Top Ten Actions on Earth Day

All these are standard actions mentioned by Earh day Canada group. They have started the Earth Hour from Year 1970. I liked to collect and spread these actions on blogosphere.

So, Promise yourself to follow few of them.

1. Smart Shopping
   • Buy what you need, not what you want
   • Consider renting and borrowing things that are seldom needed
   • Buy used items from garage sales and second-hand stores
2. Simple Savers
   • Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs
   • Use aerators on faucets and shower heads
   • Weatherstrip windows and doors
3. Transportation Alternatives
   • Walk, cycle, car pool and use public transportation
   • When driving, reduce idling and maintain correct tire pressure
   • Consider car sharing programs or renting
4. Food Choices
   • Choose local and organic foods that are in season, and support local food producers
   • Eat less meat
5. Washing and Drying
   • Wash full loads of clothes in cold water and hang to air dry
6. Heating and cooling
   • For summer air conditioning, set your thermostat to 24°C or 25°C
   • For winter heating, set your thermostat to 19°C or 20°C
   • Install ceiling fans and programmable thermostats
7. Close to Home
   • Vacation, travel and work as close to home as possible
8. Bathroom Basics
   • Take short showers instead of baths
   • Close water taps while brushing your teeth
9. Careful Cleaning
   • Choose natural, non-toxic cleaning products
   • Make simple, natural cleaners with ingredients like vinegar, baking soda and water
10. Don’t Discard
    • Donate, reuse and recycle items before throwing them into the trash
    • Harmful materials like chemicals, batteries, electronics, etc. should be taken to local hazardous waste depots or recyclers

More Information can be found on Earth Day Canada site here.

Earth Day by Google

Google has honored Earth Day by displaying very beautiful animated Doodle on this auspicious day. Every Year, Google celebrates Earth Day by different creative ways. The below image is a static image, but on mouse hover animations are triggered.

Earth Day

“It is a beautiful, serene place in a snowcapped forest. A rivulet is flowing between two hills.  It is born out of a clamorous waterfall. Water has turned turbulent while hitting the ground and spreading the water all around, making the earth surface damp. This rivulet has supported many plants and animals spices on both sides, while moving through this dense green forest. I disturb the flowing water by taking over the cursor, couple of fishes and a frog leap out of water. One fish shows its might by climbing against the descending water, but as it reaches the top, one dark polar beer engulfs it.

Red, yellow, orange colored flowers are blossomed around some of the trees and lush green shrubs. This forest has housed many herbivorous animals. I could see, a couple of pandas are playing behind the tall grass. At some distance, one lion is deeply slept over the grass. Lion may be snoring after nice meal of panda.  

There are many tree on both sides of river formed from this rivulet.  Braches of trees spread long area around the root. Birds are living happily in the nests among the braches.  As I disturb one branch of tree, a red winged bird takes off in the sky.  One monkey is sitting on  one of the top branches of a tree. As I try to touch the monkey, it climbs down hurriedly.

Couple of snow capped mountain glowing beside this green, blissful heaven. Two penguins are walking over the snow. One of them, playfully, slides and jumps in the river.”

Very creatively animated scene of beautiful nature has been designed by Google. Well balanced life cycle is sustained in this nature. A very beautiful Google doodle !

Last Years Google Doodle (2010): Google has displayed below Google Doodle last year.

Along with just having Doodle, Google has started investing much of their revenue of renewable energy sources and environment friendly resources. They has invested about $ 168 million on Solar Plant towers in California desert. Find more information about this in one of my previous post.

More Information about Earth Hour in my Previous Posts below.
1. What to do on Earth Day
2. Wikipedia Information about Earth day
Find more Go Green Initiatives of Google here http://www.google.com/green.

Simple Ways To Protect Planet Earth

With the couple of comments on previous the Earth Day blog post, I am writing brief information about the major tips to ‘Go Green’ (some suggested by wordpress readers. Thank you all.

1. Recycle– If we look inside our home, we find more than 50 percent residential appliances including chair, tables are made up of plastic. Poly thin bags are prepared with non-degradable polymer material and over usage of plastic has turned disaster to the environment. Only usage to destroy plastic is to burn it or bury it underground. Carry bags are also available in the degradable material that is made up from coconut root.
2. Use Energy saving appliances- If we replace Incandescent light bulbs with CFL(compact florescent light) bulbs, it will save much part of electricity bill. It consume less electricity as well as lifecycle of such bulb is much higher than ordinary bulbs.
3. Water Saving Taps and showerhead- Low flow shower heads saves much water if installed in residential complexes. Remote detector water taps are also available in market. These water taps are open till the person’s hand is in front of water tap. Such water taps can be used in wash basins in restaurant as well as residential complexes.
4.  Reduce-Reuse-Recycle: We are not aware that many daily usable things in the market are coming in the form that can be recycled and reused. I have listed below recyclable and reusable things below.
   I found one good informative post here by Debi on Chocolate Wasteland Blog.
   Following few ways comes under this principles only, but explained in details.
5. Books, Magazines and News papers– In coming days, rarely people are reading news papers in the form of hard copy. I myself stopped getting news papers from local vender. I read them on line. Huge amount of paper pulp has been saved because of e-papers and e-magazines, in turn tree cutting has been prevented for this purpose. Many libraries also updating their books in soft copy, so that user can just subscribe the library through internet.
6. Recycle E-Waste: Computers, Scrapped DVDs and CDs are yearly growing and considered as major part of e-waste. Hard drive, cabinet and internal hardware of Scrapped computers are difficult to recycle. During the recycling, silicon, registers and burned to separate from motherboard and causes air pollutions. This situation has changed in some way. Size of electronic appliances has been reduced.
7. Used Mobile phones: It is one of the major e-wastes. People use mobile for general communication purpose and entertainment. Competitive technology has made cell phone companies to update the versions many time in a single year. As the mobile versions, designs are updated. People dump away their old phone and purchase new ones. This habit has been increased tremendously. Mobile subscriber has grown exponentially higher. Cell phone is reached till the rural under developed countries like Sudan, Uganda, South Africa.
8. Avoid Food wastage: It is the good daily habit to cook only amount of food that is sufficient for people in home. If we imagine, there are countries where people won’t get food and some die of food shortage. Food inflation is growing due to reduced cultivable land.
9. Drive Less, Drive Smart:Whenver you skip using your own car, bike for general purpose, you are helping to reduce pollution. Public transportations are good for long routes. It saves money as well as fuel. There should not be hesitation to use public transportations.
   While going for shopping, men can preper bicycle. Sometimes, it may seem difficult, but China has reduced carbon foot prints by using cycle.Find my previous informative post about Bicycle Sharing Program in China