This Sunday marks the 42nd Annual Earth Day celebration. The first Earth Day was held in 1970 after a massive oil spill off the west coast in 1969 had brought increased public awareness and stricter restrictions on environmental pollution.
Want to get an idea of your own ecological footprint? Take the quiz on the Earth Day Network's website. They offer lots of tips and you may even be inspired to pledge an "Act of Green" on their message board. The quiz: http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator
Easy eco-friendly changes:
Buy local products and use those with less packaging/post-consumer recycled packages to decrease pollution from the transportation process and packaging waste. Each pound of food you buy locally prevents a quarter pound of CO2 emissions.
Turn off lights when you leave a room. Also, plug electrical items and appliances into a surge protector and switch it off when they are not in use. This will eliminate the usage of "standby power."
Buy a programmable thermostat and save energy and money on heating and cooling.
Replace disposable products with reusable ones, like shopping bags and aluminum water bottles instead of plastic ones. Use cloth napkins instead of paper. They're cuter anyway!
Plant a native garden of plants indigenous to your geographic area.
Donate old items like cell phones, household items and clothes to charity rather than trashing them.
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