how to help save the environment - wikihow

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How to Help Save the Environment

Things like hectic climate change, polluted air, acid rain, depletion of the ozonelayer, global warming, and an increase in poverty prove that the way we use thingsis ineffective.

Imagine this. One day you come out from your house and all you see is big puffs ofblack smoke and no trees! All you hear are cars and no birds! All you smell isgasoline and no flowers! What kind of life is that?

All we need to do to reduce the problem is simply to be less wasteful. Here aresome ideas on how to help everyone!

Switch off anything that uses electricity. Stick to a routine of shutting off as many electricalappliances as possible when you leave a room. If it will be at least 36 hours before you use it again,unplug it. Even when an appliance is off, it may still use power. Just imagine. You will save hundreds ofdollars and you could donate the money to a charity in need or buy yourself something nice.

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Power strips are convenient devices. You can plug all your appliances in one area - say, yourcomputer, fax, printer, and modem; or your toaster, blender, and coffee maker - into a power strip.Then when you're done using all appliances, simply turn the power strip switch from "reset" to "off".

It is important to note that cell phone and laptop chargers, as well as some other plug-in devices,continue to drain energy from your electrical circuit, even when the item being charged or utilized isno longer connected. Unplug the chargers altogether or use a power strip.

Use renewable energy sources. In the USA around 71% of electricity is produced by burning fossilfuels. Burning coal or other fuels emits green-house gases and pollution in the environment. An averagehome powered by a coal utility will burn 12,000 pounds of coal a year and will cause about the sameamount of pollution as 2 cars. By using renewable energy as the primary power source, the reduction ofpollution per household would be equivalent to that of planting 400 trees. Many electric companies offerpower from renewable sources (sometimes at a slightly higher fee). Another option is to rent solarpanels, as these are becoming increasingly less expensive. Contact your local energy provider for moreinformation.

Encourage your congressional representatives to support environmental issues and renewableenergy

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One drop per minutecan add up over time.

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Be Reasonable, andcare about the earth!

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Check your faucets and any other appliance that uses water straightfrom your source. If your faucets drip, get them fixed, or at least put acontainer under the drip in the meantime and use the water. To check yourtoilets, put a few drops of food coloring (go for a strong color) in the tank, notthe bowl. Wait about ten minutes without flushing. If you see the dye in thebowl, repair your toilet.

Turn off the water when you're not using it. As Ellen Degeneres says, "Turn off the water whilebrushing your teeth." Why is the water running for so long? There is no point, is there? It is okay if youforget a few times, but if you forget a lot, put a little sticky note on the wall in front of the sink, with thereminder, "Turn off the faucet. Don't waste water!" This goes for shaving, washing dishes, and eventaking a shower.

Avoid salt-based water softeners. These require excessive amounts of energy and water, and leaveyour local watershed's water quality impaired by excess salts. If you have hard water, use an electronicdescaling device instead, such as Scalewatcher or Small Wonder .

Use rechargeable batteries instead of disposable batteries. Batteries not only take up landfill space(they can't be incinerated), they can leak acid into the Earth. Even then, only use the appliance whenyou must. If you have the choice, plug in the device instead of using batteries.

Install low-flow toilets in your home, or put a brick in the reservoir (the back) of your currenttoilet. The space the brick takes up in the bottom of the tank will permit you to use less water, but keepthe toilet functioning. Also try adjusting the water level down. Many toilets have an adjustment to lowerthe valve float.

Use only as much toilet paper as you need, and don't use a mile of it forone little wiping. Be reasonable. Go easy on the paper towels, too. Moreimportantly, to protect virgin forest from being cut down unnecessarily, usepaper products made from 80-100% recycled paper, preferably with a highpost consumer content.

Organize a carpool for work or school. This way, if you take a highway with a High Occupancy



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Your low-cost,low-emissions vehicle.

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Vehicle (HOV) lane, this can usually save time and money on gasoline. For bonus points, use a hybrid orother car that gets high gas mileage.

Plan your errands to avoid going around in circles. This will use more gas and waste time. Groupoutings into fewer, longer trips. This minimizes both trips out and cold starts (starting an engine that hasnot been run lately). Cold starts are hard on your car and the environment.

