Do Your Part to Contribute Postively to Our Planet's Future By David Kraft At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

The green movement has exploded over the past few years. While it was gaining momentum for a while, it really wasn't until lately that it started to gain some steam. Many years ago there was only a small segment of the population that cared about the environment. These people were nicknamed "tree huggers" or "granolas."

Today things are different. Living with the environment in mind has become "the thing to do." Whatever the reason, we should all be thankful that society as a whole has begun to realize that we need to preserve our planet's resources for future generations.

A nice benefit to the general adoption of greener living is that companies have taken the "green" focus and run with it, offering all sorts of more eco-friendly alternatives. Living with the environment in mind used to be difficult but today it's much easier thanks to more and more products becoming readily available.

If you're wondering what you can do to help out with the effort, there are many, many simple and easy things that you can start doing. Even doing them every once in a while is better than not doing them at all, so don't think I'm trying to tell you to completely change the way you live your life. For example, a couple of easy things that we can all do are:

Begin using reusable shopping bags. This is one of the best "bang for your buck" steps that you can take. But a set of reusable shopping bags once and use them for years - easy as that. If we all did this, we'd eliminate the need for somewhere around 500 billion plastic bags. Plastic bags pollute during their production and end up in oceans and as litter where they destroy ecosystems and kill animals. If they make it to a landfill, it is estimated that they will sit there for 1,000 years before degrading. Further, using reusable bags reduces our dependence on paper. If we all began using reusable bags, we could eliminate the need for 14 million trees worth of paper bags.

When it's convenient, walk, bike, or carpool around town. Doing any of the three from time to time saves quite a bit of non-renewable energy as well as emissions that pollute our atmosphere. If your town doesn't have bike trails or other convenient ways to reduce the amount of driving that you have to do, start lobbying for improvements! Or, you can start a neighborhood group that walks kids to school in the morning. Not only will you help the planet, but you'll likely build a sense of camaraderie in your neighborhood, improving your quality of life at the same time.

Finally, start buying energy efficient light bulbs for your house. Switching to compact florescent lights (CFLs) will reduce your energy consumption. In fact, if every house in America were to change just 3 of their normal 60-watt bulbs to CFLs, the amount of energy and pollution saved would be about the same as if we were to take 3.5 million cars off the roads.

Living green is easier today than ever before and, frankly, there is no excuse why all of us cannot do something to make a difference. I've mentioned three simple things here, but there are literally hundreds more. With input from everyone, we can make sure that the planet that our grandchildren's grandchildren live in is healthy.

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