Eco-Tips for '08 Part III

Greetings! This is the final installment of our 3-part article series on New Year's resolutions for improving your life (by adopting an eco-friendly and GREEN attitude). With the same commitment to positive change we usually reserve for our personal problems, we can reduce our "footprint" on the world by learning how to effectively reduce, reuse, and recycle.

This month's category covers effective tips for conserving the Earth's precious natural resources:

Natural Resources

We live, learn, grow, and reproduce all on a single planet. If we squander the Earth's resources (which are not infinite by any means), we will surely suffer in the end since the amount of materials needed to sustain our over-populated societies continues to grow while available supplies continue to dwindle.

Paper & Wood Products

Cutting down trees for paper production contributes to carbon pollution. Without enough oxygen-generating trees, our atmosphere is accruing excess nitrogen. This makes it difficult for us to breathe, traps toxic greenhouse gases inside the atmosphere, and promotes global warming. Some estimates suggest we have half as much oxygen content in the open air as we did 50 or 60 years ago!

Use cloth or linen napkins instead of disposable paper products and wash them when soiled. Purchase high post-consumer waste content toilet paper and encourage property managers to install hand dryers instead of paper towel dispensers.
Eliminate junk mail by asking to be removed from mailing lists. Cancel your newspaper subscription and read the news online. Recycle your old phone books when the new ones arrive. Better yet, ask the phone company to not deliver them and research what you need on the Internet. Often, you can find more up-to-date information … and quicker as well.
Supply your work or home office with recycled printing paper. Reuse the backsides for notes, rough sketches, brainstorming, etc. Print double-sided in draft mode for internal use documents and recycle all non-confidential paper. Use dry-erase message boards.
Instead of printing Internet articles to show others, save them as complete HTML files on a USB micro-drive. Better yet-remember the "outdated" 1.5 MB floppy disk? The drives and disks are ridiculously cheap now but still provide enough capacity to save moderately sized files. Give and receive the disks to friends and coworkers, delete the contents, and reuse as long as possible.
Supply your customers with downloadable PDFs and similar docs online instead of printing out invoices, packing slips, instructions, etc. Also, use smaller fonts! A document set at 11-point font is perfectly readable and can reduce the size of large text documents by several pages.
Use organic alternatives instead of new-growth wood. For example, bamboo is becoming recognized as an extremely durable hardwood for home and industrial flooring, furniture, cutting boards, interior paneling, cabinetry, and counter-tops. Find dealers in "vintage timber" and incorporate used wood into non-visible framework, beams, composite decking, and support structures.
Don't waste a tree every year to support an outmoded and wasteful cultural ritual. If you can't reuse your Christmas tree for something else, donate it to a lumberyard or mulch it!
Every time you cut down a tree, plant 10 in return or donate to reforestation efforts.
Check out books from the library, read them, and return them (on time of course) all for free. You can read all the magazines you wish without letting them pile up in your garage or attic and rotting there for months and years.

Water

Recycle water-put a bucket under window-type air conditioners to catch the dripping. This adds up to gallons you can use to water plants. While we're talking about the verge, don't forget to choose low-moisture requiring native varieties. Use high-pressure wash systems for cleaning vehicles to save both money and time.
Use water filtration systems instead of bottled water to reduce waste. Learn more about water purification systems to improve your health and help the environment!
Use low-flow appliances, toilets, faucets, etc. and turn them off when not in use. This includes using aerating showerheads and turning off the water while soaping up.

By helping the environment with these eco-tips, you can also help yourself because of the reduced burden on your living space, health, emotions (due to guilt), and pocketbook. Start with cleaning up your personal environments (your work and living spaces), selling or recycling 1 unwanted item each week, and continue implementing new tips gradually into your family lifestyle.

Research your own eco-tips and share them with everyone you know. Take the time to teach your kids how to recycle and consider every factor critically before making a purchase. If we all make the effort, we can preserve the practical value of our ecosystem and enjoy its beauty as well for many years to come!