Invest in a good bicycle and helmet. Use them when your destination iswithin 5-10 miles of home. You can also buy pannier racks, a bike trailer, or asturdy basket to hold items. Get in the habit of riding your bike to local areas.Plus, you will get more exercise and feel better!

Avoid using disposable items as much as possible. Anything you use only a few times and throwaway consumes resources only to spend centuries in a landfill.

You can do this by carrying your own reusable mug, eating utensils, and cloth shopping bags withyou. Keep them in your car or bike panniers.

Avoid using plastic whenever you can; it is a poison of the earth (things like disposable plasticcups, plastic bags, nonsense plastic items you don't need). It never breaks down, and has led to thepoisoning and death of numerous sea creatures. Look into ways that plastic can be recycled in yourarea. Some cities have programs for recycling plastic bags and other difficult to recycle types of plastic.

Use resealable, reusable containers instead of plastic wrap or plastic bags.

Get a hybrid. If you have been looking for a new vehicle, hybrids are becoming more and more popular.There are a wide variety of hybrids on the market from little sedans to big SUVs. They not only give offless emissions into the air, they can save you money with fewer trips to the gas station.

Consider cloth diapers. They've come a long way from the things with pins and plastic covers that genx-ers and ALL previous generations wore. You will save a fortune (especially if you have more than onechild), keep potentially dangerous chemicals away from your baby's bottom, and do a good thing for theplanet while you're at it!

Use reusable cloth pads, or a menstrual cup. It may sound gross to reuse these kinds of things, butimagine all the pads and tampons you use in your lifetime all piled up. Can you say "EW"?

If for some reason these are not options for you, consider using tampons and pads made ofunbleached, organic cotton, and tampons without plastic applicators. These are better for your healthas well as the planet.



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These new lightbulbs look like this.

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It may look yucky,but it's a whole lotbetter than gasoline!

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Trade in your dryer for a good old fashioned clothesline. It makes your clothes smell nice and fresh,and, it's environmentally friendly! If you do use a dryer, make sure to keep the vent clear.

Switch to compact florescent light bulbs. While these cost more, they arealso longer lasting than conventional light bulbs, and they use onlyone-quarter of the energy. They may cost more money, but last much longer.

Coordinate with your neighbors and friends. If the local recycling depot is at some distance, make asingle drop-off spot in your neighborhood, where people can bring their recyclables, then use just onecar to drive them to the depot. A garage is a good place to store things until they are taken. You mighthave different neighbors responsible for different kinds of recyclables, such as paper, glass, metal, etc.

Conserve water. Take shorter showers or fill the bathtub only 1/4-1/3 full. Run your dishwasher onlywhen it is completely full. Reuse water, if at all possible by boiling it. If you wash your own car, park it onyour lawn and use buckets and sponges. Use the hose to rinse. Use pool covers to reduce evaporationand keep leaves out. Try installing eco-friendly faucets, such as Grohe faucets which are equipped withlow-flow fittings to reduce wasteful water consumption.

Compost. Designate an area in your yard to put your yard waste, fruit peels,and uneaten food. Find some worms who can break the waste down andproduce a very rich soil that works great with your landscaping. Keep yourcompost heap as far from a water source as possible, and if you can, put acouple layers of concrete blocks or bricks around your heap to avoid a messon your lawn.

Buy secondhand clothes, or if you have a neighbor with a child a year or so older than your child,ask if they can send their old clothes to you. You can also find many 'organic clothes' at commondepartment stores. These clothes are made with organic cotton in a more environmentally friendlyfactories. They are in style nowadays.

Stop Some of Your Junk Mail. If you get several catalogs which you do not need, then call onecompany each day or each week and ask for them to stop sending this to you. This will save trees, andwill use less oil, as something you do not need will not have to be made and transported to you. There issometimes more paper in the local newspaper that you would use in 2 months. Remember to recycle theold newspapers, or the ones that you do not need anymore.



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You can get a niceview of the clouds, too!

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Get skylights. These windows go on your ceiling to provide more light,reducing the electric light you use. Some types can even transfer sunlight intoelectricity.

