Green Tips
1. Replace inefficient incandescent light bulbs with efficient, Energy Star-approved CFLs or LEDs – reduce your carbon footprint by 450 pounds a year.
2. Car pool, use public transportation or drive a fuel efficient car – reduce your carbon
footprint by 1 pound for every mile you do not drive.
3. Conserve paper by using both sides of a page in your notebooks. Buy 100% post consumer recycled paper.
4. Organize to have healthy food served in your school district and reduce the availability of junk food, sodas, and other unhealthy options.
5. Convince your school district or office building to choose reusable utensils, trays, and dishes in the cafeteria.
6. Collect used printer, fax, and copier cartridges to recycle.
7. Inquire about non-toxic cleaning products and buy them for your house. They clean as well –or better – as the toxic kind!
8. Organize a neighborhood tree planting – trees absorb CO2 and provide a home for wildlife.
9. Keep your tires properly inflated and get better gas mileage – reduce your carbon
footprint 20 pounds for each gallon of gas saved.
10. Change your car's air filter regularly.
11. Move your thermostat down two degrees in winter and up two degrees in the
summer – reduce your carbon footprint by 2,000 pounds
12. Use a low-flow showerhead because the less water you use, the less energy required to
heat the water – reduce your carbon footprint 350 pounds a year
13. Buy local products with less packaging and recycle paper, plastic and glass – reduce your garbage by 10% and your carbon footprint by 1,200 pounds a year.
14. Buy organic food because the chemicals used in modern agriculture pollute the water
supply, and require energy to produce.
15. Teleconference instead of traveling. For must-go trips, keep track of the miles driven and
flown and buy "carbon offsets”.
16. Convince teachers to include the environment in their lesson plans. Get environmental curriculum at www.earthday.net.
17. Lobby your school board to incorporate green building practices.
18. On Earth Day, venture to a park, fly a kite, ride a bicycle, clean-up trash at a local stream or nature setting.
20. Make a Tire Swing. Have any old tires lying around? Objects that were destined for the garbage can be reused for entertainment.
21. Use organic-cotton bags - or ones made of any other sustainable fabric like hemp – for your shopping.
22. Pay your bills online. If every adult in the US did this, we’d save almost 218 million paper sheets!
23. Run your dishwasher or washing machine only when they are full, and buy Energy-star appliances when it’s time to renovate. Your pocket will notice!
24. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Living by the 3 “R’s” of environmentalism are the easiest, fastest – and cheapest! – way to go green.
25. Stop your junk mail! How many unwanted catalogs and commercial letters do you get every get? Sign up for a "mail preference service" to reduce the amount of unnecessary mail and save tons of paper every year!
