World Environment Day

We only have one earth to work with, and that means that there are no second chances when it comes to doing things right by the environment. Today is World Environment Day and that gives us all an opportunity to do a little something extra for the earth which has given us so much for so long. Taking care of the planet isn’t as hard as many make it out to seem. You don’t have to plant a million trees to give back, just start with one. You don’t need to clean up the whole pacific garbage patch from plastic particulate, just stop littering. You don’t need to go start a protest against the local coal plant, just get solar panels. The list goes on and on, but in truth, there is no better day than today to start taking care of the environment and that’s not just because it’s World Environment Day either. Here are some solid tips and tricks to save the planet that you can do and also convince others to do too.

• Conserve. Conserve. No matter what angle you look at it from, it’s still easier and cheaper to conserve goods and energy than it is to produce replacements. From the broken shoelace that you can reattach to the toilet that you flush for single Q-Tips, there are plenty of ways to save. In fact, flushing less will also help you to avoid an overflow too – so you save the planet twice.
• Take a bike to your destination. Lots of people have bikes that simply sit around and collect dust. They don’t have to, and you don’t have to use your care either. Many of our destinations in life are within a few miles of wherever we are at the time, and that gives you plenty of opportunities to use a bike instead of a car to get there. This saves you money on gasoline and it saves the environment from the nasty fumes that you produce every time you use gasoline.
• Change your light bulbs. This one is easy and relatively cheap. If you are one of those people that still has old school incandescent light bulbs – then either you don’t know they are huge energy hogs, or you have no problem wasting good cash on bad energy. Spend a couple of bucks on CFL’s or LED bulbs and you will save yourself tons of cash down the road when it comes time to pay the power bill, and at the same time you save the environment from the carbon pollution.
• Recycle your stuff. This goes for everything from the glass bottles you slurped down your last bottle of coke in, to the old TV that you have been using as an end table. Stop that, it’s not an end table, and you can help out the planet by recycling it in an appropriate E-waste forum.
• Eat Pizza. This one sounds too good to be true right? Wrong. Meat that most of us eat in the great majority of our meals is terribly expensive to produce and that takes its toll on the environment in the form of agribusiness and environmental degradation from undulates. Eating a pizza can save the beef and let’s be honest, it tastes amazing.
• Use three sheets of toilet paper. As it turns out there is a healthy number of people who bunch their toilet paper as compared with the more anal-retentive (get it) kind of bathroom goer who neatly folds the paper into a applicator. No matter how you use your TP, make sure to try one less sheet of it and see if you notice the difference. If you don’t then do it that we from now on. You’ll save the trees and your pocketbook.
• Turn the water off when you brush your teeth. A good rule of thumb is that if you’re not using the water then don’t waste it. Leaving the water on while you brush your teeth can waste more than a gallon of water. Turn off the flow and save the hydro and the cash.
• Buy used. Does it need to be brand new? Will you die if it isn’t? If not, consider buying whatever it is used and you’ll not only save some bread, but some tread too.
• Turn off the lights. No this isn’t a ploy to get you to be more romantic. It is on the other hand a great way to save energy and money. When you aren’t in the room turn the lights off and you’ll likely never notice that the room gets scared in the dark. You will on the other hand quickly notice the cash back that you’ll save from being responsible and turning off the lights.
• Give back. Are you considering tossing out that item – whatever it is – don’t!!! Give it to someone instead. There is likely a friend within your group that needs your old baby clothes or the PS3 you’re tired of playing. So next time you want to upgrade and are about to toss out the old version, do a facebook post and see if anyone wants it first. Who knows you might even connect with one of those friends in real life when you give it to them – in person.
• Bag your own groceries. The number of plastic bags that get used in the world every year is just sickening. Seriously it’s gross, we looked it up but then felt bad about actually writing it down. So anyway, just trust us that plastic bags are bad, and you could save so many of them by just buying some hardy cloth ones that will last forever. Then bag your own groceries and watch the face of the bagger at the story implode with confusion. It’ll be great.
• Use it twice. Lots of the time we use things they are “dirty” just because we’ve used them, and not because they are actually unusable again. Everything from paper plates to…plastic water bottles can be reused depending on the circumstances. Try it and you’ll see you don’t even taste the old meal you ate beforehand.

There are a million ways to save the environment and this is by no means a definitive list of all the options – not even by a little bit. That means there are plenty of ways for you to individually determine how to save the environment. Find your ways and keep them up. You don’t have to just do them today because it’s World Environment Day, you have to do it every day no matter what because that’s the duty that mother earth has charged you with. No go forth and save energy soldier.