Join your local chapter of www.freecycle.org. These groups offer unwanted or unneeded household"stuff" for free to each other, usually through a Yahoo! Group. Keep your unwanted "stuff" out of thelandfill and in the hands of someone who will actually USE it. You will make someone happy, and theearth happier too! Craigslist.org is another useful resource for buying, selling, and giving away useditems locally.

Don't use pesticides, herbicides, or chemicals. Pesticides kill hundreds of birds and other animalsper year. If you have unwanted weeds, pull or hoe them out yourself, clip them down, plant a groundcover in their place, or use mulch to control weeds and limit evaporation.

If you are a gardener, check out permaculture, integrative pest management, polycropping, andother techniques that reduce or eliminate the need for chemical inputs.

Reuse glass bottles. Buy a glass bottle and use it for a long time! It will not rot or go bad like a plasticbottle will. You could decrease the amount of water bottles in the garbage dumps if you use 1 glassbottle instead of 30 plastic water bottles per week. Glass bottles are also healthy! Plastic is not. Alldifferent types of chemicals get released into your water from the plastic, and even more if you squeezeit!

Turn useless junk into something fun and cute, or fresh and funky! Jewelery! You can take a lookaround wikiHow and find tons of articles about how to make different things.

Stop reading newspapers if you can look up the news on your computer, it takes up less energythan cutting down the trees, making the paper, and transporting it to your house.

Brew tea using bulk leaves rather than disposable tea bags. You can buy teas of all sorts in bulk,more affordably than buying boxes of tea bags. Then brew using a mesh strainer, filter, teapot, carafe, orfrench press.

Buy or make a few reusable fabric bags, and bring them with you whenever you go shopping. Or,reuse your old plastic bags. Just imagine all of the plastic bags in the world added up. Isn't that a lot ofgarbage?

Recycle old plastic bags. There are a lot of things which you can do with old plastic bags. Don't throwthem away! They will come in handy! You can reuse them when shopping. Check out how to recycle oldplastic bags.



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Ask for any leftover meat when you go to your meat shop. If the meat is OK to feed to dogs, feedthat to your dog instead. Maybe even your cat! They may even give it to you for free. You will also savemoney by not having to buy dog/cat food. Also, at some super markets, they also give dog bones freewith any purchase.

Reuse clothing, and find something snazzy to do with it. You can reinvent wearable pieces or donatethem to charity. You could use an old t-shirt as housekeeping rags, make mop tie out of them, or sewpatches onto things. Be creative! Did you know you can make construction paper out of denim jeans?!

Start a neighborhood clean-up that will clean up the neighborhood, every week or so. Get thewhole neighborhood involved! Try and get the community involved with the projects, and even do apublic park clean up - this is everyone's home.

Recycle all you can. In many countries, recycling is taken seriously. They have one trash can for bags,one for glass, one for cans, one for boxes, one for plastic, one for paper, even one for decomposed food.Try disciplining yourself to recycling the necessities we use when done.

Put timers on lamps that will turn off lamps at the same time on a daily basis. Timers like these canbe found in hardware stores and they can be plugged into your lamp.

Buy less stuff. If you don't need it, don't buy it. Besides saving money and not cluttering up your house,not buying things in the first place means never using the resources (materials, energy, labor) necessaryto create it. Could you borrow something, get it used, or simply do without it?

Close doors after you leave a room. When you leave the house, or even when you have dinnerdownstairs, try to close the door to all the rooms you don't normally use or need. Doing this often willsave a lot of excess heating that is needed to make your home warm. Something simple anyone can do:)

Limit your shower water. Use less water when showering and don't take longer than fifteen minutes.There are also devices there days that can limit the amount of heated water used per shower, such asGrohe faucets, equipped with low-flow fittings.

Don't use too much fertilizer. Do you know what happens to all the fertilizer that is washed off lawnsand gardens? Some way or another, it ends up in a body of water. Stop this indirect pollution! Organicfertilizer is better than chemical fertilizer. So next time you buy fertilizer, buy organic or even make yourown!

Don't use electronic exercise machines. Instead of using treadmills and similar, use a bicycle or aunicycle maybe. Walking and push-ups work as well.

Plant a tree in your neighborhood or near your home; They suck up harmful CO2 gases. If youcan't plant one, try potted plants.

When you're not too dirty, plug up the shower and use the remaining water to clean your dog.



