Guest author: The Hubby
By choosing to live in a city, you have already reduced your carbon footprint by 2/3rds. This may seem counter intuitive but there are some major advantages including public transportation and sharing of resources.
More people cram into high rise apartment buildings and share park space. Garbage collectors use less fuel to get around because people in urban areas live closer together. How does NYC rate on the recycling front? Well, due to a lack of vision and budget constraints, NYC only recycles 30% of it’s waste while San Fransisco is at 70%. We still beat Houston, TX which is in the single digits.
Some things aren’t that clear cut though.
Do reusable bags actually save energy and resources? They take more energy to produce and now since the green movement is in full swing, they are incredibly easy to come by because everyone wants their logo on a tote. The cheaper ones tear easily and get trashed in less than a year. Then there’s the bacteria scare. Unless you wash them regularly, they can get pretty nasty. It takes water, soap and energy to clean them, so how environmental is this?
Probably a hell of a lot better than plastic bags. The heavy canvas ones beat the lightweight semi-disposables any day.
What about the bottle debate? Glass, plastic or aluminum? Glass is heavier and is thus costlier to transport to the store and recycling plant. Aluminum takes a lot of energy to produce from bauxite but it’s easily recyclable. Cans are made from 40% recycled material. Glass bottles are 20%. Plastic bottles are reusable but not recycled as bottles. The advantage of plastic is that it can be made into fleece or packing material.
In an ideal world, we would all refill our glass containers locally. Kind of like our seltzer delivery by Ronnie the Seltzer Guy.
There’s always common sense solutions to saving the planet that do not need to be debated.
Turn off the tap when not rinsing body, teeth or dishes.
Don’t run half empty dishes or laundry.
Unplug energy sucking vampire electronics and appliances when not in use.
Replace standard bulbs with CFL. For God’s sake, turn off the light when you leave the room!
Walk, cycle, take the train. Car pool.
Get a little uncomfortable. Do you really need all that heat and air conditioning? You better not be walking around the house in your skivvies in the middle of winter complaining you’re cold.
Consume less meat. The closer you get to a vegan diet, the more resources you save. Land, water. Co2 emissions. Not to mention the animals.
Buy local. This not only saves on fuel, but hello….let’s build up our own economy!
One person can’t fix the planet on their own, but if each of us took baby steps towards righting Ms. Earth, perhaps one day she will be grateful enough to thank us. (Because she’s pretty pissed right now).
