Sunday, October 08, 2006

Me, Myself and The Environment

I could not resist the buzz, the excessive education and the documentary about how the environment is suffering irreparably from us: humans, selfish, greedy and irresponsible.
So I decided to take some small steps:

Changed all light bulbs in the house to CFL (gotta say, the Government of Ontario has recently mailed out rebate coupons)

Bought a bus pass to commute to work now, instead of taking my car. When I used to work in downtown, it was very convenient to take public transportation. Not anymore, when I started working at the suburbs, so we’ll see how it goes, especially when winter shows up !

Bought new energy friendly thermostats to better control heating and cooling. Planning to buy an enegy star efficient heater and reduce my dependency on costly central home heating !!!

Engaged in better control of garbage disposals, that is more round trips to the recycle bin.

Total ban on aerosols in the car and at home. Too bad if my home would smell cook during Ramadhan :-)

Cut down on magazine subscriptions, no more newspapers either, and phoned few companies to stop sending me marketing junk, especially those annoying Primus Canada home phone plans (they literally come in every month, with the same message, the same offer)

In the future, I plan to make use of ethanol fuel. Though this would depend on the number of gas stations offering this in Ontario, Canada and New England, US, and depends on how my engine will react to it as I’m not fond of Prius and hybrids…

Something you want to add? BTW, I believe these measures are applicable everywhere…and I’m sure millions of people do them already.

3 Comments:

Blogger samsoum said...

Napo, I'm glad you're doing this. Here are a few more things to do.


-Keep your tires properly inflated (improves your milage by 3%)

-Use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 saved per year)

-Avoid products with a lot of packaging (1,200 pounds 0f CO2 saved by reducing garbage)

-Plant a tree (one tree absorbs a ton of CO2 in its lifetime)

-Turn off electronic devices instead of setting to standby (TVs, DVDs, computers...)

-See Al Gore film (An incovenient truth)

12:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Way to go, Napo!
Here are a few other suggestions:

- Get Energy Star Appliances if you don't have energy efficient ones

- Get low-flow fixtures, showerheads and toilets

- Buy local

- Buy durable products instead of cheaper products with a lower life span

- Think about reducing waste at the source, reusing and recycling

- When you paint inddors, use low VOC paint that are better for indoor air quality, especially when you have a baby at home

- Unplug electronics (DVD player, cell phone charger...) when you don't need them.

Here is a nice series of articles related to this topic: http://inhabitat.com/blog/category/greenbuilding-101/

1:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Belles initiatives !

A cette longue liste que tu proposes et que Samsoum et Oumzayd complètent, je souhaiterais ajouter l'utilisation de sacs recyclables en lieu et place des sacs en plastique.
Justement, ton post devance de quelques jours un vlog sur lequel j'ai travaillé ce w-e ...

Dans le même ordre d'idée, nous utilisons à la maison un filtre à eau pour éviter l'achat de l'eau embouteillée et nous sommes abonnés au système de factures ou relevés de compte en ligne lorsque c'est possible !

6:55 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home