Pledge to be Green
Being green means being conscious of how your actions affect the environment and making minor adjustments to your behavior accordingly. We are tightly connected to the health of the planet. Keeping this fact in mind will make it easier for you carry out your pledge.
What do you pledge to do? Review the items below and make a personal pledge to carry out as many as you can. A target for beginning users should be at least five of these initiatives. If any items do not come up in your life, just judge what you would do if they did!
Click here to learn about green groups on campus.
Water
- Turn off the water while brushing your teeth, washing dishes, etc.
- A typical faucet lets about 2.5 gallons flow per minute.
- Take short showers and/or turn off the water when you are soaping up.
- Showers use around 5 to 7 gallons of water per minute.
- Install low-flow showerheads and toilets. To save water without spending money, fill two plastic bottles with stones and water, screw on the lids, and place them in your toilet tank.
- Low-flow showerheads use just 2.5 gallons of water per minute, while regular showerheads use 5 to 7. Older toilets (from before 1992) use 3.5 to 7 gallons per flush. Low-efficiency toilets use 1.3 gallons per flush. The alternative no-cost method reduces water use because the filled plastic bottles take up space, reducing the amount of water needed to fill the tank after each flush.
- Water your lawn or garden in the morning or evening, not in the hot afternoon.
- Watering when it is cooler outside will reduce the amount of water that evaporates instead of seeping into the ground.
- When doing laundry, set the water level to match your load size, or do laundry only when you have a full load.
- The average washing machine uses about 41 gallons of water each load.
Electricity
- Turn off lights, appliances, and electronics when they are not in use.
- In the average US home, these consume two-thirds of the electricity used. Turning on lights requires a brief surge of energy. Turn off incandescent bulbs if you're leaving for more than 10 minutes.Turn off fluorescent bulbs if you're leaving for more than just 1 minute.
- Turn off your computer at night or if you are away for the day.
- Put your computer into sleep/hibernate mode, or even turn it off, if you leave it for more than a half hour.
- Older computers did not deal well with being shut off frequently. Newer computers do not have this problem. Using the sleep mode will conserve almost as much energy as turning it off. Do not just turn on a screen saver -- it uses energy instead of saving it.
- Set your computer to automatically go into stand-by or hibernate mode after a certain period of non-use.
- Unplug appliances when not in use, or have appliances plugged into a power strip and switch the power strip off when not using the appliances.
- In the average U.S. home, 75% of power used by electronics occurs when they are turned off. Even when appliances are turned off, they consume a small amount of energy, because they are actually in a stand-by mode, ready to receive instructions. Unlugging or turning the power strip off will eliminate this extra energy use.
- Turn your thermostat cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer.
- In the average U.S. home, heating and air-conditioning consume about a quarter of the electricity used.
- Buy EnergyStar appliances.
- EnergyStar is a government program that helps consumers select efficient appliances to reduce energy consumption. Products that are marked with the Energy Star meet efficiency guidelines set by the EPA and US Department of Energy. Visit www.energystar.gov for more information.
- Use compact fluorescent bulbs.
- These bulbs use 70% less energy than a regular bulb to emit the same amount of light. They cost more, but the extra cost is easily made up by the energy savings, and fluorescent bulbs last about 10 times as long as regular bulbs. (The cost is going down quickly, as well.)
- Unplug your cell phone and battery chargers when not actually charging the units.
- A charger plugged into an outlet, even when it is not charging, uses energy.
- Don't use the drying cycle on your dishwasher. Just let the dishes air-dry.
- Do your laundry with warm or cool water.
- Less electricity will have to be used to heat the water.
- Dry your laundry on a clothes rack or washline. If you want to avoid the minor stiffness caused by air-drying some clothes, put the clothes in the dryer for 5 minutes and then hang them. This method is great for taking out and keeping out wrinkles.
- Use a microwave oven or toaster oven to cook small meals, as opposed to a conventional oven.
- Microwaves use half as much energy as conventional ovens to get the same heating. Toaster ovens use less energy than conventional ovens because there is a small area to heat.
Trash -- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
- Print only if necessary -- just read it on the screen.
- Print double-sided.
- Be mindful of how much paper you will use when printing and adjust your document accordingly. Cut down the margins. Print single or 1.5 spaced. Delete text you do not need. For detailed suggestions on reducing paper use with common computer applications see our guide.
- The quality of paper degrades each time it is recycled. Each time paper is recycled, the tree fibers are made smaller. After paper is recycled several times, the fibers are too small to make new paper. Thus, you are not in the clear if you recycle all your paper, yet you use it excessively.
- Drink tap water instead of bottled water, buying a water filter if necessary.
- In the US, tap water is regulated by the EPA, and perfectly safe to drink. In fact, many bottled water companies actually just fill their bottles with clean tap water. Getting your water from water bottles increases plastic use, plus fuel was burned to transport the water bottles to a store. The only small risk of drinking tap water is, if you live in a house with old plumbing, small amounts of lead can leach from the water pipes into the water. In this case, buy a water filter to remove the lead.
- Use rags instead of paper towels. If you need to use a paper towel, rinse it and reuse if possible (do not reuse the paper towel if it was contaminated with something that could risk your health).
