the world would be a better place, no really.