Green Page

8 Simple things that anyone can do to make our environment better:

1. Buy Organic

• You don’t have to make a special trip to Whole Foods, most grocery stores have an organic section.
• Organic doesn’t have to mean more expensive.  Roche Bros. has an entire line of organic products called Full Circle at competitive prices.
• Better for your health (you’re not consuming pesticides and hormones fed to animals) and better for the environment (no chemicals added to the soil/ground water and no GMO’s)
• Read book, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

2.  Burn Less Fossil Fuels

• Ride your bike or walk to the store
• Have a fire in the fireplace instead of turning your heat on
• Use a push mower or electric lawn mower instead of gas
• Rake your lawn instead of using a leaf blower
• Support things like Cape Wind
• Think about making your next car a Hybrid car (55 mpg vs. 17 mpg of most SUV’s)
• Convert your diesel car into a veggie car (advanced)
• Build a solar water heating system (advanced)
• Rent movie, “Who Killed the Electric Car”
• Read book, The Long Emergency, by Jim Kunstler

3. Recycle

• Check your town’s website for information about what your transfer station will accept such as batteries, paint, motor oil, cell phones, and computers
• Check with your private trash pickup about special recycling days
• Keep a bin in a convenient place like under the sink, so as soon as you open a soup can or use up a milk container, you can rinse it out immediately and toss it in.

4. Use Fluorescent Light Bulbs

• Yeah, they look funny but if every American home replaced just one old fashioned incandescent light bulb with a fluorescent light bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars
• Use at least 2/3 less energy than standard incandescent bulbs to provide the same amount of light, and last up to 7 years!

5.  Buy Recycled Paper Products

• If every household in the US replaced just one box of virgin fiber tissues with 100% recycled ones we could save 280,000 trees!
• Seventh Generation and Green Forest tissues/TP/paper towels/ napkins can be found in most grocery stores

6.  Buy Plant-based Cleaning Products

• If every household in the US replaced just one bottle of petroleum-based dishwashing liquid with a plant based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 US homes for a year!
• They are also better for your health since they are hypoallergenic, non-toxic, no perfumes or dyes, and biodegradable!
• Sun and Earth and Seventh Generation laundry detergent/dishwashing liquid/household cleaners can be found in most grocery stores

7.  Grow Organic

• If you have a garden, buy organic seeds.  We found ours in the grocery store!
• Instead of using petroleum based fertilizer, make your own compost pile.  It’s easier than you think!
• Use homemade sprays to control pests
• Read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food, by Tanya L.K. Denckla

8.  Vote for Politicians who support the Environment

• Check out how legislators in MA voted on public issues on this page of MASSPIRG’s website
• This page allows you to link to the annual Congressional Scorecard to see how all federal legislators voted on public interest bills