Usually for vacations, especially ones that require long plane rides, I buy a couple magazines to read on the way. One of the magazines that I bought this time was Glamour. As I was sifting through the articles, only reading the ones that I have a real interest in, I came to an article entitled “The woman’s guide to saving the planet.” The first thing listed was the top 10 ways to help. This list was very predictable including: changing to flourescent light bulbs, driving fuel efficient cars, conserving water, recycling, etc. The common ones. Then it went on to state that the average American throws away 21 bags of garbage each month. I was amazed at this number. It also said that one of the studies indicated that 75% of things in landfills could have been recycled, mainly plastics and electronic goods.
Next was the discussion about dry-cleaning clothing, microwaving in plastic, and cooking in Teflon pans, all of which may be bad for you and are definitely bad for the environment. The issue with dry-cleaned clothes is that it a chemical used may be linked to cancer and reproductive damage. Not ony could it damage your health, but also air and the producing the plastic that is wrapped around your clothes when you get them from the dry cleaners uses a lot of energy.
Eco-friendly beauty supplies and clothing that is good for the environment is the next topic. Included in the clothing section are: clothes that have been colored with vegtable dyes, organic cotton, washing your clothes in cold water, and buying shoes that can be resoled easily. Eco-gadgets that are do not put a drain on energy and resources including: Water pwered clocks, Eyemax radio, Soldius solar recharger, Vessel Candela lights, and Muji cardboard speakers. Why these products? They are recharged by sunlight, rechargeable batteries, or they are biodegradable.
The magazine also gives some statistics including:
” 10 times as much energy is wasted when you run a computer screen saver instead of using sleep mode.”
“14 plastic grocery bags contain enought petroleum to fuel a car for a mile. Make friends with a cloth tote.”
“20 gallons of water go down the drain daily when you have a drip-drip-drip faucet. Call the plumber!”
“75 percent of energy used to power electronic items is consumed while they’re plugged in but not in use.”
“31,600 planes could be built with the amount of soda cans and other aluminum stuff thrown away every year.”
“100,000,000 trees are made into junk mail every single year. And no, that is not a typo. What a waste.”
What really got me were the statistics at the end. I think that my family is guilty of every thing listed above. The computer that I am writing this on has a computer screen saver not on sleep mode. When my Mom goes to the grocery store she comes home with plastic and sometimes paper bags. In some of the faucets in my house, there is a drip-drip and we leave our electronics plugged, whether they are off or not. We try to recycle our soda cans, but sometimes it doesn’t always happen. And the junk mail we get all the time in the mail. Sometimes we get more junk mail then mail that it actually worth our time reading. This is a real eye-opener.
Article in Glamour April 2007
