Shopping Bags

This is part of my series: 20 Ways to Go Green that Make a Difference. This series discusses practical ways we can go green in our lives, that will have a measurable effect on the environment.  This is an alternative to the many lists that offer 100+ suggestions, many of which are not easily applied to our lives or the impact is minimal.

Almost all retailers provide plastic or paper bags for every transaction and customer.  These are often provided at no additional costs, and thus customers do not value them.  This adds up to lots of waste and pollution, since people discard these bags after bringing home their purchases.  There are many easy solutions to this issue that would significantly curb this unnecessary waste.  

My favorite is reusable bags.  This could mean a burlap sack, cloth bag, or a plastic bag that is durable.  Packing these on the way to your store is a simple step, then simply bag the groceries/items yourself or give them to the bagging person.  These bags can be acquired in many ways; given out free as marketing or promotion, purchased from a dollar at a retailer or given by family and friends.  Even consider using a backpack especially when you are not driving. Many retailers even offer small incentives for bringing your own bags.  Trader Joe's enters your in a drawing for a gift card and Whole Foods offers 5 cents a bag.  

For those times that you forget to bring your reusable bags and need to use store provided ones, there are a few things you can do to limit harm.  First, fill the bags up, so you don't use more than you need.  Second, reuse or re-purpose these bags at home, there are tons of different applications, something will always come up that gives these bags a second lease on life.  Finally, after they have run their useful life, recycle them properly, rather than putting them into the garbage.

Grow Your Own Food

This is part of my series: 20 Ways to Go Green that Make a Difference. This series discusses practical ways we can go green in our lives, that will have a measurable effect on the environment.  This is an alternative to the many lists that offer 100+ suggestions, many of which are not easily applied to our lives or the impact is minimal.

Food is one of the primary reasons that civilization was formed.  Specialization in agriculture allowed a smaller number of people to dedicate their lives to food production.  The rest of the population were free to think up other ways to contribute to society, and coincidentally degrade the environment.  Now, I am not suggesting that everyone quit their jobs start a self-sustaining farm, but the food industry and our role as consumers presents a great way to go green.  I have advocated buying local before, but lets take it a step further, what could be more local than your back yard.

Check out JD's garden project @ Get Rich Slowly.  He uses his land to grown his own vegetables, and takes detailed notes.  If you are new to gardening, which I assume most of you will be, I would avoid taking on such a large project initially.  Figure out what is normally grown locally, then research on the internet or library, so you are comfortable with how to plant, maintain, harvest and store your chosen crops.  Don't be too adventurous at first, buy already started plants, and use their seeds in the coming seasons.  Just try to get started, the first step is everything is always the hardest. 

Although there will be some upfront costs and labor, it will be worth it when you harvest your first crops, knowing that you are not contributing to the environmental damage of factory farms and commercial agriculture.  I wager that the fruits (or vegetables) of your labor will be much tastier and more nourishing, than their store-bought cousins.

I know that a lot of you live in urban areas and probably think its impossible to grow food in these areas.  This should not stop you though.  Look into getting a parcel at a local community garden, such as Boston's Back Bay Fens. Another option is to grow herbs or a potted vegetable plant on the apartment balcony. 

If you want to take it even further, and have the space, consider raising livestock.  Chicken are probably the easiest, and only require a chicken coop, and the necessary food.  Your chicken will have offspring quickly, and your flock will develop providing you with eggs and roasters, if you are so inclined.  

If you are extremely busy or absolutely do not have a green thumb, at least take steps to source food locally or from organic sources.  This will not have the same effect, but will lower environmental damage.  Vote with your dollars to support the local economy and companies or individuals involved in green agriculture.

Drive Slowly

This is part of my series: 20 Ways to Go Green that Make a Difference. This series discusses practical ways we can go green in our lives, that will have a measurable effect on the environment.  This is an alternative to the many lists that offer 100+ suggestions, many of which are not easily applied to our lives or the impact is minimal.

As I mentioned in yesterday's tip, driving is one of the largest contributors to pollution.  In addition to driving less often, the manner in which we drive can have a huge impact on the environment.

