A list with some information.
June 26th, 2007 by Mollie
This is the slightly longer version of the “10 small changes you can make for the benefit of creation” list I made for my church back in April for Creation Sunday. It has some good and interesting information in it so I thought that I would go ahead and share it with you guys.
- Eat Local (Grow your own veggies, buy a share in Community Supported Agriculture, shop at farmers markets)
Info: Supermarket food travels an average of 1,500 miles by the time it gets to your plate. Buying local strengthens the local economy. A dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy. You get to celebrate the seasons by eating local in-season food. - Buy fair trade, organic, shade grown coffee and fair trade, organic tea.
Info: Sun coffee (grown with no shade canopy) destroys natural habitats and cannot be sustained for many years without intensive management (additions of chemical fertilizers and a range of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides). The few studies that have been conducted have found that the diversity of migratory birds plummets when coffee is converted from shade to sun (studies in Colombia and Mexico found 94-97% fewer bird species in sun grown coffee than in shade grown coffee) 1. - Buy organic food when possible, especially organic chocolate.
Info: Non-organic cocoa is 2nd only to cotton in terms of the most pesticides used on the crop. Exposure to pesticides is being increasingly linked to various kinds of cancer. Industrialized agriculture produces food that is deficient in minerals and nutrition because it has over-cultivated the land. Crops get their nutrients and minerals from the soil that it is grown on. If the soil is not taken care of and becomes unhealthy then the food grown on it will also lack nutrition and health. - Buy products with minimal or reusable packaging or buy in bulk (like the bulk bins at Madison Market Co-op or Whole Foods) and use your own containers when shopping and bring your own shopping bags.
Info: Around 33% of trash in the average American household comes from packaging. - Start an indoor or outdoor compost bin.
Info: “The landfill is not designed to help things biodegrade, which requires contact with air and water. Instead, landfills hermetically seal their contents away from the environment to protect it from the toxic things in the landfill that aren’t biodegradable. What this means, is that organic things like apple cores and yesterdays newspapers and cornstarch cups, when dumped in the landfill, either don’t break down at all and certainly don’t end up returning nutrients to the earth or they break down anaerobically, which means they produce methane, a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.”2 - Buy recycled paper toilet paper to help protect endangered forests.
Info: Every day, the amount of toilet paper used equals about 270,000 trees. - Make your own household cleaners.
Info: The EPA says indoor air pollution is often 2-5 times worse than outdoor air pollution, and harsh cleaning chemicals contribute. - Switch to compact florescent light bulbs (CFL)
Info: CFLs are some of the most efficient lights available – they can replace incandescent bulbs that are roughly 3 to 4 times their wattage, saving up to 75% of your lighting energy. - Buy used products when possible (books, clothing, furniture) and make repairs when possible instead of buying new.
- Print only when necessary and on recycled paper.
Info: Offices use 1.5 lbs of paper per person per day. - Use a coffee mug or travel mug.
- Reduce your carbon footprint caused by travel (buy a TerraPass, use flexcar, carpool, public transit, bike, or walk)
Info: Every gallon of gasoline burned creates about 20 lbs of climate change-causing CO2. - Enjoy God’s creation by being part of a community garden (or start your own community garden in your own backyard), volunteering on a farm, or getting out and enjoying nature with loved ones.
1Smithsonian, National Zoological Park, Migratory Bird Center; 2 No Impact Man;