be more eco-conscious

but I’m marking this done cos I don’t think there’s any major areas in which I’m not being as environmentally friendly as I can. I want an on-going goal to replace this – can someone please invite me to the “give a damn” goal?

My credit card company now have the option to get your statements online instead of paper copies in the mail. I’ve just signed up – saving paper, reducing clutter and improving security all at once.

I went to buy vacuum cleaner bags today, having had to cut the last bag open and tape it up again when I emptied it the other day, and discovered the hardware store had none that would fit. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since they sold me a re-useable zipped cloth bag instead, which is a universal fit – you attach it to the cardboard slotting-in thing from your old paper bag. It’s washable and all, and should never need replacing. No more throwing away un-recyclable paper bags – yay!

Get some sturdy canvas shopping bags to replace the plastic bags-for-life.

that replacing ONE regular lightbulb with a CFL saves 150lb of carbon dioxide a year. I knew this was something I should be doing, but I didn’t know it was that much of an impact for one little lightbulb. This has just become a priority.

the big recycling place I pass on my way to work. I’d been hoping they take plastics for recycling, since the county council green-bins don’t, but apparently they only take commercial and construction waste. Bah.

On the plus side, a couple weeks ago I joined Friends of the Earth, an international environmental group. Their current focus in Ireland is our greenhouse gas emissions; apparently we haven’t a hope of having our emissions down to the levels required by the Kyoto Protocol by 2008, and the “emissions permits” we’ll be required to have for the excess are going to cost the Irish public two million euro every week.

An Inconvenient Truth finally opens here this weekend, so that’ll be my next cinema trip.

about how “organic” isn’t always a good thing:

16 Organic Apples and a Gallon of Gas

Remember to unplug the phone charger when I’m not using it.

I plugged it out when I left the house today, after reading aardila’s entry about how much energy it wastes.

is now in the recycling bin instead of lying around in boxes cluttering up my house.

I just tried to talk my manager into printing our fax cover sheets on both sides of the paper so we can use them twice. He considered it, but vetoed it on the grounds that if someone mistakenly sent financial information to the wrong number from a previously-used sheet, we’d be open to litigation. I guess he has a point, but still… bah. I don’t want to work for this kind of company.