How Can I Make easy Changes That genuinely Impact the Environment?
Easy Ways to Go Green
It's the New Year. Again. Many of us conclude to make changes in our lives around this time - that's no surprise. Often, the resolutions we create for ourselves are dramatic, powerful, even overwhelming. Losing lots of weight, going vegetarian, quitting smoking - we all have our Ace in the hole. Too many years pass, however, when we lose sight of these lofty goals and before the end of the first quarter, we're already off our game and back to smoking, back to sleeping in, off the daily project of going to the gym.
This isn't a post about how to stay on track with your goals. This isn't about manufacture smaller steps in in the middle of milestones or pinning up a huge calendar to your wall and filling it up with black X's every time you perfect an additional one day on the plus side.
Achieving the Goal of Going Green
I like to think about the goals I want to perform in as realistic a manner possible. That means - what will actualizing and accomplishing my goals look like on a Tuesday at 1:30 in the afternoon, or a typical Saturday morning at 9:43. That's more real to me, and consequently more manageable. My goal for this year? To go more green, in as many ways possible. Like many, I am willing to work for it, but I wonder if there aren't others who would make inevitable changes if they were easy to accomplish, and didn't involve too much work.
Big differences are often made with tiny, incremental shifts - one can't tell just how much of a inevitable impact is being made by finding at a few of those small steps, but taken in an composition form, the impact can be tremendous.
That said, here is a list of ten tiny, realistic steps that I am going to take this year to go more green. If we all do what we can to even uphold a few of these things, the inevitable impact on our environment would be huge.
Ten Easy Ways to genuinely Impact the Environment
1.) Support Farmer's Markets
Buying local has a dramatic impact on both your condition and the environment. While you perform the goal of supporting local, organic, independent farmers, you also have the opening to eat seasonally and raise the bar for yourself in terms of salutary eating habits. By the way - have you ever tasted a plum, or a tomato, or even locally grown, organic salad greens? You'll never shop at the super store again if you have taste buds.
You'll be filling your body with furnish that is at its freshest, and addition your consumption of organic furnish is incredibly beneficial. The National Resources Defense Council notes that much of the U.S. furnish will travel an average of around 1,500 miles before it makes its way into your super market. The negative impact on the planet is huge - think of the pollution alone that is created in that transport.
2.) Toilet Paper
Seriously. Find it online or at your super market, local Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. If your super store doesn't have it - take a second and speak to buyer aid about ordering it, and do it every time you shop there. They'll stock it eventually. We're talking about toilet paper made with recycled paper. The impact on the environment in terms of the total amount of trees saved each year is huge. Your bumm won't know the difference.
3.) Cold Water Wash
Don't personalize your laundry - sure, you like to take a warm bath, but do your old sweat socks, boxer shorts and yoga pants know the difference? A genuinely easy thing to change in your daily or weekly routine, and the environmental impact is great. Procter & Gamble notes that if we all started to use cold water in the washing machines, we could save enough power to light two and a half million homes for a year.
4.) Bad Bottled Water Habits
How's this for facts: according to National Geographic magazine, Americans buy approximately 7 billion gallons of bottled water a year. This amounts to approximately 22 billion plastic bottles that finally get thrown away, and often not in the recycling bin. Think the (yearly) 1.5 million barrels of oil that it takes to furnish those plastic bottles - this amount is enough to fuel nearly 100,000 cars for an entire year. Ways to improve? Buy a water filter and drink tap water that has been properly filtered. Order large bottle aid from an club like Arrowhead or Sparkletts, and drink from a glass at home or at work. At the very least, recycle the plastic bottles that you do use - always.
5.) Re-use Gift Wrapping Paper
Unwrap gifts with a little concern, or teach your little ones a new environmental episode before they make a mess with the ripping into birthday or holiday packaging. The amount of paper that could be saved is astronomical, if each of us were to recycle wrapping paper from just a few gifts each year.
Get a bag or a box, and start salvage bows, ribbons and neatly folded, considered removed gift wrapping paper. No one will know the difference. Trust me. And if they do, you have the perfect opening to bring up a conversation about conservation, without sounding overbearing. They'll feel great to have helped out without having done anything.
6.) Grocery Bags
When they ask you if you want paper or plastic, just say neither. Spend a dollar at the store and buy a re-usable cotton or hemp bag, and keep them in the trunk of your car for shopping. For a look at the environmental impact of both paper bags and plastic bags [http://www.greeneggsandplanet.com/blog], read these previous blog posts. Get creative with your kids and find blank canvas bags online - this will give your kids a opening to be creative, and paint or decorate the grocery bags to personalize them.
7.) Houseplants Can Be Your Friends
It has been noted that many green house plants can help in the process of removing indoor air pollutants if you cultivate and care for them indoors. Plants like English ivy and others such as golden pothos approximately grow themselves. Don't worry - they're harder to kill than keep alive. And they'll be helping keep you alive as they fight environmental toxins in the home.
8.) Eliminate Junk Mail
Hate the junk mail that comes in your mail box just about every day? For most of us, that pile of materials goes directly into the trash. For others, it goes directly into the recycling bin. Neither party ever reads any of it, and yet it still shows up every day. Take a second and visit the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference aid to register not to receive junk mail any longer. The process may take a few months, but eventually, you won't get so much trash in the mail.
9.) Buy Bulk
Tea drinker? concentrate of trips to the local coffee house every morning? Eat cereal or oatmeal? Next time you buy tea, for instance, think about choosing loose leaf over packaged tea. Reducing the amount of packaging materials that you use can make a big dissimilarity to the environment.
Think about packaged tea - there's the card stock paper box wrapped in plastic, the paper inside, the plastic that is often wrapped around the tea bag, the tea bag, the string, the tiny staple and the tea tag. All of those materials get disposed of, typically not recycled, and much of it can be eliminated by buying bulk loose leaf tea and using your own tea infuser.
10.) Green Your Driving
No - I'm not going to make a blanket statement that we should all run out and buy a brand new Prius - it's not going to be potential for everyone and it isn't the only way to green up your vehicle. Further, there's no intuit to make people feel bad about failing so miserably right out of the gate when it comes to effective vehicles.
If you can afford it, buy a hybrid. But there are plenty of other ways to do something about fuel consumption and vehicle pollution. Carpool if and when you can - you have to get over identifying with your vehicle and your alone time first, but it's worth the small sacrifice. Bike to work if you can; you'll be getting practice and helping the planet at the same time.
Or just plain drive smarter when you get behind the wheel - get timely tuneups and keep your tires inflated to the proper pressure to ensure maximum gas-saving efficiency. If you take long trips on the highway (out of the way of traffic), then switch to cruise operate to heighten your mileage. Curb your urge to drive like your car is a weapon - take off from stops less aggressively, brake more slowly and slow down when you can. The speed limit isn't so bad. And get out of the drive-through: either quit the fast food or park the car and walk it.
Final Thoughts on Easy Steps to Going Green
Taking meaningful yet small steps towards going greener this year can lead to real, measurable and inevitable change for the planet. A few easy questions here and there, changing a habit or two, educating yourself and manufacture smarter choices - a little bit at a time is genuinely all that it takes. Think about the many millions of people living in America, manufacture one social change all at once - that alone could pay huge dividends for our future.
