Use less energy wherever possible. Especially electricity. If your electronic items have lights that stay on after you 'turn them off', they're probably still drawing power : my computer does, so I turn off the power bar it's plugged into. The same goes for a tv or many other gizmos. They all add up to drawing a lot of power over the course of a year: turning them off, and even unplugging them if necessary, saves an appreciable amount of money over time.
Seal any drafts you have around doors and windows. That may lower heating and cooling costs quite a bit, depending on where you are, as well as energy usage.
It's probably too late this year, but consider growing a garden or buying locally grown food instead of having veggies trucked in from far away. (from California, Florida, Mexico, South American fruit, Australian produce, etc, in you're in North America) That cuts down on how much fuel is used to haul your food. And using less fuel means less CO2 is created, if enough people do it. It's July, so you can still grow some herbs, etc, if you want to start now, ( and research how to grow a window garden indoors during the winter.)
And, if possible, walk or ride a bicycle whenever you can (and where and when it's safe). I haven't driven in over 2 years.
You can put your kitchen wastes (no meat or bones!) into a compost bin or worm bin, and later use the compost or worm castings in your garden.
Turn your household heat down in the cool season, or set the air conditioner temps higher in the hot weather, as appropriate. A difference of even 2-3 degrees makes a huge difference in you energy consumption, and if you research it, you can go even farther. (I don't even have air conditioning here, but I live in the north)
ReUse anything you can instead of sending it to the landfill or wherever.
Reduce, ReUse, and Recycle.
And plant trees, flowers, or other plants wherever possible. It helps. Even if you don't own the land...some people actually do this kind of guerrilla gardening, but it would be better to participate in creating a community garden/ food forest, or the like.
Another environmentally beneficial practice is to make more of your food from scratch, instead of buying prepared instant food items or 'junk food'. Eat like it was 1930 again. You'll cut down on expenses as well as eat healthier. And you won't be putting so much packaging in the landfill, especially the plastic packaging.
yes we can follow common and simple but yet effective for protecting environment. Like Going with cottony bags for shopping rather than getting plastic bags from shops. This would reduce the use of plastic bags rather than recycling. Even if brought with plastic bags shopping reuse it or return it the the shops for reuse this would minimize the cost of recycling. If we are able to follow 3- R (Reduce, reuse and recycle) then we would most probably be taking care of our personal eco responsibilities other than recycling.
Well you can reduce and reuse. You can avoid wasting electricity and food. Going a bit into the fact, even the recycling takes up some amount of energy. So it's always better to reuse stuff.
Well, being an irishman living in USA for a few years i use to recycle back home. out here in the USA i am thinking what is the point. Back home you have to pay for a plastic shopping bag so everyone has reuseable bags. here its just plastic bags after plastic bags. its such a waste. i never see any bottle banks like i do back home where you can go and throw in your bottles for recycling. people drive monster cars here that you could use for real off-road driving but they are just used for driving on the road. fuel used is way way more than needed. i do my bit at home but here it seems like it's just too difficult
Hi I would be interested to know what peoples views are on what our individual social responsibilities are regarding the environment - things we should be doing everyday that would make a difference if EVERYONE did them, other than recycling. Are there products we should all avoid buying for the benefit of the planet for example? or alternatives that are better ecologically?
