The "five green tips" series continues! To see volume I click here. Volume II in the series can be found here.
It truly is easy being green. Anything you do to improve your carbon footprint is a win! You don't need to go "off grid" and become a vegan to live lightly. It's all about making good choices that are easier on the earth. Regular people like you and I with busy lives, children and careers who have been entrenched in a society that promotes consumables and waste CAN make a difference! Here are some more easy ways you can help:
11. Meatless Monday's. Eat just one less meal that contains meat per week and save 300lbs of CO2 per year. You don't need to become a vegetarian, but if you replaced one steak dinner per week with a meatless alternative, you would not only save CO2, but you'd save 40,200 gallons of water in a year--that's roughly equal to the water used to take 1300 showers. For more information you can visit the Meatless Monday website.
12. If every North American citizen recycled only half of their annual waste, we'd recycle a 280 million TON mountain of trash--the equivalent of 550 Empire State buildings. Here are some quick stats on recycling to explain the benefit: recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 100 watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours or a TV for 2 hours. (EPA, 2008). Glass can be recycled forever. Americans throw away enough glass bottles and jars every week to fill both the former world trade centre towers...imagine the impact to our landfill sites. Plastic is also prime for recycling. If every North American recycled just one out of every 10 plastic bottles, it would keep 200 million pounds of plastic out of landfill sites.
13. Paying bills online saves time, postage and trees. If everyone switches to online banking, we could cut 2.1 million tons of CO2 a year!
14. Use cloth shopping bags. Over 500 billion petroleum-based plastic bags threaten wildlife, waste energy, pollute oceans, and clog our landfill sites each year.
15. Install ceiling fans to keep you cool in the summer. When winter rolls around, run the fans in reverse to push the warm air down and conserve heat. Remember, a two degree adjustment to your thermostat can prevent a TON of CO2 per year!
Do you have any ideas or tips, leave a comment and let us know about it! You can also tweet with us on Twitter.
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