Living Green in 30 Days

Day 1 Open all the windows to let the natural sunlight and fresh air to fill the rooms.Turn off the lights in daytime and turn off the air conditioner too. Let's enjoy the nature.

Day 2 Bring a water flask or water container. Bottled mineral water or canned soft drink need electric energy, water, and many materials to produce it. And plastic will create a non-organic trash.

Day 3 Turn off the computer, I know it's hard, like in my house, we used to turn on the computer for 24/7 :) Because we work with computers what can I say, but at least we can turn off the computer for about a day. Desktop computer (exclude the monitor) consume about 60-250 watts of electricity for daily usage.

Day 4 Use cloth napkins instead of paper tissues. Or choose a recycle tissue paper.

Day 5 Bring your own shopping bag when you go shopping on the groceries store, to reduce the paper or plastic bags usage. In my country, there are so many cute and big bags to gather all the groceries.

Day 6 Precycle. Before doing the recycle, we should do something that make us don't have to do the recycle, like buy the household needs in large quantity, so it may save the packaging usage.

Day 7 If there is a leak on your plump, change it right away.

Day 8 Use the washing machine only if necessary, specially not just for rinse and drain the clothes. How much electric energy or water we need just to rinse a couple of clothes for instance, we could rinse it manually to save the energy.

Day 9 Reduce liquid soap usage. Use the soap bar. most of liquid soap container is from plastic, so change the soap may reduce the plastic trash.

Day 10 Use lemon as a room fragrance, you may put some lemon slices near the window or the electric fan.

Day 11 Reduce red meat consumption. It's nice to be a vegetarian once a week. Vegetables took a fewer energy usage to process than red meat. To process 2 kgs of red meat you may need energy 145 times more than 2 kgs potatoes.

Day 12 Planting some plants in the pot and put them inside the house. As long as the plants are not inside our bedroom, I think it's great to put some plants inside our house for decoration. But not just for that, plants may absorb the negative gasses which are produced inside the household, like formalhyde, ammonia, and many more. Those plants are great to reduce the toxin gasses inside our house.

Day 13 Use tecnology to reduce paper trash, like ask your bank to send your any financial reports via e-mail, send e-cards for birthday, new year, and any celebrations. In a nut shell try to be paperless.

Day 14 Turn off the light while we're sleeping. Sometime I forgot to turn off the light while sleeping whereas it could save the energy and reduce the carbon emissions.

Day 15 Folded your clothes before ironing, why ? folded clothes are smoother than the others and easier to iron, so they may save more energy in ironing.

Day 16 Live a simple life and not consumtive. By reducing our consumption of goods will decrease the production of goods. by lowering the production of goods means that we also reduce the use of material and energy when making the goods.

Day 17 Turn off the tap when washing dishes or brushing teeth. I know time to brush the teeth is only a moment but if we turn off the tap, you may save the water usage.

Day 18 Reduce the material when you build a building or house.

Day 19 Unplug all the electric power if you don't use it. Handphone charger, laptop, coffee maker, microwave, toaster, and hair dryer are using stand by power, even when you don't use them. It means still consume electricity. So, it's important to unplug after you've done with them.

Day 20 Change your regular light bulb with CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs). CFL can save the energy more than regular lightbulb.

Day 21 If you can, you may choose to give a present which is not need a box or paper wrap. Like music concert, sport game ticket, movie ticket, yoga courses, painting course, spa gift certificate, or hotel vouchers, magazines subscriptions, and many more.

Day 22 In tropical country like mine, we may dry our clothes under the sun, and it save energy.

Day 23 Back to basic. Use natural product to change the chemical one. Especially for household cleaner. For example, use 1 tsp white vinegar to clean the water conduit from bacteria. To clean material from copper, you may use salt and vinegar paste.

Day 24 Avoid anti-bacterial soap. Anti-bacterial soap is not so different with regular soap. But anti-bacterial content that enter into waterways can create new bacterial species that "immune" to the antibacterial. Choose soaps containing fewer chemicals. If possible you may choose organic soap with natural material ingredients.

Day 25 Use the scraps, like milk formula tin, shoes boxes, or paper bags as storage places. Just use your imagination and it will save some money.

Day 26 Put a recycle bin next to your garbage, so you may sort the trash before you throw the garbage.

Day 27 Use a basin to wash hands and a bucket when you wash the car, this may reduce the water usage :)

Day 28 Wash your car in a drive-in car wash, the usage of water that use for washing the car in a drive-in car wash is not as much as in your own home, but maybe you have to consider the budget too.

Day 29 Buy natural candles. Natural candles from natural ingredients like beans won't produce toxin gases. Like parafin in an ordinary candles.

Day 30 Watering your garden in the evening. Why ? Because in the evening, the sun is not too hot so the plant's absorption of water will be maximum. Reduce the use of tubes. For potted plants we may use watering can, the point is try to save water.