Every time you hit the brakes you are wasting energy expended to get you up to that speed.  Driving slowly, at or below the speed limit will make you waste less from braking.  Also more fuel is used to attain and maintain higher speeds, which means driving slower will conserve gas.  Speeding up to 70 MPH from 55 MPH does not save you much time on your commute, so don't do it.

Another benefit is safety on the roads.  As a reader of this blog, you are someone who cares about going green you do not want to ever do harm to others.  Driving fast is not as safe, and by driving more slowly, lowers the risk of accident.  If a car accident occurs, expensive new parts or even a replacement is not a good use of resources, especially if it could have been avoided by driving slower.

Another green driving tip is to always maintain your car with scheduled oil change and emissions checks.  This limit damage done to the environment by dirty emissions.  This will also lower the rate of break downs and save you from costly repairs and replacements.  Not idling in your car, when it is unnecessary, will also conserve gas.  Turning the AC off and opening your windows will help the environment as well.

Drive Less, Walk, Bike, or Use Public Transit instead

Driving in the car is one of the biggest problems with pollution in our society.  Although, it may be unavoidable, especially in the suburban sprawl that most the US population is located in, there are many ways to mitigate the damage of this unnecessary evil.  The first way to go green in regards to the car is to drive less.  If you don't need to go somewhere, don't just take a drive on a whim.  Consider carpooling, so multiple people do not drive to the same location, wasting fuel and polluting the environment.  Make sure to take a well-planned trip, when you do drive in the car, get multiple things done in a single trip, rather than leaving the house each time you need a single item.

There are many transportation alternatives, although they are most applicable in urban environments.  Public transport is very convenient in many cities and is a great way to go green.  Moving multiple people in a single vehicle, rather than each of them driving in their own vehicle.  Many buses use clean natural gas, and subway trains utilize electricity.  If the trip is short, then just walk, you will get exercise, and also benefit the environment.  Consider riding your bike for short-mid length trips, that don't require you to carry many things, it uses no energy and is quite fun!

Other options to consider are hybrid vehicles, like the Toyota Prius, which get 50 MPG.  When shopping for cars, consider their environmental impact, especially based on your needs.  For example, as a single commuter, you don't need a Jeep SUV, go for something smaller.

This is part of my series: 20 Ways to Go Green that Make a Difference. This series discusses practical ways we can go green in our lives, that will have a measurable effect on the environment.  This is an alternative to the many lists that offer 100+ suggestions, many of which are not easily applied to our lives or the impact is minimal.

20 Ways to Go Green that Make a Difference

You always see tips to go green that are very small and will not make a difference.  I have drawn up a list of 20 effective tips that will do the most overall good.  Please feel free to leave any posts in the comments that you think I missed, lets only include things that will really make an impact and is practical to implement.  I am going to also expand on each of these in a separate post, and will edit this page with the links each time.

1) Drive less 
2) Drive at or below speed limit, saves gas and is safer

3) Eat local food, less resources used for transport and supports local farmers

4) Grow your own vegetables, even if its just herbs in your window

5) Bring your own bags to the grocery store, fully reuse paper/plastic bags if you forget

6) Drink from a reusable water bottle

7) Green garbage?
8) Turn off lights when you are not using them

9) Run full loads in the dishwasher/laundry
10) Conserve water in everyday situations
11) Make things yourself
12) Use rechargeable batteries

13) Buy clothes/furniture sensibly

14) Utilize libraries, and other green options for media

15) Give green gifts

16) Green Investing

17) Volunteer

18) Use natural light and "air conditioning"

19) Limit food packaging, buy food in bulk

20) Use rags or old clothing over paper towels

Food Industry

The food industry is one of the things I think about the most, and I am sure will be a common topic on Think, Act, Prosper.  So much of the American diet is based on processed foods created by large companies.  Even the fruits, vegetables, and meats which should make up the majority of our diets are altered or grown in ways to make them more profitable, and less healthy.  I definitely do not advocate becoming a vegetarian, as we are humans, we evolved to eat meat, and I believe meat is one of the best sources of nutrition.  I am a follower of the primal food philosophy, which encourages eating WHOLE foods, that have not been processed, cooked simply, avoiding added sugars and grains, which are body is not designed to eat. 

