Earth Day: A Greener Earth Starts with Us

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” – Native American Proverb

We only have one Earth, one planet we call home.

And we’ve learned over the last century, our behavior can have a lasting, damaging effect on the future livability of our planet.

Through green initiatives, education, community and environmental programs, and our own personal behavior and choices, we can make a real positive difference in Earth’s sustainability.

Acts as simple as smart personal hygiene habits can help make a real cumulative positive impact on our planet’s health. Let’s start with a resource our planet cannot live without. According to Elite Research, the average American uses between 80 and 100 gallons of water per day. The effective use of hand sanitizer leads to the savings of millions of gallons of water every year.

As we observe and celebrate Earth Day on April 22, we can pledge our support to preserving Earth for tomorrow’s generations through efficient personal consumer and energy choices. The win-win part of maintaining a smart personal energy and product plan is we also feel a real difference in our wallets.

Here are some easy ways we can improve our planet’s future through our own personal hygiene and energy use practices:

Use refillable cleaning products

Buying hygiene products in bulk just doesn’t keep more money in our wallets, it reduces our personal carbon footprint. Refillable cleaning products, like Avant Bulk Hand Sanitizers by B4 Brands, cuts down on the amount of packaging we use. Buying one large bottle of soap and refilling the pump we have goes a long way in reducing the amount of packaging we personally use for our hand hygiene products.

Conserve water

As we mentioned earlier, Americans use dozens of gallons of water each day. We can save 3-5 gallons of water alone by turning off the faucet when we brush our teeth. Flush the toilet only when necessary and avoid using it as a garbage can for tissues, cigarettes and other items.

Don’t pre-rise dishes before putting them in the dishwasher

Scraping the food off the plate into the garbage or disposal, then placing them in the dishwasher cuts our use of cleaning water in half.

Use concentrated laundry detergent

Less plastic used means less plastic in Earth’s landfills. This allows us to get more loads of laundry out of the same size container of detergent.

Use the recommended amount of laundry detergent

Overfilling the line on the detergent inserter doesn’t get our clothes any cleaner. The recommended amount gets the job done, saves us money on product and uses less plastic.

Turn off lights when leaving the room

We have to admit our parents were right about this one. Why light a room when we’re not using it? And we’ll feel the energy savings in our pocket book when next month’s electric bill arrives. Also, unplugging appliances and electronics when not in use – like personal computers — can save up to 40 watts of electricity a day.

Recycle empty cleaning product containers

Elite Research reports the average American produces 1,600 pounds of garbage each year. Reusing empty window cleaner, dish detergent and disinfecting wipe bottles for any kind of storage need is one less cleaning bottle in a landfill. Earth911.com is a great resource for learning how to properly recycle household cleaners.

Use Recycle Shopping Bags

From Hy-Vee to Target to Wal-Mart, most American retail stores offer consumers the option of using reusable bags. When we reuse bags, we save a bag from a landfill and give ourselves another bag to use whenever we need one.

Change air filters

Who wants more dust? Changing heater or air conditioner filters means less dust in our system which gives us better air to breathe. It also means our appliances don’t have to work so hard: another double win for our energy bills and the environment.

A better future for our planet starts with each of us making an individual commitment to preserve and protect Earth’s environment.