It's the 40th annual earth day and the going green is still going strong so here are 12 steps I'm going to try to take to make my lifestyle more environmentally friendly. Also check out this great article from Time Magazine called the Peril of Plastic's1. Think outside the recycling box. It's simple: These days you can recycle a lot more than paper, glass, aluminum and plastic. Even better: Reuse stuff--less energy is wasted on making it new, and less pollution gets spewed out. A few of many options: Drop off your old prescription eyeglasses at an eyewear store (find one at givethegiftofsight.com); give that outdated cell phone back to the store; hand over old sneaks at Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program (nikereuseashoe.com) and they'll be turned into playground flooring. Also check out freecycle.org, a network in which people offer up free gently used items--futons, quesadilla makers, you name it.
2. Sign up for online banking. It saves you time, and it saves trees. If every American did this, 2.3 million tons of wood could be spared annually, and 3.9 billion pounds of greenhouse gases (directly to blame for heating up the planet) would be eliminated. When you visit an ATM, skip the receipt--those scraps of paper are a top source of litter.
3. Switch to green power. You don't have to build a windmill in your backyard or anything. Just find an energy company that uses good old wind, sun or water (but not from a big dam) for power. Visit eere.energy.gov/greenpower to find a local supplier.
4. Adjust your thermostat. The average American home emits about 13 tons of air-clogging carbon dioxide annually via boilers, furnaces and water heaters. Put a dent in that by lowering your thermostat 2°F in winter (to 68°F, ideally) and raising the AC temp by the same amount in summer (to 76°F).
5. Slow down on the road. "Don't speed up, weave in and out of traffic, brake constantly or drive 20 miles over the speed limit, and you can improve your fuel efficiency by about 30 percent," says Diane MacEachern, author of Big Green Purse.
6. Switch to rechargeable batteries. The regular ones end up in landfills, oozing toxins. Nice, huh? "I use only rechargeables now," says Starre Vartan, creator of the blog eco-chick.com. "They've gotten much more powerful in the past few years." Pick some up at the drugstore or any mass store like Target.
7. Stop the catalog insanity. Unwanted sausage-of-the-month catalogs and the like add up to more than 4 million tons of paper a year. Sign up at the new site catalogchoice.org to keep them out of your mailbox once and for all.
8. Order the good kind of fish. During the past decade, the global demand for fish has led to more than 70 percent of the world's species being exploited or fully depleted. "You want to choose Pacific halibut, wild Alaskan salmon and mahi-mahi, which haven't been overfished," says Meaghan O'Neill, coauthor of Ready, Set, Green. Download a handy pocket guide at seafoodwatch.org.
9. Pick up a reusable water bottle. Cute? Check. Trendy? Check. Keeps plastic out of landfills? Check. Try the lightweight aluminum Sigg bottles (from $16, mysigg.com). Also consider installing a filter on your kitchen sink, as Eva Longoria Parker did in her new green San Antonio home. "Tony and I made sure the water was filtered so we would never need to buy bottles," she tells us.
10. Turn the washing machine to cold. If every American did four out of five loads in cold water, it could keep 50 tons of nasty carbon emissions out of the atmosphere per year, according to the Center for a New American Dream. "It makes my clothes last longer, too," adds Sophie Uliano, author of Gorgeously Green.
11. Get instantly ecosmarter. Need an environmentally correct dry cleaner? Want to know if your hairspray will hurt the planet? Check out greenmaven.com to find answers and services for all things green.
12. Just say no to plastic bags--and paper ones. Because plastic never decomposes, it hogs landfills. (The bags are so prevalent in the South African countryside, they're jokingly called "the national flower.") Paper might seem like a better choice, but it actually uses more resources to produce. Solution: a tote. (glamour)
2. Sign up for online banking. It saves you time, and it saves trees. If every American did this, 2.3 million tons of wood could be spared annually, and 3.9 billion pounds of greenhouse gases (directly to blame for heating up the planet) would be eliminated. When you visit an ATM, skip the receipt--those scraps of paper are a top source of litter.
3. Switch to green power. You don't have to build a windmill in your backyard or anything. Just find an energy company that uses good old wind, sun or water (but not from a big dam) for power. Visit eere.energy.gov/greenpower to find a local supplier.
4. Adjust your thermostat. The average American home emits about 13 tons of air-clogging carbon dioxide annually via boilers, furnaces and water heaters. Put a dent in that by lowering your thermostat 2°F in winter (to 68°F, ideally) and raising the AC temp by the same amount in summer (to 76°F).
5. Slow down on the road. "Don't speed up, weave in and out of traffic, brake constantly or drive 20 miles over the speed limit, and you can improve your fuel efficiency by about 30 percent," says Diane MacEachern, author of Big Green Purse.
6. Switch to rechargeable batteries. The regular ones end up in landfills, oozing toxins. Nice, huh? "I use only rechargeables now," says Starre Vartan, creator of the blog eco-chick.com. "They've gotten much more powerful in the past few years." Pick some up at the drugstore or any mass store like Target.
7. Stop the catalog insanity. Unwanted sausage-of-the-month catalogs and the like add up to more than 4 million tons of paper a year. Sign up at the new site catalogchoice.org to keep them out of your mailbox once and for all.
8. Order the good kind of fish. During the past decade, the global demand for fish has led to more than 70 percent of the world's species being exploited or fully depleted. "You want to choose Pacific halibut, wild Alaskan salmon and mahi-mahi, which haven't been overfished," says Meaghan O'Neill, coauthor of Ready, Set, Green. Download a handy pocket guide at seafoodwatch.org.
9. Pick up a reusable water bottle. Cute? Check. Trendy? Check. Keeps plastic out of landfills? Check. Try the lightweight aluminum Sigg bottles (from $16, mysigg.com). Also consider installing a filter on your kitchen sink, as Eva Longoria Parker did in her new green San Antonio home. "Tony and I made sure the water was filtered so we would never need to buy bottles," she tells us.
10. Turn the washing machine to cold. If every American did four out of five loads in cold water, it could keep 50 tons of nasty carbon emissions out of the atmosphere per year, according to the Center for a New American Dream. "It makes my clothes last longer, too," adds Sophie Uliano, author of Gorgeously Green.
11. Get instantly ecosmarter. Need an environmentally correct dry cleaner? Want to know if your hairspray will hurt the planet? Check out greenmaven.com to find answers and services for all things green.
12. Just say no to plastic bags--and paper ones. Because plastic never decomposes, it hogs landfills. (The bags are so prevalent in the South African countryside, they're jokingly called "the national flower.") Paper might seem like a better choice, but it actually uses more resources to produce. Solution: a tote. (glamour)
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