Our eco Buddhist community suggest the following easy but transforming measures to actively engage yourself in creating sustainable human and non-human environments for your family, friends, world and you.

1. Lighting.  If every household in the United States replaced just three 60-watt incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, it would cut down so much on pollution it would be as if we were removing 3.5 million cars from the road.  That’s an incredible amount of pollution being removed.  While these bulbs are a little more expensive, they last much longer (an average of five to seven years) and often are subject to an energy rebate.  They are usually available at most hardware stores, and even at some grocery stores.

2. Watch where you shop.  Big box stores (you know the ones, usually located in strip malls on the outskirts of towns where farm land used to be) move people away from town and city centers.  When towns and cities first formed, they usually had a central merchant area, so people would walk, take mass transit, or some other transportation, get to the center of town, park (if driving) and then spend the day walking from shop to shop before heading back home.  How many do that today?  Most people make a number of car trips on any given day, first to one store, then to another, because nothing is centered any longer.  So, we waste fuel and time, and the sprawl that results from these big boxes diminishes rural lands, eats up farms, increases pollution (including light pollution, making it hard to see the stars at night) and just generally adds to a loss of quality of life.  If you must go to the big boxes, try to combine all shopping into one trip to make it more efficient.  Better yet, go back to the city centers and patronize the small business owners who will be more than happy to see you. Click here to learn more about what you can do about lighting and other ways to preserve the Earth.

3. Recycle.  Sure, most of us do it to some degree.  When it’s convenient.  But there’s usually a lot more that we can recycle that we don’t.  Like cereal and cracker boxes, perhaps?  How about the number 4, 5, and 6 plastics?  While your curbside pick-up, if you have one, might not take it, there are other places that will.  Another alternative, though, is not to buy things that are overly packaged.  Stay away from the plastics, foams, cardboards, blister packs and so on, and try to buy things that are minimally, if at all, wrapped.  Use paper (renewable) instead of plastic (petroleum-based) bags, or better yet, bring your own canvas or cloth bags to the store when you shop.  And don’t forget about those deposits! Many plastic and glass bottles have deposits on them to encourage you to bring them back for recycling at the place of purchase, yet so many of us don’t bother.  You’re really just accepting another tax on that bottle if you don’t return it.  Do you really want to give even more money to the government?  If it has a deposit on it, bring it back.  If you are particularly altruistic and don’t want to return them, give them to someone collecting bottles who could use the extra money, or donate them to a charitable organization that could use it.  Click the below web site to learn more.

Consider using rechargeable batteries, please.  A stat from a great, eco-friendly business, Real Goods (www.realgoods.com):  4,000 Ah (amp hours) of alkaline batteries requires 2,000 batteries at a cost of $2.85/4 pack.  Total?  $1,425.00.  Use rechargeables and get these numbers:  4 NiMH (Nickel-Metal Hydride) Batteries at $12.00, 1 charger at $32.00.  2,000 charges at 1 cent each equals $20.00 and you end up with 4,000 Ah for $64.00.  Look at that again:  $1,425.00 for throwaway batteries vs. $64.00 for the equivalent in rechargeables.  And, you’re not putting anywhere near as much toxic material into landfills this way.  Make sense?

4. In the house.  Use the microwave oven when you can.  It cooks faster and uses less energy.  Turn the heat down in the winter and wear sweaters.  Keep the air conditioning at a minimum during the summer.  Seal your windows and doors against cold-weather drafts, have an energy audit done on your house if you can afford it, to see where your energy leaks out.  Have the furnace cleaned each year and your air conditioner serviced.

Upgrade to Energy Star appliances if you can, and consider getting rid of your hot water heater tank and replacing it with a very efficient on-demand water heater which will save you a fortune over its lifetime.  Fix leaking faucets and toilets.  Use water saving devices on your sinks and showers.

5. Buy Local. One of the biggest expenses in so many of the products we buy is the cost of transportation.  Whatever the product, if it isn’t produced in your backyard, you’re paying extra for it.  This is especially true for food.  We buy lettuce from California when we live in Connecticut, apples from the north when we live in the south, and all of this has to be picked, packed, shipped and then distributed before we finally get to eat it.  Not only do we pay for the cost of the shipping (ie gasoline or diesel) and the packing, but they have to grow specific varieties that can survive the hardships of early picking and transportation, so we lose in numbers of varieties as well as in nutrition.  At the same time, we are rapidly losing our local farms to housing developments and strip-malls, so we end up relying on mass-producing factory farms in the west and mid-west.  Those companies use huge amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, most of which are petrochemical based.  In other words, they are made with petroleum.  Buying your food from local farms at farmers markets, or directly from the farms themselves gives you greater choices of products, greater potential nutrition, less cost, less pollution, and a vested interest in keeping local farms alive and well.  Another way to go about buying locally is to make use of a relatively new idea, buying shares of crops from local farms.  Under this concept, you pay a certain amount of money up front, and during the harvest season, each week receive a box full of veggies and fruits, depending on what’s available, and how good the growing season is.  Most people end up with more than enough vegetables each week during the season. Click the below web sites to learn more.