Every one of us can make a difference in the health of our environment. Even though they may seem small in the big picture, everyday decisions ranging from how you get to work to where you shop and what products you buy have an impact on the planet. Here are five simple steps you can take to make sustainability a priority in your daily routine:
The coffee industry produces 500 billion disposable cups each year, and less than 2 percent of coffee chain Starbucks’ sales are for beverages in reusable containers. Bring a refillable mug to your favorite coffee shop rather than using Styrofoam or cardboard cups, which can linger in landfills for hundreds of years.
One person with a 20-mile round trip commute can reduce daily carbon emissions by 4,800 pounds per year by taking public transit. In Chicago, the CTA replaces approximately 400,000 vehicles on the road each weekday. If Chicagoland’s Metra trains stopped running, the highways would need 27 additional lanes to accommodate the extra traffic.
Buried in landfills, food waste produces greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. But when that same food waste is composted—the fertilizer can be reused to nourish soil without producing any greenhouse gases. In San Francisco, a city-wide composting program reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 12 percent in just three years.
The amount of greenhouse gases released by power plants is the source of 40 percent of energy-related carbon emissions in the U.S. Reducing your electricity use can be as simple as turning off the lights or lowering the heat when you leave home. The U.S. Department of Energy also recommends using power strips that avoid wasting electricity when electronics are not in use.
Fast fashion—cheaply made clothing designed to be discarded quickly—leads to 12.8 million tons of clothing in U.S. landfills every year. That’s a football field piled 14 feet high with clothes that weren’t of good enough quality to donate or resell. Plus, production of the synthetic fabrics used in fast fashion designs emits more than 1.2 billion tons of the pollutant carbon dioxide every year.