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Crank it up! At many electronic stores, they sell flashlights or radios powered by cranks. They're a tadexpensive, but they'll soon pay for themselves, as they don't need batteries!

Turn it off Buy a power strip, and plug your TV, computer, lights, etc. into it. At night, when you'renot using them, turn off the power strip, because even an appliance that is off sucks up energy if there'snothing stopping it. Not only does it save electricity, it shaves money off your electric bill.

Use Canvas To Conserve. Using canvas bags help the environment because plastic bags takehundreds of years to disintegrate. Also,using canvas bags is a very cheap way to help out planet.

Create a frog pond in your backyard. Frog populations are dwindling, If you create a habitat for themin your backyard, they may breed there, which will help because their breeding areas are disappearing.

Eat less meat. The production of meat is one of the most significant contributors to the most seriousenvironmental problems, including global climate change. Meat production is highly resource intensiveand inefficient. Meatless Monday is a national non-profit public health campaign that encouragespeople to give up meat one day a week. Attempting vegetarianism or veganism is definitely one of thebest things you can do for the environment and also for your health. Check out the site for somemeatless recipes.

Never eat fast food. Many fast food restaurants have grazing lands for beef cattle where rain forestused to be. Not only does eating from these places cut down the rain forest, it uses CO2 to ship thecows, or whats left of them, up in to wherever the restaurant is.

Load up that washing machine If you need to do laundry, try to wash as much clothes aspossible in it. It saves water, electricity, and time to wash those clothes.

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Try organic fresh fruits and vegetables. Generally things with the fewest ingredients on the label are thesafest bet.

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If you can't ride a bike or don't own one, try to walk to places as much as possible, but if you needtransportation, see if you can use mass transit (like a train, bus, or subway). Since more people use them(so less people are using cars), less fossil fuels are being released.

Generally, don't waste anything (this does not mean eating every left-over you find; you can pack it incontainers and put it in the refrigerator or freezer). If you know of some poor people, they could appreciatethis a lot and look up to you for it. Help your neighbors! And, if you are sure you don't want it anymore orthat your fridge/freezer is full, try putting it outside of your house, or somewhere close to starving animals.They would be more than happy to gobble it up. For example, bread from your breakfast that you just can'teat anymore - break it down and leave it outside for the birds.

Although recycling is great, it's even better to conserve. That means reusing paper as much as possible,or refilling your water bottle instead of buying a new one, and so on.

If you are just getting a soda, or something else that does not require a bag (or if you're just not going touse it), don't take one. Otherwise, use scrap fabric to sew a 'Bag Bunny' to hold plastic bags to be reused.

When grocery shopping, bring your own bag(s) (cloth ones are the best kind). Some places even giveslight discounts for you bringing in your own bag. Some shops also make you pay for those plastic bags,so you'll be saving money as well as do good deeds!

The next time you order a beverage, bring your own mug (or buy one of theirs). Not only will you save 15cents, but you will also help by not wasting cups.

Tips



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Spread the word! Start a club at school, a fund raiser, or anything else that would help make people awareof the environment.

When it comes to saving the planet's water, don't be boring! You're more likely to use something if you likeit, so buy a colorful water bottle or decorate your glass bottle with pretty glass paint!

Ask your local Waste Management Service if you could help out. Maybe you could make fliers and putthem around town, to make people aware of the earth. Start a day where you and the town will pick upgarbage.

If possible, drink your tap water! You'll have more cash in your pocket and reduce the chances of a factorycreating more unnecessary bottles, meaning less energy as well as resources used up.

If you don't have time and space for clothes that you no longer need, donate them to charity! Every timeyou do, you make a lonely soul a grateful spirit, as well as motivate others to do good!

If you have a Facebook profile add the Greenbook application to it. The longer you're on Facebook, themore carbon dioxide you help to reduce.

Before you recycle something, like an aluminum can, it's best to wash it out first. Did you know that onealuminum can can be recycled 10 times?

Before recycling aluminum cans, take off the tabs and save them. There are many hospitals that willaccept them and use them to make medical equipment.

Make sure that any meat that you feed to your animal is OK for them to eat. Don't give them dangerousfood that could make them sick.

Organic food is usually more expensive than "regular food".

Compost holder/placeReusable shopping bags

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