This is the most important post ever in this blog. Read it and act fast. Do it so that coming generations can see mother earth in the same beautiful way as we were able to see it.
In your home
- Turn off equipment like televisions and stereos when you are not using them.
- Choose energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.
- Save water; some simple steps can go a long way in saving water. E.g.: you should always turn off the tap when you are brushing your teeth. And try to collect the water used to wash vegetables and salad to water your house plants.
- Let clothes dry naturally. Avoid dryer.
- Keep lids on pans when cooking to prevent your cooker having to work extra hand. Prefer to use gas ovens, Geysers etc in place of the electric ones.
- Recycle your paper, glass, plastics and other waste.
- Plants emit Oxygen. So take home these earth saving friends to live with you.
While on the road
- Less traffic is less pollution and less petrol consumption.
- Follow traffic rules and leave left lane, tomorrow we might be the one in ambulance caught in traffic jam
- Prefer to share your ride to reduce traffic jams and pollution.
- Prefer to use public transport.
- Set an example by not littering and cleaning litter.
- Keep a litter bag in your car and bring one with on day trips in case no waste bins are available.
- Prefer to turn off engine at traffic signals.
Save wood and paper
- Always use both sides of a sheet of paper.
- Use email to stay in touch, including cards, rather than faxing or writing
- Reuse envelopes. Always reuse paper for making scribbling pads.
- Share magazines with friends and pass them on to the doctor, dentist or local hospital for their waiting rooms.
- Use recyclable paper to make invitation cards, envelops, letter pads etc.
Reuse and recycle
- Use washable nappies instead of disposables if you can
- Give unwanted clothes, toys and books to charity shops or jumble sales.
- Use mains electricity rather than batteries if possible. If not, use rechargeable batteries.
- Use a solar powered calculator instead of one with a battery.
- Instead of a plastic ballpoint, use a fountain pen with bottled ink, not plastic cartridges.
- Store food and other products in ceramic containers rather than in plastic wrap.
At your workplace
- Use printers that can print on both sides of the paper; try to loom into this option when replacing old printers.
- Use the back of a draft or unwanted printout instead of notebooks. Even with a double sided printer there is likely to be plenty of spare paper to use!
- Always buy recycled paper – for your business stationary and to use in your printers.
- Switch off computer monitors, printers and other equipment at the end of each day. Though in standby mode they are still using power – and that adds to global warming.
- Always turn off your office lights and computer when you go out for lunch or to a meeting.
- Prefer green roofs, gardens and natural plants in your office.
While shopping
- Prefer carrying your own bags and avoid plastic usage. Prefer paper or jute bags.
- Prefer on-line shopping, bill payments and reservations as this will reduce fuel consumption and pollution by not driving to shops/offices.
- Purchase solar powered products.
- Send e-cards if you can, rather than buy paper cards.
Bloggers
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Lemme add one more point which i got from a forwarded mail..
We all use PC and many are not aware of the fact that our monitor is still running even when we are not using it. In almost all s/w companies which i kno, it takes 20 minutes for the monitor to turn off automatically.This can be avoided by following very few steps.
Step 1: Go to desk top.Right click-properties.
Step 2: Go to Screen Saver and select Power.
Step 3: Go to Turn Off monitor option and press the Drop Down box to select the Monitor Turn off time.
Please change the timing (3 or 5 minutes recommended).
If you get an “access denied” message don’t get depressed.Ask ur administrator.If it is also not possible Just turn off ur monitor when u go for breaks.
These few steps will help us reduce the amount of power wasted when we are not using our PC.
Shutting down your PC before leaving, Turning off the lights before leaving ,etc; are some of the other ways to reduce the amount of power wasted.
Info:
Screen savers consume as much energy as when you are using screen. They save your screen pixels, but they burn away power
An average of 76w power is consumed by CRT monitor
LCD much better than CRT
› 5000+ PCs, 90% Monitors CRT
LCD monitor Consumes less power than CRT monitors.
I have already made this a habit. Hope you will do the same soon.
