The Ten Easiest Things You Can Do for Your Environment

With all the large-scale environmental policies and processes filling the news these days--Kyoto accords, emissions credits, fuel cells technology, co-generation, and so forth--it becomes too easy to fall into thinking that some horde of facelss bureaucrats will take care of the world for you without you even noticing…but even assuming that was desireable, there are so few professionals, and so many of the rest of us--billions upon billions of us, after all--that the actions we take as individuals together, when you add them up, could much mean more than all the treaties and technologies of the last four decades put together.

With that in mind, I have compiled a list of the ten easiest things you can do to reduce the wear and tear you cause the air, the earth, and your society. These will take almost no time out of your day, and they will improve the planet, add pleasure to your days directly or indirectly, and often save you money. Here they are, in no particular order:

Recycle clothes hangers at dry cleaner
Most dry cleaners accept metal clothes hangers for re-use; most recyclers don't. We throw out millions upon millions of clothes hangers every year, and most go into landfill. Your dry cleaner will happily re-use them, which will help them keep costs down in the long run, benefitting you directly as well as through an improved environment.

Walk for trips of less than half a mile (1 km.); bicycle for trips of less than 3 miles (4.5 km.)
Half of all car trips are to places less than three miles away. Cars produce a large percentage of their pollution in the first mile of driving, as they warm up. Most people can easily walk 2 mph or bicycle 8 mph, even if overweight or very old. You will offset the extra time you'll spend getting there with the time you'll save not looking for a parking spot. Besides that, you'll feel better, live longer, and know where you are on this earth.

Almost everyone already owns shoes, and a new quality bicycle costs only $200 to $600 these days--1/100^th the price of a car, with a useful life of twenty years. Don't buy bigbox junk bikes; they're unreliable and don't ride well, with ill-designed frames and wheels and odd proportions; go to a small bike shop, describe to the seller that you only want to go shopping with it (bicycle salesfolk tend to be racers), and have the mechanic fit it to you before you ride it home. Get a rack with baskets or panniers, a small headlight, and a decent lock and helmet. Get acquainted with the birds, the flowers, the neighbors you forgot lived all around you. Enjoy your life again!

Use windows and curtains for climate control whenever possible
Close windowshades to keep heat out; open them to let it in. Open windows to let cooling air in; close them to keep the cold out. Closed windows, open shades in winter; closed shades, closed windows in summer, with both open as dusk approaches to cool the house for the night. Various combination in spring and fall. Open windows with closed drapes is not impossible; the drapes will billow and let the air in, keeping the house fresh even on a hot day. This will work for much of the year in most latitudes.

If you have a wide roof overhang (which shades the walls and windows in the summer, when the sun is high, and warms them in the winter, when the sun is low) it works even better.

In our Los Angeles apartment, which is 200 feet from one of the busiest streets in California, the second-story air is still fresher than the air in a closed-up house. We never use air conditioning, and turn on the heater only to warm the bathroom in the morning.

Actually recycle bottles, cans, paper, & cardboard
Almost every city has a recycling program now. It's not that difficult to separate paper trash, bottles and cans, and just plain garbage.

Grow food, even if only in window boxes
People do this in even the smallest of apartments. Try leafy greens, tomatoes, herbs, onions, and so forth: many food plants take up little room and yield much pleasure to the table. You can plant collards and other vines in those little dirt strips next to many buildings and train them up the walls. Your meals will taste better, and you and the produce truck both won't have to make so many trips to the store. And you'll save money.

Eat less meat
Moral issues aside, a vegetarian diet, even just part-time, is more planet-friendly. Someone eating a typical US meat-based diet requires 3.25 acres of land to feed him for a year, whereas a lacto-ovo-vegetarian requires only half an acre. A vegan, who eats neither meat, milk, nor eggs, requires only 1/6^th of an acre. Skip the burgers and they steaks now and then--you'll be healthier, you'll spend less money, and there will be that much less land taken away from the rest of life.

Read the newspaper online
Simple: no paper, no driving. And they still make money from the ads--as they do in the paper edition as well.

Buy at local stores; avoid big boxes & chains
Local stores give you more choices, offer better service (try special-ordering something unusual from Home Depot--hah!), and don't depend on wide roads and huge parking lots to accommodate out-of-area pricegrinders they must attract in droves to support their narrow margins. Local stores also pay relatively more to their help, which supports the local economy--including your own business.

Check your tire inflation once a month
Low tire pressure on an automobile is a safety hazard and wastes gas; on a bicycle it makes for frequent flats and dreary riding.

Don't buy hardware for fashion's sake: keep manufactured goods such as cars, bicycles, computers, and appliances as long as possible
Half of the energy use a car incurs in its lifetime takes place during its manufacture. This applies to all manufactured goods, and even more so to low- or no-energy devices such as computers and bikes. Then there is the problem of what to do with them when no one wants them anymore. Wear them out before you throw them out, and call a professional recycler when you do get rid of it. Save time, save the earth, and save your money.

Every one of these actions that you undertake is a vote for a happier present and a longer future, for all of us and our posterity. And you can vote as often as you like.

Richard Risemberg

Go to A Word from Eric Miller