I admit to being a “rabid” recycler. It comes with living in the Pacific Northwest. But, not every state jumped on the bandwagon early on. I remember an incident, years ago, when I was visiting my mother in La Jolla, California. At that time, her neighborhood had no curbside recycling service and I was quite distraught about throwing newspapers, cans, and other recyclables into the trash. After much complaining on my part, and suggestions that there must be someplace we could take them, my sister finally suggested I pack them up and take them home with me. It was a joke, of course, but it ticked me off nonetheless. I thought EVERYONE felt as I did.
Today, climate change, waste management and recycling have become hot topics and many more Americans are looking for new ways to reduce their own carbon footprints. Here a few suggestions that will save you money and aid in the earth’s recovery:
- Save $100 per year by switching from paper towels to cloth and reduce the 3,000 tons of paper towels that go into the landfill “daily.”
- Take one less car trip a week and keep 31 pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere
- Buy local, organic produce and reduce the amount of pesticides in the environment and fuel used to ship produce
- Avoid individually packaged items and reduce 80 million tons of waste containers and packaging produced each year in the United States
- Substitute one vegetarian meal and save at least 2.5 pounds of greenhouse gases and 238 gallons of water.
- Buy biodegradable trash bags
- Use reusable canvas totes for groceries
- Use all-natural products for personal hygiene
- Use earth-friendly household cleaning products
- Unplug cell phone charger and little-used appliances to save energy and dollars
- When ordering coffee to go, use your own thermal mug; when ordering to stay, request a real cup
- Turn off the dry cycle on your dishwasher (if 10,000 people do the same, the CO2 averted is equal to planting 3,343 trees)
- Limit showers to 5 minutes or less and save 1,000 gals of water a month
Here are some helpful links:
To determine your current CF score visit: www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator
To learn how to lower your CF by donating money to projects that generate clean energy or protect renewable resources by planting trees, for example, visit: www.carbonfootprint.com. One credit represents one ton of carbon dioxide removed from the environment.
Visit: www.earth911.com for recycling advice