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What you can do to help save our planet
To begin to combat climate change, our lifestyle decisions must begin to include the effect and cost of pollution. If we all begin to take responsibility for managing their own carbon footprint, we can continue with our needed activities while mitigating the impact on global warming.
Of course, balanzing your carbon footprint is just one element of reducing climate damage. Here are some practical first steps that you can take to reduce your carbon impact:
Reduce your fossil fuel use
1) Switch to energy efficient appliances at home and at work. Turn off appliances at the wall instead of using the standby function.
2) Walk or cycle instead of driving whenever possible. You will find you feel much healthier too.
3) Keep your car parked: use phone and video conferencing to avoid the trip especially for work.
4) If you need to go somewhere, walk, take the train and bus, or cycle instead of driving.
5) If you have to drive, share the car with others or drive a fuel efficient or biofuel car.
6) Cut back on the number of flights - why not take a holiday in your own Country this year? Make conference calls at work to avoid the trip, or try taking the train when you can.
7) Keep a shopping list in the kitchen, so that you can take care of groups of activities when you are out and save on transport emissions for multiple trips. Have your groceries delivered once a month, as one delivery van will service many households on it round.
Support low-carbon & carbon-balanzedTM products
1) Choose organically grown food when you can, it is usually less carbon-intensive than traditional products.
2) Use taxis or personal vehicles that have offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
3) Buy from companies that have reduced or balanzedTM their emissions.
4) Recycle more bottles, cans, paper and plastic. It usually takes less energy and CO2 to produce recycled goods than it does to manufacture them from raw materials. If your area doesn’t have a curbside recycling scheme, send an email to your local representative to ask for one.
Look into those lifestyle changes you’ve been putting off
1) Work from home more. Many organisations, when prodded a little, will accept flexible work arrangements where there is no impact to the work that needs to get done.
2) Talk to others about setting up a car sharing pool for work or for taking the kids to school.
3) Make a resolution to reduce your carbon emissions by 10% over the next 3 months, and look at the Free Resources (link to Free resources page) section of the Balanz CO2 website to help you with this.
Here are some specific ideas for you to try out!
 Use less paper. The third largest industrial emitter of global warming pollution is the pulp and paper industry. Use paper made from post-consumer waste, and recycle your newspapers. Cut down on printer usage. Also, don't toss old faxes, reports and letters—put them in your printer face up and print on their blank side.
Rid yourself of junk mail. Call whoever is mailing you stuff and tell them to stop and to not sell, exchange or give your info to other commercial interests. Write this on their envelopes and mail it to them. When you buy online or through a catalog, or buy a magazine subscription, tell these vendors the same. Many countries have an opt-out system such as the UK’s mail preference service (mps) you can find your local one online
Keep a closed-door policy. Keeping your doors closed means don't have to turn the heat or air conditioning on as much. Don't set your thermostat too high when it's cold or too low when it's warm.
No trash bags. Don't use specially bought plastic bags when you can re-use carrier bags from the supermarket for smaller bins.
Use the sun to dry your clothes. Energy-guzzling gas and electric clothes dryers replaced grandma's clotheslines, drying umbrellas and wooden drying racks that can be used inside or out. Sun-dried clothes smell good, the sun bleaches whites whiter and you'll seriously reduce your utility bill.
Outsmart your appliances. If you must use then, run your dishwasher and your laundry machines only when you have full loads.
Seal off windows and doors. Using weather-stripping to seal drafts around windows and doors will cut your heating and cooling expenses and reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
Go secondhand. Before purchasing something, ask yourself if you already have it or something similar that can be reused. Can you buy it secondhand at a thrift store.
Get stuff free. If there's something you need only once or twice, don't buy it. Borrow and return it. Join a local group to exchange or borrow stuff. It's amazing what you can get for free by browsing the listings or posting a want ad. Use the public library. There's no need to buy so many books, especially if they're published overseas and sold at a big box store.
Revolutionise your computer usage. Turn off computers and pull chargers out of the wall when you're not using them. Maximize your computer settings, like the sleep mode, to reduce energy use. Set your printer to fast (draft) quality so you use less toner.
Refill your printer cartridge. Find a cartridge world franchise and re-use instead of tossing and buying a new one. Mailing your used cartridges somewhere uses fossil-fuel-intensive air travel
Read labels and buy local. Buying anything imported across an ocean means a container ship transported it. Foreign manufacturers often use carbon-intensive industrial and environmental practices that are illegal in your home country. Many imports are made in sweatshops where people labor in dangerous work environments and aren't paid fairly. Reducing the demand for imports not only reduces our carbon footprint but also sends a message to big business that we want better for everyone. Become a locavore (someone who eats locally produced food). When you choose out of season organic food that's from journeyed overseas instead of locally grown anything, the pollution caused by the container ships outweighs any benefit you're going to get. Locavores say eating what's available locally is healthier anyway. Cooking dinner? Make a few meals at the same time and stash them in the fridge.
Reduce packaging and plastics. Let's stop using billions of kilos of plastic which uses millions of barrels of oil to produce. Wherever plastic is manufactured the environment gets trashed and the workers and nearby residents get sick from harmful chemical emissions.
Bring your own cloth shopping bags. Don't use clear plastic ones for produce. You can buy cloth produce bags online, or throw that head of cauliflower directly into your shopping cart. Why does it need its own plastic bag when you're going to wash and cook it?
Say no to individual wraps. Choose products without individually plastic-wrapped multiple servings.
Really say no to styrofoam. If it's sold in styrofoam, just don't buy it. Styrofoam isn't recycled; it never biodegrades; it's just no good.
Make your own salad. Make your own organic salad mixes from scratch and use less bagged and precut produce because they use a lot of resources to produce. Don't be a slave to convenience. We'll all be paying later for using convenience foods like packaged mixed salads, because they use a lot of resources to produce.
Avoid fast food. Methane-producing factory farming and long-distance shipping are the heart of its business model and they're clear-cutting rain forests to graze their cows.
Eat less meat. Especially beef. The worldwatch institute says growing numbers of intensively farmed livestock are responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions and account for 37% of emissions of methane, which has more than 20 times the global warming potential of CO2, and 65%of emissions of nitrous oxide, another powerful greenhouse gas, coming from manure.
Disposable cups? Do the maths: buying coffee every day in a disposable cup generates at least 10kg of paper a year plus several hundred industrially produced plastic covers bring your own coffee cup!
It's better to breathe easy than to look good. Make fashion your slave. Don't buy something trendy that will sit in your closet. Buy clothes that mix and match with your other clothes. Wear clothes longer, shop secondhand, trade clothes with your friends. Buy shoes that can be repaired. After you replace heels two or three times, then toss them.
Avoid eco-unfriendly dry cleaning. Although many of the nasty chemicals they use have been banned, the ones they do use aren't good for you, the dry cleaner or the environment. When you need to dry clean, bring your own hangers and leave theirs and the plastic when you pick your stuff. If you're fussy, bring a garment bag.
Be a green parent. They recommend breastfeeding, using cloth nappies and making simple baby food from scratch, like smashed bananas or sweet potatoes. Give and get hand-me-downs to clothe your kids.
Your garden isn't as green as you think. Take out your water-guzzling lawn and replace it with native plants. They use less water and nourish birds and bees. Make your habitat good for humanity. Use locally produced materials and buy certified sustainably harvested wood and wood composites for decking and garden projects. Plant shade trees.
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