Although the rest of the book simply contains lists of resources, which may be a turn off since it requires putting in extra effort for more information, I feel it is our responsibility to each other to do everything we can do to find out how we can help. To make it a little easier on all of you, I will sift through some of these resources and choose the best ones, pulling any tips I think will be the most helpful as well as providing you with the link so you can investigate further if you wish.
Planet Save - This was one of the most informational websites from the list. There is an entire section to help you find ways to go green from Transportation (bicycles, trains, green vehicles), energy, food, and recycling. A lot of the content is user-submitted articles, so even though you may not be getting information from experts necessarily, you will be able to enter into discussions with these people directly as opposed to reading a book. I highly suggest touring this website and seeing if some articles catch your eye, as I was on for a very short time and found myself sucked into multiple articles. One big thing that is very applicable to our current time of year is pumpkin carving. I realize it may be too late for some of you who may have already carved, but if you haven't yet DON'T! Every year Americans alone create 1.1 billion pounds of waste from throwing out these carved pumpkins. Sure it may be fun, but it is definitely not responsible!
Zero Waste America - Zero Waste America is a pretty standard activist website, offering up news updates regarding laws and regulations in regards to recycling and disposal, as well as many areas with tips and tricks to reduce your waste to zero. The only problem I found with this site is that it has not been updated since 2010. So although some of the news may be outdated, the tips are still valuable. For current information I would suggest using Planet Save though.
Use Less Stuff - This site seems a bit more predominant, as the editor of the website has been on Fox for monthly enviro-segments. Whether you like Fox or not, we won't get into that. They offer lots of newsletters and research updates, however, be weary when getting too deep on the website, as they are a for profit and eventually will be asking you to join their cause and will be asking for some form of payment.
The rest of these websites either were outdated, being updated, or didn't contain enough information for me to create a write up about them, however there were many other books sources that I would suggest maybe checking into after reading this book as well. They are all listed at the end amongst the websites.
Overall this book provides some fantastic ideas for simple day to day things you can change and look at in order to start making a difference, and extremely easy things to share with friends in person or blogging to your audience! Backed up by lots of statistical information and common sense, clearly the authors are reputable and did not distort any of the information, they just plainly stated the things they do in their daily lives, hoping that you too will recognize the ease of these changes and start to contribute to the cause.
It is really hard to try and pick just three things that were more significant than everything that I learned from this book. There are certain items from the first part of the book that I will never throw away again just because the authors found such good alternatives or new uses for. One thing would be the use of plastic bags and how easy it is to simply reuse them at the grocery store next time you go, or as I have been doing lately refusing to get one at all, which has brought me some strange looks when I say I will carry my groceries out without a bag! Another top thing I learned was the whole Refuse aspect of the R's. Just as we've discussed many times in class, every time you spend a dollar on a product, you are voting for it. When we refuse to buy products we are sending a message to the companies that we do not desire what they are making and that they need to make changes. As a community we can make huge changes by such a simple thing as deciding to purchase from more responsible companies. The third main point I will probably carry with me to use in the future is the things you can do when building a house to be responsible. Making small investments in your home regarding energy consumption can make your home more valuable and save you money in the long run. These are all important things that can be achieved with minimal effort and I am hopeful that all of you learned something while reading about my book through these posts.
I would absolutely recommend this book to others interested in this topic. The book is short and to the point, with countless tips easily outweigh the price of the book. Through using tips from this book you could probably save more than the book costs in a month. After you're done reading, pass it on to a friend!
