Ten Tips for Living Green
Roots & Shoots
May 2008
Here are some pretty painless ideas for reducing carbon dioxide in our environment. Some of these suggestions are not only good for our Planet, but our hearts and bodies too! How great is that? Helping us and “Mom” a the same time!
- Use that bike: for every mile you ride a bike instead of driving a car, you stop about 1 pound of carbon dioxide from going into our atmosphere.
- Save water by using powder detergent: laundry liquid is about 80% water.
- Get tough on tissues: by using just one box of 100% recycled tissues, we could save 87,700 trees, 226,000 cubic feet of landfill space, 31 million gallons of water and avoid 53,000 pounds of pollution.
- Check your water heater: keep it no higher than 120 F and save 550 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions.
- Change those light bulbs: replace just 3 frequently used bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs and save about 300lbs of carbon dioxide per year.
- Change how you mow the lawn: use a reel mower instead. Burn calories and stop as much as air pollution as taking a 350 mile drive in your car.
- Change your thermostat: turn down the heat at night and when you are away OR install a programmable thermostat
- Reduce your garbage: chose products with less packaging. Recycle paper, plastic and glass. You can save about 1000 lbs of carbon dioxide per year by reducing, reusing and recycling.
- Use recycled paper: try to use 100% post-consumer recycled papers when printing. You can save 5lbs of carbon dioxide per ream of paper doing this. When wrapping gifts, remember you can recycle and reuse. Get creative!
- Fill that dishwasher before you set it off: save about 100lbs of carbon dioxide per year running only a full load.