This or Thats | Simple Steps. This site from the Natural Resources Defense Council has some great articles and tips on how to tread gently on the environment. I recommend giving it a look—especially as this year comes to a close and people start thinking about resolutions for the new year. Why not resolve to reduce your carbon footprint as much as possible (or more!) in 2010? Now’s as good a time as any to commit.
Reusing what we use is one of the best ways to limit our impact on the planet. The sites below offer great resources for recycling—how to find a recycling center in your area, things to do to help recycle, and more. Be sure to check them out!
The Internet Consumer Recycling Guide
Environmental Defense Fund’s guide to recycling
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Recycling Guide for Kids
Environmental Protection Agency’s section on Recycling
Do you know any other good resources? If so, please post them in the comments!
Small changes on the local scale can generate big changes on the global. Western societies have largely become focused on convenience and pampering, and we’re stressing the ability of the planet to support us (not to mention the majority who live in less-fortunate circumstances). Making some relatively small adjustments to the convenience factor can have positive effect on the state of the world, though.
Central heating and air conditioning are common inclusions in houses across the United States and in other ‘developed’ nations. They help keep us warm in winter and cool in summer, but some might argue that we’ve taken things a bit far. Where I live in the southeastern U.S., it seems like the A/C kicks on as soon as it reaches 23 ºC (about 74 ºF) and stays on until it drops below 20 ºC—at which point the heat turns on! This is especially true in public spaces, where it seems like building management is determined to reverse the seasons so it’s freezing cold in summer and boiling hot in winter.
One effect of all this over-cooling and over-heating is a huge drain on the country’s aging electrical grid (with massive draws against natural gas and oil in winter). While it’s nice to come home to a comfortable home or work in shirtsleeves all year, we could all manage a couple of degrees cooler in winter and warmer in summer without being seriously inconvenienced. Sweaters are easy ways to keep warm in winter and woolen ones are environmentally sustainable!
Take advantage of nature’s heating and cooling cycles; in summer, close the blinds in rooms that face the sun and you won’t need to run the air conditioning so much. In winter, open the blinds and drapes in those same rooms during the day and you’ll store up some heat for the afternoon and possibly even into the evening! If you have central HVAC, spend the money to have it maintained and serviced regularly and you’ll find that you’ll save some money (and relieve some stress on the planet), too.
While you’re at it, turn the heat down while you’re washing your hands, too—studies show cool water works just as well as hot and it doesn’t stress your skin as much! Turn the water off while you’re lathering and you’ll save more of a resource that’s becoming harder and harder to obtain: potable water.
Taking a vacation? Turn the water heater down while you’re gone—all you’re doing is wasting power keeping water you won’t use hot! You might even consider replacing that hot water heater with an “instant on” model like many Europeans have. Water is only heated when it’s needed, so you don’t have tens of gallons of water constantly heated “just in case.”
Have I implemented the changes recommended above?
YES — at least, mostly. I’ve been training myself to get used to it being warmer in summer and colder in winter; my water heater is set to ‘warm,’ not ‘hot’; and I use lukewarm water when I wash my hands. Tiny steps lead to long journeys!
Recycling. As the marketing people from that shoe company would say, “Just Do It.” Seems pretty straightforward, right? I mean, plastic, paper, metal, and glass. That’s what most folks think of when you say “recycling,” and by and large it’s true… but not always.
In fact, it turns out that there are all sorts of twists on what can and cannot be recycled, and the list of things that can be isn’t exactly set in stone. The Consumer Recycling Guide is a good resource for finding out what can and can’t be recycled (in general); you should check it out. If you don’t have the time to read the whole list, their “World’s Shortest Comprehensive Recycling Guide” can help give you advice.
Both guides are pretty sobering reads—who knew that plastic containers contained so many conflicting sources, or that a mixture of different types can ruin a plastic recycling effort? Think of all those unread newspapers, still in their plastic wraps, that get casually tossed in the recycling bins without thinking that some of the contents (not to mention the plastic wrap) might not be recyclable—and could just end up in the municipal dump? I know I’m as guilty of this as anyone.
