7 Easy Ways to Go Green Now!

A global campaign is underway to get individuals and organizations to reduce their emissions by 10% by 2010. What can you do to reduce your emission foot-print? Here are 7 tips you can use to make our environment more eco-friendly.

1. Unplug all your electronics at the end of the day. Do you know that the laptop on your disk is consuming electricity even though it is turned off? From the moment we wake up till we go to sleep, our modern life is very much dependent on electronics and electrical gadgets.

Most of the time these gadgets are plugged in for 24 hours in the electric outlet. DVD players, music boxes, electric shavers, computers, TVS, game players, are just to name a few electronics that we keep plugged in through out the day.

You need to unplug these energy consuming gadgets. A good idea is to plug your electronics into an energy-efficient powerstrip, so that at the end of the day, all you have to do is flip one switch.

2. Replace incandescent bulbs with fluorescent lights. They use 40 to 60 percent less power and last 10 times longer than the average bulb. Though they are more expensive than the incandescent bulbs, you will save through out the life of the bulb in terms electricity usage and you will also be helping reduce your emission-footprint.

3. Be conscious of your water consumption. Water crisis is looming in the horizon. Some experts believe in the up coming water war. It is a scarce resource and we waste so much of it. How many times you have let your faucet flow when you're brushing your teeth?

If you're upgrading your plumbing system or improving your bath room, install low flow faucets, valves, and washers. Fix all your leaky faucets. Shut off faucets when not in use.

4. Neutralize your carbon footprint. Modern human economic activities introduce excessive carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. This causes the earth's temperature to rise.

You can neutralize your contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by planting trees in your garden or putting leafy shrubs on your balcony. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and neutralizes carbon dioxide generated by your economic activity.

5. Reduce your paper waste. Switching from plastic bag to paper bag is good for reducing non-biodegradable plastic from our land fills. But by doing so, you also increase your paper consumption.

Though most of the grocery bags are made from recycled paper, their transportation consumes more energy than transporting the same number of plastic bags. You goal for an eco-friendly life style should be to reduce paper usage as much as you can. If you're stingy with your papers in your every day life, you will be able to reduce your paper usage.

6. Talk about recycling with your family and friends. Recycling is an extra chore that many people simply want to avoid. But if you do it as a group activity among friends and family, it can be fun to recycle bottles, cans, and papers.

7. Use car pooling or public transportation. For daily commute to your work place, you can car pool with coworkers or take a public transport, if available.