Let's think about the food industry from an economic perspective, using the apple as an example.  Obviously the most basic way to sell an apple is just raw and fresh, but you are not going to make much money from selling a simple apple.  There is a lot of competition and the only way to make more money is to produce them cheaper.  Ways to make food cheaper to produce are by producing it in such large quantities, you can not pay attention to individual plants closely.  Other techniques are using pesticides to ensure none of your crops are spoiled.  This results in apples that are not grown naturally, lets not even mention genetic modifications!  All of this is before we even get into processing.

Food companies can only make so much of a profit from selling plain, raw fruit, so how can they increase profits?  Their answer is by processing the apples into some other kind of food.  Candy coated apples?  Great now we can charge $3 an apple instead of 50 cents because we added caramel to the outside.  Or maybe we can bake it into a cake using 20 cents of ingredients and sell the cake or pie for $5.  Most of the time when they process these foods, they are using the lowest quality (cheapest price) ingredients and are definitely going to add preservatives which are essentially just chemicals.  Your body did not develop to eat these chemicals or the ingredients that have to be cooked and processed to be appealing, your body developed to eat APPLES.  All of this economic activity is very costly to the environment, shipping the apples across the country to be processed, cooking new things at an industrial scale, all of it just to make more profit off of YOU, at the expense of the planet's resources.

By purchasing the raw, whole ingredients rather than processed food, we are saving the planet, not to mention our health.  If you can obtain your food from a local source, that's even better for the planet, and if you can meet your farmer, you can see they are not some faceless corporation existing to serve their shareholders at your expense.  Organic products are guaranteed to be completely natural and pesticide free, as they are inspected and required by law.  If you find a local farmer who follows these principals, then you do not necessarily need the organic guarantee.  

Many people will use the excuse that they are on a budget, to cover up the fact that they are lazy or stuck in their ways.  Think about what I said about the processing increasing profits for companies, just because it "seems" cheap to buy these processed foods, think about the implicit costs you are costing your environment as well as your body by eating this crap.  If we stop buying it, the companies will stop producing it, each time you buy something, its essentially a "Vote" of confidence.

Go Green: Literature/Media

 

The writing industry uses a ton of paper and by regularly buying books, magazines, videos, DVDs, and CDs you contribute to this process. Luckily there are many ways in which you can get the same items in a much more environmentally friendly manner. We have talked about clothing and furniture purchases, there are many ways to find these items used and at a discount. Yard Sales, Thrift Shops, Craigslist, Ebay, and Amazon are all great sources of used media, so that there is no need to buy a brand new copy at Barnes and Noble.

My favorite way to acquire books and other media is at the library. Libraries are funded with the tax dollars you are paying as a resident of your state, town or county. You simply need to walk into a library with proof of your residence and claim the right to use the service you are paying for. Not only are libraries filled with books, but there are also periodicals, tv shows, and movies in a variety of formats. You are also not limited to the single library in your hometown. Almost all libraries have an agreement with a network of libraries and they can deliver content to your local library within several days.

There are also a number of sites that offer credit for trading books or simply just give them away for free. Check out FreeCycle.com. Also, along the same lines as clothes, thrift shops stock a number of books, although they are not as easy to search for as other options, they generally will run you a dollar or two. Thrift shops are a much superior option for old records/vinyl if thats what you are into.

There are a large number of websites offering used books including the well-known Amazon as well as Ebay, and Half.com, its subsidiary. My favorite is http://www.addall.com/ which allows you to search a large number of vendors at only one site, giving you the best possibly price as well as inventory! Use this as a last resort if you can simply have to OWN the book.

Newspapers may be very quaint and nice to read during your morning routine, but the are especially wasteful.  All of this information is stored electronically and can often be accessed for free.  I like to check out local news at Boston.com which is a subsidiary of the Boston Globe, but will also check WSJ.com for business news, and various other specific news outlets based on the type of information I am looking for.  This means you save money and save the environment.