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Celebrate Earth Day Every Day
By Admin | April 21, 2008
With the celebration of Earth Day tomorrow, April 22nd, it’s a time to not only think about our environment today or this month, but every day.
Our health, resources and the well being of future generations will depend on what we do every day, not just one day out of the year. It’s wonderful to see the growing number of events, actions and products that are environmentally aware… and it’s a great start.
For example, here are a few things we can do every day that will make an impact on our environment today and into the future:
- Consider buying items that are used often in bulk. This saves you buying additional packaging from small containers/packages as well as transportation costs from less shopping trips.
- Consider buying fewer packaged items, especially foods. Packaged foods are also processed, enriched, modified, often filled with artificial ingredients and far less healthy than whole foods. Fresh, ripe and organically grown fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and natural grains are considered the healthiest foods.
- Consider car pooling with co-workers.
- Consider telecommuting, working from home. If you can’t arrange that full time, try a few days a week. With the internet and advanced telecommunication today, most any type of work can be done remotely.
- Consider starting a home business.
- Consider switching to an online fax service and recycle your traditional fax machine. You can save a considerable amount of paper and electricity while sending and receiving your faxes by email or directly from any application on your computer. Much easier to organize as well.
- Get reusable shopping bags in place of paper or plastic when grocery shopping. Cities like San Francisco have already banned plastic bags and many stores including Walgreen’s, Fry’s, Whole Foods, and Safeway, among others already offer reusable bags, as well as being available online.
- Let off the gas pedal. It’s surprising how much fuel you can save by driving at a moderate speed rather than speeding away from a light and speeding ahead of others on the highway. Studies have shown that you get better gas mileage at around 60 than 70 miles an hour and by speeding up moderately. Often it’s amusing to watch drivers speed around me in frustration on surface streets just to meet them again at the next light knowing how much I save every much. I’ve literally added 5-6 extra miles per gallon by following several efficient strategies including these. Depending on your regular mileage, that can save you 1-2 gallons on every fill up… a big savings at today’s fuel prices.
- Recycle paper, metal and plastics with your local trash service program. If you have plastic bags from the grocery store, recycle them at your local Whole Foods, one of the only locations that recycle them (surprisingly).
- If you do business online (or plan to) use a web hosting service that is eco-friendly. There are hosting companies that are powered exclusively by wind and solar energy and socially progressive in their business operations to conserve energy.
Keep it green every day!
Topics: online fax, earth day, email fax, environment, green shopping, green living |
