Excerpt from Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability by Greg Horn. I invite you to join the millions who are part of the sustainability revolution and take that first, simple step…
Eating organic: For each 1 percent increase in organic food consumption in the US alone, pesticide and herbicide use is reduced by over 10 million pounds per year. Organic food also tastes better and is far healthier than conventional food. And it is probably available at the same store you are shopping in today.
Going carbon zero: For about $99 per year through nonprofit carbon offset companies, you can offset your entire carbon footprint with that organization’s contributions to renewable power, energy efficiency, and reforestation projects.
Recycling: The average person in the US produces 1,609 pounds of waste each year. Recycling can cut that waste stream by up to 75%. If each of us recycled just paper, glass, and metal, we would save 162 million tons of material from entering American landfills each year. And recycling the enormous amounts of plastics we use each day can save even more.
Denying disposables: “Disposable” is literally a dirty word. If we all just used a glass instead of a water bottle and a coffee mug instead of a Styrofoam cup, we would save 244 billion bottles and cups made from petrochemical-based plastics from entering the US waste stream each year, and save money at the same time.
Switching to natural personal care: Using natural personal care has a double benefit – keeping toxic chemicals off your body and then keeping them out of the environment after they wash off. Remember, if you wouldn’t eat it, you should put it on your body.
Using natural lawn care: The average suburban lawn uses six times the hazardous chemicals per acre than conventional farming. And you kids and pets play on that lawn. If just 10 percent of us switched to natural lawn care, over half a billion pounds of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides would be prevented from entering the environment… and our kids’ bodies.
Cleaning green: Those household chemicals that you have to lock up from children are obviously hazardous to your health. Collectively, we dump 32 million pounds of toxic chemistry down our drains each day, just from household cleaning chemicals. That doesn’t count what goes into our indoor air. Switching to green alternatives keeps these chemicals out of our bodies and out of our water supply.
Filtering your tap water: Filtering your tap water to remove chlorine and fluoride provides pure, clean, great-tasting water at a fraction of the cost or environmental impact of expensive and wasteful bottled water that costs more per gallon than gasoline. The payback on a $60 water filter takes only a few weeks for most households. As an added benefit, there is no plastic bottle to leach harmful phthalates (an endocrine disruptor that acts like estrogen in the body) into your water.
Increasing energy efficiency: Energy and fuel efficiency can dramatically reduce use of fossil fuels. Insulate your home, turn off your lights, and consider fuel efficiency next time you buy a car. There are many easy ways to manage your energy use, and the investment in efficiency pays off rapidly in lower fuel and energy costs.
Staying informed: Knowledge empowers informed action. Subscribe to one of the many green magazines or visit any of the variety of environmental websites to stay informed on sustainability developments, resources, tips and tools.
