Read 'n' Seed 3: Second quarter of Trash Talk

The second part of my book, Trash Talk, continued to offer tips on trying to create a better lifestyle for conservation. Straying from the first part which concentrated on specific items, the second quarter concentrates on actions and lifestyle changes you can take to have significant impacts on your effect on the environment.

If you are like me, you've worn glasses your entire life. Now, think about what you've done with all of your old pairs. Thrown away? Sitting in a closet somewhere? We now live in an era where contacts are taking over, and glasses are becoming less of a necessity for some. Not everyone is in a financial position to make this decision though. There are over 1.5 billion people in the world that are in need of optical assistance. By simply donating your old glasses laying around, they can find a match for your prescription and help someone see the world from a new perspective. Running, walking, and hiking are some of the most relaxing and simple activities one can do (weather permitting!). Simply taking a bag along with you to pick up trash can not only improve your surroundings, but can potentially improve others attitudes about helping out to if they see you picking up garbage beautifying the area. There are many great tips to conserve energy in this section as well, however many of them are things that are more useful if you consider them during the building/remodeling of a house. Consider choosing a clean energy like geothermal, which although expensive at first in the long run is not only responsible, but pays itself off. One that you can do right now is purchasing light bulbs that are responsible, using lower wattage bulbs in rooms that do not need extensive lighting to save energy. Coffee lovers (like me!) there are some great things you can do to lesson your impact. Consider buying a reusable filter, which can not only save you about $10 a year, and of course lessening waste from throwing away papers filters. You can also use the coffee grounds in compost or use them for mulch! The final area I will talk about from the section is water conservation. Clearly there are easy things you can do like not running the water while brushing your teeth, not taking unnecessarily long in the shower, etc., however you may not know a very clever trick to help save water when flushing the toilet. Some of you may not know the inner workings of the back of your toilet, but it is a pretty simple fill to the line every flush system. An easy way you can save water is fill a container full of water, put the cap on, and put it inside the back of your toilet, displacing that much water, and thus using that much less water per flush. This may not seem like much, but when you consider each person uses 9,000 gallons of water a year by simply flushing, it can add up quick, especially in large households.

All of these things are very small changes that create large scale returns. So, there are few legitimate reasons you could have for not trying to do some of these things in your everyday behavior. We all use energy, we all use water, and most of us drink coffee! These are just a FEW examples from this section, too. Thanks for reading, and if you haven't read the first installation, go check it out!