Green

I really like The Green Book.  It actually gives some useful tips that are different from your typical lists on being green.  Oh and while it’s printed 100% post consumer paper, you can also go to your library to see if they have any available to borrow.

My short list of easy things you can do TODAY to be easier on the earth:

• Use only one paper towel if you need to, especially in public restrooms where much of this is wasted.
• Using no paper towels at all.  Use sponges and cloth napkins or towels to dry your hands. (Thanks D!)
• Stop using disposable eating utensils, plates, and cups.  Keep a mug at work if you want coffee.  Refill a water bottle with tap water.  Brita it!
• You can recycle Styrofoam in LA!  Yes I know, I was surprised too but read about what is recyclable.  Make sure to rinse it out if there was any food in it.
• Reduce your junk mail.  Switch to paperless statements.  It’s better for the environment and safer because you won’t get those “convenience” checks in the mail anymore.  Call individual businesses to ask them to stop sending stuff to you.  It may take a 5 minute phone call but you can do it while you are doing something else.  I was getting “convenience” checks every other day and was getting double from one company that always sends me doubles of everything and now I’m slowly eliminating it all.  I’m still working on getting the post office to stop giving me those free ads everyday.  I might just put up a sign saying that I don’t want it.
• Use less.  It’s great to recycle but you can do one better but not using it in the first place.
• If you must buy, buy post-consumer products.  Business-wise, people need to be buying post-consumer products for manufacturers to want to make them.
• Turn it off!  When you leave a room, turn off all sources of electricity.  Even better, unplug all items attached to a socket.  Some electricity used is “phantom energy”.  Meaning that even if the DVD player/lamp/appliance is off, if it is attached to an energy source (i.e. wall socket) energy is still being siphoned.  So unplug it if you can!

And here is how to recycle just about anything.

I’ve been trying to doing this for a long time.  When you really start to follow what you can recycle, you’ll notice that the vast majority of items can be recycled.  For myself, I realized that probably 75% of my items go in the recycle bin.  But I was up again last night and caught a late night rerun of Oprah, which I never watch.  They followed a family around and looked at their waste and it was so, so incredibly disgusting and excessive.  They were embarrassed and I have to say I was embarrassed for them.  You can see it here.  As the site says, “Americans make up just 5 percent of the world’s population but use 25 percent of the world’s energy resources.”  Imagine if everyone lived like this family…what would happen to the earth?  Luckily we don’t all live like this but we can all do better.  Even little things help.  Everyone needs to do their part.  Start today!