But wait, it gets worse. In the U.S., at least, there is no central authority for recycling. This means that every municipality, county, and state has different rules and regulations about what gets recycled—if anything! Some recyclers take a broad spectrum of products; some take few. Some are well-managed and others are not. Government agencies that manage recycling are not terribly effective at making sure citizens know what can and cannot be recycled. In my town, for example, cardboard was explicitly not accepted when I moved here. I only found out that was no longer the case through pure chance. I hate to think of all the Spamazon.com boxes that got thrown in the bin over the years instead of being put into the recycling. If you’re confused about what your local recycling laws are, or if there are any, I recommend starting at your state’s Web site and searching for “recycling,” or just use the ever-handy Google.
I remember a time I visited some acquaintances in New York City and had a can of soda in their apartment. After finishing it, I asked them where I should put the can for recycling. They looked at me with puzzled expressions and said, “oh, we don’t recycle. It’s too much work.” While I hope that sort of attitude has changed, I can see why some folks might not want to recycle. After all, doing it properly can take time and energy—especially if you live in an area (like where my mom lives) that has strict rules on separating and preparing recyclable materials. Sadly, there are many who simply cannot be bothered to take the time to recycle at all, or who use religious beliefs to argue that there’s no need to recycle, since the world will be destroyed anyway.
From a pragmatic position, recycling makes good sense. Many materials in heavy use in modern society—particularly hydrobarbon-based products like oil, plastic, and, well, just about everything else it seems—are made from substances that are not renewable. When they’re gone, they’re gone; while there may be trickles of stuff like oil for centuries, sooner or later it’s going to become astronomically expensive to get any of it out of the ground.
Materials that are renewable, such as trees (the primary source of paper today), may have lower overall costs of production, but the environmental devastation caused by logging “virgin” sources is still much higher than that of recycling facilities.
Have I implemented the changes recommended above?
YES — I try very hard to recycle as much as I can, though I suffer from not always making sure that what goes in the bin is really the right stuff to recycle.
Chicago, IL at night as seen from space
Do you leave the lights on when you leave the room? Many people do. I work in an office full of people who leave lights in unused spaces on all the time—the restroom, unused offices, storage rooms, and so on. The owners will turn on every light in the space when we’re having a visitor, thinking that it will disguise the fact that they have drastically reduced staffing levels. I think many people don’t do it simply because they weren’t taught to in the first place. During most of our lives the cost of electricity was so low that the idea of saving money and the environment didn’t enter into our consciousness.
Indeed, a popular myth exists that it costs more to turn a light on than is saved by turning it off when you leave the room. The Mythbusters busted this one on a show from 2006. Unless you’re returning to the room almost instantly, it clearly saves money to turn off the lights. The net wear and tear on components from turning them on and off is minimal; the Mythbusters’ testing was unequivocal here, too.
Turning the lights off when you’re not there does more than just save on electricity bills, though. Extrapolate the effect of turning unnecessary lights off from your home to your city, your state, or your country—a few pennies a month times hundreds of millions is real savings. Beyond that, reduced draw on electrical systems means fewer outages, diminished need for electricity, and a reduction in the consumption of environmentally toxic fossil fuels to produce power. Yes, even at night, when there may be an “excess” of capacity in the power grid.
So give it a thought—and while you’re doing that, why not replace those horribly inefficient incandescent lights with less environmentally-damaging CFLs or even LEDs? We’ll talk more about those another time.
Have I implemented the changes recommended above?
YES — I am obsessive about this. Although I love bright light when I’m working or reading, Every other light in the house or office is off while I’m not in the room. I’ve also replaced many of my incandescent bulbs with CFLs, and will continue to do so as my incandescents burn out.
%RA=green environment recycling%
Although I’ve committed to posting one tip a week on how to reduce your impact on the earth and ameliorate the effects of climate change, I wanted to post a link now to the No Impact Project, which my friend Claudia brought up on Plurk recently. Check out the site and have a look around—will you accept the challenge?
