PRACTICAL STEPS THAT GO A LONG WAY IN HELPING OUR PLANET.

With advanced technologies being proposed to help combat global warming, it sometimes becomes too complex that we think we can do nothing little on our own to fight this global issue. However this is not the case. A little adjustment in our daily routine would go a long way in saving our planet and improving our health and well being. This post would outline practical steps every individual can begin to take in order to collectively make a positive impact:

• When you go shopping, take a reusable bag to put in all your groceries. That way, you would be reducing the use of plastic bags that would have ended up in our oceans and landfills.
  
• If you can walk or cycle to a destination, don’t drive unless its super necessary. By walking and cycling, you are reducing the amount of green house gases you would have otherwise released from your car and you are also improving your health.
• When going out with friends and family, car pooling goes a long way in reducing green house gas emissions. If you are going out with three friends, instead of driving four different  cars, you all could share one car. This would eliminate the gases that would have been emitted from the exhaust of four cars.
• REDUCE , REUSE , RECYCLE. Do not produce/buy more than what you can consume. Reuse items that can be reused ,say no to one time usage items: Get a water bottle for your water, carry a reusable coffee mug to work, with this little step, you would be eliminating a lot of packaging. If you have a pick up station for recyclables or a recycling factory close to your home, teach your household to segregate all of the recyclable and deliver to the stations/factory for recycling.

• Manage your food waste by starting a compost pile or by building a biogas digester. You could also purchase a biogas digester if you do not want to build one. Your compost pile would generate rich soil for your garden. A biogas digester would produce gas for cooking and fertilizer to apply to your garden. 

• Get your fresh food stuff from the farmers market. This way, you would be consuming food that were locally grown and did not use large amount of energy in transportation and preservation. 
• Start a back yard garden. This way, you get to grow some of the food you eat right at your own back yard. You would be increasing biodiversity by gardening and also eliminating a large amount of water and energy cost that goes into transportation, preservation and packaging of food items.
  
• Reduce the amount of meat, specifically red meat you eat. This goes a long way in reducing the amount of green house gas being emitted into the atmosphere. For those that can completely go off meat, that would be great but for the meat lovers, just reducing the portion of meat you eat or even switching to chicken instead of beef would go a long way. In order to know the connection between eating meat and green house gas emission, click on the video below to watch. 
• Embrace renewable energy. Install Solar Panels in your home to cater for specific needs like hot water generation and electricity production. You can install bit by bit if you do not have the finances to cater for all of your energy demands. Just channeling your solar panels to meet with some of your energy demands goes a long way in reducing your dependence on fossil fuels.  Scale up gradually as much as your investment capabilities can go. 

• Buy or convert your cars to fuel flex cars. A fuel flex vehicle can run on more than one kind of fuel. It can run on pure gasoline or gasoline blended with ethanol or methanol. This way, you are given the freedom to choose whether you want to run your vehicle strictly on fossil fuel or on a cleaner fuel source which is bio-fuel, in this case (Ethanol and Methanol). Some individuals own fuel flex cars without knowing it. To identify a fuel flex car, look for a yellow gas cap or fuel filler ring.
  

  

• Get an electric car. If you can afford it, please do consider getting an electric car as your next car . I would love love to get me a Tesla……..lol, whenever my account balance gets to that level. So, that’s the end of this article. Remember, you don’t have to do all of these things first before you save the planet. Adopt whatever step you are capable of and be proud of being a great steward of our wonderful planet Earth. Bye and until next time…Stay Green.