- Paper comes from trees, and paper towels end up in a landfill. Although a rag will need to be washed, using water, the production of paper towels uses water as well.
- Use a reusable coffee mug instead of paper cups.
- Paper comes from trees, and paper cups end up in a landfill. Although a reusable coffee mug will need to be washed, using water, the production of paper cups uses water as well. Paper cups are non-recyclable because of food contamination and the plastic coating.
- Buy in bulk.
- Buying products that are packaged in larger quantities reduces the use of packaging material. Buying in bulk is also a better deal.
- Avoid buying products or brands that use excessive packaging.
- Reuse tin foil and plastic baggies.
- Hold on to those extra napkins that fast food places and delis give you.
- Avoid buying products that are packaged with #5 plastic.
- The recycling process for #5 plastic is less efficient than other plastics. This means that the energy savings and pollution reduction achieved through recycling is less significant for #5 plastic. Because of the relative inefficiency, many recycling plants do not accept #5 plastic.
- Bring a bag or backpack to the grocery store to avoid using plastic bags.
- The U.S. uses 100 billion plastic shopping bags per year. That's roughly 333 bags per year per person -- nearly a bag per day! Some places give you a discount for bringing your own bag.
- Return any plastic bags you have to the grocery store to be recycled.
- In Boston, you can return bags at Shaw's, Stop & Shop, Harvest Co-op, and Shop Rite.
- Buy recycled paper.
- If society recycles, yet doesn't use the recycled material, the benefits of recycling stop with diverting trash from the landfill. The benefits of producing from recycled material are lost. Buying products made from recycled material will close the recycling loop. It will also make recycling more cost-effective.
- Recycle as much as possible.
- Recycling a four-foot stack of newspapers saves the equivalent of a 40-foot fir tree from being cut down to make new newspaper.
- Paper, which is biodegradable, does not break down in a landfill, because trash is so tightly packed that water and oxygen are kept out -- two essential ingredients for decomposition.
- Plastic, glass, and aluminum do not biodegrade in the foreseeable future.
- Glass is 100% recyclable -- the quality does not degrade each time it is recycled.
- Recycling makes material available for making new products. Using recycled materials generally requires less energy, less water, and negates the need for mining aluminum ore.
- Compost food waste if you have an available space.
- Food is typically highly biodegradable. Yet, in a landfill, trash is packed so tightly together that oxygen and water are kept out -- two essential ingredients for decomposition. Broken down compost is also great for your garden.
Transportation
- Take public transportation as much as possible.
- Driving burns gasoline, contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect. About a third of the US's CO2 emissions come from transportation.
- Don't "go for a drive" for fun. Take a walk or go for a bike ride!
- Carpool when possible. Visit www.bu.edu/parking/rideshare to find a carpool at BU.
- For your next car purchase, seek a car with good gas mileage.
- Drive efficiently and maintain your car so it has better gas mileage. Visit www.fueleconomy.gov to find out how.
Other
- Use green cleaning products that have less toxic chemicals.
- Some typical household chemicals, such as hair products, cleaning products, air fresheners, paints, and pesticides contain pollutants that can cause respiratory irritation, nasal congestion, headache, rash, or other ailments. There are healthier alternatives that still get the job done.
- Cut down on meat, particularly beef.
- Thirty percent of Earth's land is used for raising cattle or growing food to feed cattle. Clearing forests for raising cattle contributes to climate change. Run-off from livestock farms contains animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones that are fed to cattle, and fertilizers and pesticides. These pollutants degrade water quality, cause fish and sub-surface aquatic plants to die, and cause coral reef degradation.
- Buy at least some organic food, especially when the cost is comparable.
- Certified organic produce is made without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers that harm the environment. Organic produce may also be better for you. If you vow to have at least a portion of your food be organic, and you want to get the most for your money, buy those products that give you the biggest health benefits. These include dairy products and fruits and vegetables where you eat the outer part. For instance, eating organic oranges and bananas does not carry much health benefit, because you peel off and throw out the outer part.
Above and Beyond
- Remind others to recycle, turn off appliances, etc.
- Volunteer at a BU-sponsored Charles River Clean-up.
- Volunteer at Earth Day or America Recycles Day.
- Join eco-e-mail lists to stay educated. Some suggestions: Grist Magazine, Ecology Fund, care2, Brown University Green Schools List.
- Send e-mails to politicians. Some sites or eco-e-mail lists write the e-mail for you. Check out the Petition Site .
- Visit click-to-save websites. Some suggestions: Ecology Fund, care2, and the rainforest site.
- Click-to-save websites find sponsors to pay for your clicks. Each time you click, sponsors donate money to the cause.
- Build your own solar oven, to be used for heating or baking. Visit www.re-energy.ca/t-i_solarheatbuild-1.shtml to find out how.
Useful Links for green thinking
- A Government site that assists you in estimating electrical consumption of your various appliances.
- A detailed chart that looks at the average electrical consumption of many household appliances.
- A personal emissions calculator. A short survey to assist you in estimating the greenhouse gas emissions created by your individual behavior.
- A measure of your personal "environmental footprint".