Don’t blow it, good planets are hard to find.
-Quoted in Time Magazine
Asha,
Thanks for the valuable points.
Really nice list! Glad to see people are concerned about this stuff. My fiancee is an interior designer so I hear all about this stuff all of the time.
*just changed his monitor’s power settings
David,
Good.
Hmm, this is about the self taking measures to help the world. A very good cause indeed.
Anand,
We all have to do our part in this to make it work.
I like the attitude of the list, but I think you waste some bullet points on unnecessary details.
For example calculators – I really doubt they have any impact.
The important part is to change those things that actually make an impact – depending on your life style.
If you visit your relatives once a year, take the car if that is more convenient. It will hardly matter. What matters are those trips you do everyday – probably those to your workplace. For those trips, take public transportation instead or move to an apartment near that place.
And some things that were missing:
* Make sure your rooms and windows are well isolated.
* In the winter, open your windows for short periods only. Never heat with open windows.
Still a nice post
Daniel,
Thanks for that excellent points.
I don’t know whether changing your calculators have a significance or not. Somebody please provide statistics for that… Still I assume that the process of producing and disposing even a single battery can make a very big impact on the nature.
Good post!!!
Great post/idea Niyaz. You have a great list there and even if it only incites thought in people about how to ‘green-ify’ their lives then you have done something beneficial in this world. Very nice.
Hello. Great initiative, it’s nice to see that others is concerned with the effect we have on the environment.
: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jul/19/climatechange.climatechange
However, it seems to me that you have missed a very important point, certainly more important than calculator batteries. A quick google on “meat industry pollution” gives http://www.memory.uci.edu/~sustain/global/sensem/MeatIndustry.html as first result. It makes a few good points about the meat industry. Even if you don’t give a shit about the animals (Which is the case with most people D: ), you have a good reason to not eat meat. Consider the following main points of the article:
“Forty pounds of soybeans are produced by the same amount of fossil fuels required to produce one pound of meat.”
Even if one pound of meat contains more energy than one pound of soybeans, eating meat is not justifiable from an energy standpoint.
“The meat industry consumes over half of all water used for all purposes in the United States. Most of this water is used to irrigate cattle feedlots. Water utilized to produce 1 pound of meat amounts to 2,500 gallons. In comparison, the water utilized to produce 1 pound of wheat amounts to 25 gallons.”
Suddenly turning of the tap while brushing your teeth because you want to save water seems Hypocritical if you are eating animals, does it not?
The article does however not mention the high carbon dioxide and methane emissions that comes from the meat industry. Here’s an article for ya
“Producing 1kg of beef results in more CO2 emissions than going for a three-hour drive while leaving all the lights on at home, scientists said today.” That quote sums it up quite well, IMO.
Also due to the low energy efficiency of meat production, it greatly contributes to the food crisis that is going on in third world countries.
So, Niyaz, show that you are really concerned about the environment and stop eating meat. Sorry for writing such a long-ish post about this, but even if only one person starts eating less meat or stops eating it altogether, I think it was worth it!
//Max
Shoban, Silky,
Thanks for your encouragement.
Max,
I didn’t know that. Anyway I prefer fish to meat. Do you think processing of fish is also wastes this much energy? Anyway I will try to avoid meat in future. In this part of the world (Hyderabad, India), meat is a big part of the cuisine.
Niyaz,
Excellent post on the Green Stuff. Being a geek, I would add the following to the list:
If you are a sysadmin, use virtualization as much as possible to use fewer servers, which will bring down the power consumption.
Ramesh
The Geek Stuff
Ramesh,
That is true… Thanks for that.
What about adding a hibernate option to servers?
Niyaz,
I don’t think eating fish has a negative impact on the environment as long as we don’t produce their food ourselves. Just make sure you don’t eat the that is needed to keep the ecosystem stable.
I personally don’t eat fish, but that’s mostly for ethical reasons.
Turning off your engine at traffic lights is extremely dangerous to the point of criminal negligence. Don’t do this for any reason.
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