Well, in honor of earth day I am going to get on my high horse. For those of you that know me, you know that I am sort of a tree huger. I clarify tree huger with "sort of" because I do what I can, but wish I did more. Quite honestly we all should. It is my honest belief that we need to pay attention to the world around us, whether that simply means stopping and taking the time to enjoy a beautiful day or converting to cloth bags. Nothing bugs me more than someone saying, "there is nothing that I can do" or "I won't make a difference". Well HELLO!!!! If we all thought that way than nothing would happen and no one would make a difference.
My plea, challenge if it sounds more fun, is to do at least one thing from the following list. By the way nothing on this list will cost more than $10, and in fact some of them might even help save you money in the long run. Think of it as bargin' shopping for the earth, if you will.
1. Recycle!! Check with your local area (you can go online and do this) to see what they take and what they don't take and use the green and orange bins that are in your garages.
2. Purchase your own reusable drinking cup, Jamie and I use the camelback sport jugs. They come in all kinds of colors and they are spill proof too- it's perfect it you are klutzy. 70 million bottles of water are consumed each day in the US, using nearly 1.5 million barrels of oil a year, not to mention the land fill problems- think of what you could save if you purchased one of the below stylish things.
3. Convert to reusable bags. I know this is a big one and it can be hard to remember, but it goes back to oil usage and just plain waste. You can get cute lime green ones at publix, for just $.99- it's a steal!
4. Use your own cotton napkins. I know it can be a pain in the butt to wash but, you like trees right?
5. Change to the new energy smart bulbs, and an extra added bonus is that they last longer ie saving you money.
6. Use online bill pay and other online services for your banking needs. You can request to get bank statements, car statements etc. online in an effort to save trees. You can even go to directmail.com take your name off of the list that sends you junk mail. It's great!
7. Decline a receipt after your purchase if possible. If everyone declined the receipts from the ATM the next time they went, the amount of paper that would be saved would wrap around the earth something like 8 times!
8. Pull the Plug- Unplug your electronics when you are not using them. An electronic device while it is plugged in is using energy, regardless of whether or not you turned it off. This is called Vampire Power, it's the stand by feature that we have all come to expect with our electronics. We want our electronics to come on immediately when we push the button on the remote, but this means they are constantly on and constantly using power. Bonus: If you fully unplug these electronics you could save up to 10% on your power bill.
9. Take your own to-go bins to restaurants. I know, I know, it's not the most stylish thing to walk into the restaurant with your Tupperware, but it will help reduce the size of our landfills. I bet your Mama never told you that you would look "cool" doing the right thing.
10. Lastly, I am going to clump all of the really small things into one suggestion with the hope that if my list only has ten items then you will at least try to pick one thing to do. Turn the water off while you are brushing your teeth, turn the lights off when you leave the room, take shorter showers, walk when you can.
Well that's it for now, I know I will have more after I post this but for now I am going to de-saddle. Enjoy the place you live, it's so beautiful...
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