Jayke (A- life well- lived!)
Attitude above- all else! | 
 | | Barked: Thu Mar 20, '08 11:30am PST |  | |  | | If you have a yard, consider planting a deciduous tree on the south side of your lawn to block the sun during the summer, and let in solar energy during the winter when it sheds its leaves. If there’s room, plant conifers on the north side to act as winter wind blocks.
Don't idle. Any stop longer than 10 seconds will save you gas. The federal government's Office of Energy Efficiency says the average Canadian idles their car for five minutes a day, not counting warming it up on cold mornings. But cutting that out, you’ll save about 42 litres a year - the equivalent of 101 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.
Switch to Bullfrog Power. It’s a small Ontario company that funds green electricity generation - through windmills and small hydro dams. It costs more - president Tom Heintzman says about $1 a day - but it comes with a huge carbon kickback. Over a year, you’ll have cut back on almost 2,900 kilograms of carbon dioxide - enough to drive from Toronto to Hamilton and back 70 times.
Americans buy more than 5.1 billion pens every year – most of which end up in the dump, according to Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin’s True Green @ Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business. Think about the energy that goes into making that 770 tons of plastic waste every year, let alone the landfill space. Use long-life refillable pens made from recycled plastic, paper or timber.
Don’t just chuck that unwanted fax, junk mail into recycling bin. Remove yourself from the mailing list by contacting the company directly or calling the Canadian Marketing Association and asking that your name be taken off their list: 416-391-2362. Also: put up a “No Junk Mail” notice on your mailbox. Canada Post carriers respect it and won’t drop off coupons, flyers and free catalogues.
More than three-quarters of dry cleaners use large amounts of the chemical solvent tetrachloroethylene, a powerful degreasing agent that’s a suspected carcinogen, aggravates asthma and allergies and is particularly toxic to fish and wildlife. It breaks down into the toxin phosgene and contributes to smog. So, instead of lugging your shirts to the dry cleaner, wash them by hand in cold water with a gentle, natural soap and hang them to dry. If you are a dead-set dry cleaning type, opt for a green dry cleaner. You can find one in your neighbourhood at: www.greenearthcleaningcanada.com
Switch off your computer before you leave work. It will cut its electricity use by about one-quarter, according to Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin's True Green @ Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business. Taken over a year, that's about 700 kilowatt hours - about three week's worth of electricity for the average Toronto household.
We spend about one-third of our time at work. And that's where almost half of our greenhouse gases come from, according to Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin's True Green @ Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business. Form a green team for your office and look at ways to cut back on electricity and waste. Start with simple things like making recycling easy, and switching to recycled copy paper.
Thinking of buying a new fancy computer, even though your old one still works fine? Hold back. On a weight-by-weight basis, computers are more environmentally destructive to make than cars, according to Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin’s True Green @ Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business. Research by the United Nations University in Tokyo shows making standard desktop computer with 17-inch CRT monitor requires 2 tonnes of materials, including 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and nearly 1,500 litres of water.
Don't throw out that toner cartridge. Instead, reuse it. About 167 million toner cartridges are dumped into American landfills every year, totalling about 18 million kg of waste, according to Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin's True Green @ Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business. Most can be refilled up to four times.
Introduce casual Fridays to your office. Short-sleeved open-necked shirts mean you can set your office thermostat higher. Every degree you save will cut up to 20 per cent of air conditioning costs.
Calculate your ecological footprint – how much water, air and land your personal lifestyle gobbles up. Then, commit to reducing it by one hectare by this time next year. Go to www.myfootprint.org.
Cancel that flight. One round-trip flight across the country creates 2 to 3 tonnes of CO2 emissions per passenger. In those ten hours, you’ll cancel out the effect of every single energy-saving device you’ve installed in your home. In fact, that round-trip has spewed out more emissions than the average Toronto home’s electricity use for an entire year.
If you have to fly, buy carbon offsets. Some people call them guilt money. But, at least by investing in projects that introduce green electricity elsewhere or plant carbon-dioxide sucking trees, you’ll be helping to clean up your mess. Make sure you pick a gold-standard company, certified by the World Wildlife Fund. Here’s one we’ve used: www.myclimate.org
More than three-quarters of computers sold in the United States each year end up in a dump. That's why computers and other electronic waste make up 70 per cent of the lead, cadmium, and mercury in landfills, according to Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin's True Green @ Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business. Instead of pitching it, recycle it. Give it to the non-profit iRecycle Computers.
Organize an "inorganic market" for your community. It will give your neighbours a chance to pitch their old electronic gadgets and computers without sending them to landfill. Instead, they'll be refurbished, reused or recycled.
Have a family birthday coming up? Ask for only second-hand gifts from your guests. Go so far as to specify that on your invites. Need inspiration? For every can of garbage you put out, 70 cans are made upstream to produce that product, according to Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff. If your daughter worries she’ll be unhip, tell her it’s all the rage in ultra-cool Berkeley, Calif. |  |  | |  |
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The Dog Show: Who's Your Mama?
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