This Earth Day, begin taking simple steps to line your pocket with a little more green. These resource-saving tips help give us a healthier environment, too:
Save Energy
Turn off the lights when you leave a room.
Reduce energy bills by 30 percent with Energy Star appliances and equipment. They can also help to cut electric lighting charges by 40 percent.
Reduce the cost of water heating by 6 to 10 percent by setting the water-heater temperature to 120F degrees.
Open blinds to let in sunlight rather than using electric lights.
Save Gas
Improve your car’s fuel economy by easing up on the brakes and gas pedal, avoiding hard accelerations and reducing excess weight by removing unnecessary items from the trunk.
Do not idle the car more than 30 seconds.
Shop locally.
Carpool with coworkers, go on group shopping trips with neighbors, use public transportation. Leaving your car at home for two days a week will reduce greenhouse emissions by about two tons annually.
Celebrate Earth Day at the Table
Skip meat one day a week. Producing fruit and vegetables requires fewer resources and produces less greenhouse gas emissions than raising the animals for food.
Bottled water costs thousands of times more than tap water—and doesn’t meet the EPA’s safety standards for tap water. Get a reusable water bottle (preferably stainless steel or glass) and use a pitcher with cups instead of ordering single-serving water bottles for business meetings.
When grocery shopping, choose food that is less processed and that requires less packaging.
Replace disposable serveware (forks/knives/spoons, dishes, cups) with “real” china and flatware.
Remember the Blue Bin
Recycle your home’s newspaper, catalogs/magazines, cardboard, glass and metal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 850 pounds per year.
Track your progress with this online calculator that North Shore-LIJ employees are using for our Carbon Footprint Challenge. The health system has lowered its carbon footprint by more than 8 percent since 2010.
Come back on Friday to see how to help keep hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals from getting into your water supply.
This post was written by Lisa Burch, Director of Sustainability and Social Responsibility at the North Shore-LIJ Health System.
For more North Shore-LIJ Health Blog posts, go to http://blog.northshorelij.com/
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