By changing a few habits, you can reduce your carbon and environmental impact footprint.
• Turn off all lights when you leave a room.
• When your lights burn out, replace them with compact fluourescent bulbs.
• Do not leave electronic devices on "standby," turn them off.
• Reduce shower and bath water use by one half.
• Don't leave hot water running while you brush your teeth.
• Wait until you have a full load before starting the dishwasher or washing machine.
• Reuse bath towels and wear clothing more than once, when practical.
• Reduce by one half the quantity of dish soap, laundry detergent, and cleaning chemicals you use.
• Ask for and purchase biodegradable, environmentally friendly personal hygiene and household cleaning products.
• Patronize retailers implementing environmentally sound business practices.
• Ask for recycled packaging, bags, and carry-out containers.
• Use recycled paper goods at home.
• Do not use herbicides. Bend over and pluck weeds rather than contaminating your environment.
• Use pesticides sparingly, if at all. (Google search reduction in honeybee, songbird, butterfly, etc. populations.)
• Xeriscape. Landscape with indigenous plant species, plant prairie grasses and wildflower borders rather than battling thirsty, non-native plants and grasses which require chemical and hydro-interventions.
• Install programmable thermostats which
cycle up or down automatically when you are not home.
• Use solar powered landscape accent lighting.
• You can turn up the thermostat two or three degrees in the summer if you wear fewer clothes at home during the summer and use lightweight bedding.
• Buy a fuel effecient automobile and park the SUV.
• Recycling our waste oil.
• Using no herbicides.
• Using only foodsafe pesticides, very sparingly.
• Converting all lights to compact fluourescents.
• Utilizing programmable thermostats throughout the building.
• Moving condensers out of the building and onto the rooftop.
• Refrigeration conversions.
• Xeriscaping and hydroscaping.
• Planting another thirty trees on the property.
• Using waste water to water the plants.
• Reducing chemical usage.
• Reducing natural gas usage.
• Implementing
a "recycled paper products only" policy.
We need your cooperation and suggestions.
Let's conserve more and waste less!
A websearch for green organizations will yield thousands of results, but here we have linked a few of the ones with highest search rankings.
•Green Restaurants.org
This Chicago website is devoted to the recent trend of "green restaurants."
• Treehugger.com
The name says it all. Excellent resource and very extensive.
• Going Green
New York's WNBC has devoted an entire section of its website to the Green movement.
• The Go Green Shop
An online store specializing in alternative energy source products to help people reduce their own energy footprint.
• People and Planet.org
A United Kingdom website dedicated to human rights and environmentalism.
• Oscar Goes Green
The 79th Annual Academy Awards was partnered with the NRDC (Natural Resource Defense Council) to significantly reduce their energy footprint.
