For Every Sector, Little Earth Day Ideas For A Better World
For everyday people like you and I:
Celebrate Earth Day by doing simple things like checking the air pressure in your car tires. Keeping tires properly inflated can earn you another 10 cents per gallon. If everyone’s tires were properly inflated, we would be saving about 4 million gallons of gasoline every DAY.
Did you know the average American receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year? You can be removed from direct-mail mailing lists by contacting the companies or:
http://www.41pounds.org stops your junk mail for five years for only $41 (less than 70 cents a month). 41pounds.org donates more than 1/3 of each new subscriber’s fee to an environmental or community organization of their choice.
http://mailstopper.tonic.com/ (formerly GreenDimes), will stop 90% of junk mail in 90 days, for $20 a year, plus MailStopper plants 5 trees on behalf of each member.
Swapping one incandescent bulb for a CFL reduces carbon dioxide by 500 pounds a year; replacing 17 has the equivalent effect of taking one car off the road for a year.
Buy and install a foot activated kitchen faucet. Prices start at around $118 up to around $1,000 (USD). It’s more sanitary and saves about 3,000 gallons of water a year.
For Retailers:
Hey Walmart! You sell reusable bags for no less than $1.00 a piece with ‘Walmart’ printed on them. How about, to celebrate Earth Day, you folks start selling reusable bags for no more than 5 cents each. Come on now, you will still make a profit and your corporation will help us help our planet.
Why? Well, for one thing over 46,000 pieces of plastic litter are floating on every square mile of ocean today. (United Nations Environment Program 2006)
If people can get 20 bags for a $1.00, you better believe they will fly off the selves.
And it’s not just pick on Walmart time. All of you retailers worldwide utilizing plastic bags to pack our purchases can do the same thing. Put you name on the bags, we don’t care! After all, these bags are free (make that profitable), advertisement for your companies. Give up a little profit – not all – and give us and the Earth a break. After all it’s your planet too and the only one we’ve got.
For local city governments, businesses, and concerned citizens, (comprised from a previous Forced Green article):
Combine two great innovative ideas, hydroponics and urban vertical (skyscraper) farming. Now add into the equation the existing empty/abandoned warehouses, buildings, and parking structures in cities around the world.
Renovate these buildings to access the maximum amount of sunlight structurally allowable. Keep any existing water based fire suppression systems (sprinklers), for irrigation. Add in tubular natural solar lighting and solar powered grow lights. Install wind turbines and rain capturing systems on all the roofs. Utilize buildings with sturdy roofs and the top level of parking structures for fruit tree orchards. On the buildings’ upper levels, start the seedlings for the hydroponic leafy vegetables and herbs. Arranged along the perimeter of the floors, rotating along to each level, like canal locks. Timed to reach the lower level loading docks at the harvest stage. On the interior of the floors, elevated planters (for easy access), for the root crops like potatoes. carrots, onions, and etc.
For the large areas of ground level concrete parking lots, leave as they are but, pattern cut large circular holes through to the earth and plant fruit trees. Or rectangular cut-aways for large plants like corn or vine grown vegetables like peas, beans, cucumbers, and etc. Leaving concrete pathways between would assure weed control, easy crop maintenance, access for electric maintenance/harvesting vehicles, and water collection systems. Add a canopy of solar panels over these pathways to not only generate electricity, but to keep the pathways cool. Better for the soil, for water retention, and more comfortable for the workers.
The entire project could be totally self sustainable, or darn near it.
Projects like this could easily turn the tables on the plague of urban blight that has hit every major city on this planet. Creating jobs, eliminating homelessness, and hunger. Reducing CO2 and the community’s carbon footprint by reducing “food miles”. Restoring neighborhoods to their intended glory. Not to mention more appealing to the eye!
And finally, to all you Earthlings – Happy Earth Day!
…. as the green future unfolds.
