Did you know it takes 15,500 litres of water to produce 1kg (2.2lbs) of beef and 3,900 litres for just 1kg (2.2lbs) of chicken meat? So, for each hamburger you eat, it takes 2400 litres of water to produce.
Know Your Waterfootprint
The Water Footprint Network recently launched a campaign to get people to think about their water footprint. Similar to a carbon footprint, the water footprint is an indicator of how much water is consumed to make food or a product. Visit: http://www.waterfootprint.org/
Don’t Salt The Snow
Road salt (sodium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium chloride, and ferrocyanide salts) is toxic to the environment in large concentrations so definitely don’t use these chemicals and minerals on your pathways. It destroys plants, poisons animals and trashes your vehicles. Table salt isn’t much better so why not take out the shovel and get some exercise. If you weigh around 170lbs and heartily shovel snow for 20 minutes then you will burn-up 380 calories, just enough to offset two old fashioned doughnuts you may have had for breakfast. If you need some form of grit, use salt-free sand or plain old dirt.Easy On The Gas
In the winter people needlessly leave their cars to idle, warming it up and defrosting the windows. Use a window scraper for the ice and a bristle brush for the snow. Then get in and start the car, you only need a short time to let the oil pressure rise and then you can start to drive, provided the windows are clear. It is still important to check tire pressures in the winter, for good grip as well as fuel efficiency. Easy on the accelerator, there could be black ice around, and you are only burning up gas for no reason. Better still, leave the gas-guzzler at home and take public transport – let someone else worry about driving in winter storms – saves you stress and the environment too.
Know Thy Chickens
And know thy eggs. Too often we are fooled by the pretty pictures on our egg packages showing a happy cartoon chicken munching on some bright green grass. These ‘food stories’ could not be further from the reality of the lives of the more than 300 million egg-laying hens in North America.
Most of these hens live in factory farms, the animal equivalent of a concentration camp. With about 8x11 inches allotted per egg-laying hen, the creatures are placed in wire battery cages at 18 weeks old, stacked tier upon tier in warehouses, they can’t turn around nor spread their wings, their beaks are burnt off without anaesthetic or painkillers, fed heavily medicated pellets, they never see sunlight or walk on the ground.
All the more reason to buy from a local farmer that you know and trust. If you don’t have access to a local farmer, call or e-mail the company that sells you your eggs and ask a few questions. We guarantee you will be unpleasantly surprised by the answers.
Donate Clothing
This is a good time of year to sort out the closet, since you are wearing that new coat you got at Christmas, maybe it would be a good idea to donate the old one you stuck away in the closet. While you are in there, maybe you should pass along all those other forgotten winter goodies – like boots, trousers, jerseys, mittens and socks – rather than hoarding those clothes, pass them along to someone who will need them and use them. Remember not to refill the closet with more clothes – unless they are organic, or made from sustainable materials, and are low impact to the environment.
Use Power Bars
If you have countless electronic items in your room, and they have stand-by modes or little displays, then they are sucking up vampire power that is a needless waste. Rather than switching them off from stand-by, one-by-one, why not put them on individual power bars, making sure you don’t overload the power bar of course. Then, at night, or during the day when they aren’t needed, you can switch them all off easily – saves a chore and some valuable electrical energy.
Avoid Farmed Salmon
The environmental impacts of salmon farming include an increase in sea lice, disease, algae blooms, marine debris, marine mammal deaths, waste build up on the ocean floor and the potential for fish escaping the farm and the introduction of alien species according to the Canadian organization Farmed And Dangerous. Farmed salmon also impacts on human health from the PCBs and excessive antibiotics used during the farming process. Choose a wild salmon option, but also remember to significantly reduce fish consumption as the world’s fish stocks are in serious trouble. Visit: http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/
Say No To Hangers
Ditto Hangers, makers of recycled clothing hangers, report that the dry cleaning industry goes through 3.5 billion wire hangers each year. That is equivalent to 200 million pounds of steel, or 60,000 automobiles. The landfilled waste they create worldwide would fill 4.6 Empire State Buildings each and every year. Hangers are becoming a problem in municipal waste streams with more than 8 billion plastic and metal hangers being discarded each year. Joan Crawford knew what she was talking about when she said, “No more wire hangers.” Visit: http://www.dittohangers.com
Line Dry All Year Round
Project Laundry List, an American advocacy group for laundry lines, reports that about 5.8 percent of residential electricity use goes towards the clothes dryer, according to Department of Energy statistics from 2001.However, they believe the 5.8% figure of residential electricity use for drying clothes is much higher as the number does not take into account the millions of Americans who do their wash at commercial laundromats and multi-family housing locations. Either way, if Americans would use the clothesline or wooden drying racks, the savings would be enough to close several power plants. Install an indoor clothing rack for winter clothes drying.
Volunteer
With a dying planet and a world economy in the dumps, our leaders cannot make needed changes quick enough without the support of the entire world population. More than ever, we need to take heed of Margaret Mead’s words, “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Now is not the time for apathy and indifference, now is the time of selfless service. Find something you can do to give back to your community, neighbors or country. No gesture, no service is too small or insignificant. If we all work together we can change the world.
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