Bluelime Media - Interactive Solutions with a Twist

Celebrating Blog Action Day

Joining thousands of other bloggers, today I celebrate Blog Action day, where each and everyone of us writes about one topic for a single day. This year’s topic is the environment.

As a web designer working from home, I consider that my environmental impact is pretty small. I don’t need to commute, so don’t use much fuel. My husband also walks a couple of blocks from home so we only every use our car on the weekend. This is very convenient for us as we live downtown Vancouver. But I realize that’s not an option for everyone.

There are many things that I do around the house and my work that are small gestures but I think that in the long run, they do help the environment. Here are a few:

Ditch the paper cup
When I moved to Vancouver back in 2000, I noticed that everyone carried their own insulated mugs with them. For some reason I don’t see that anymore. I blame Starbucks for the shift, but I’m not sure if that’s fair. I go to my local coffee shop every day, sometimes that’s the only fresh air that I get, and I bring my mug. You might not think about it, but all those paper cups add up.

Bottled water is not better than tap water
I don’t drink coffee all day. At $3.5 a pop I can’t afford to. During the rest of the day, I drink water. I have a 1L Nalgene bottle that I use and fill it up using water that’s been through a Brita. I’ve never liked drinking bottled water. Bottled water is heavy and thus requires a lot of energy for transport. What most people don’t know however, and what’s much more important in my mind, is that it to make the plastic for a 1 L bottle, you need 2 L of water. This just doesn’t seem right especially since the other ingredient to make the plastic is oil and we all know what people will do for that oil. Of course the other huge problem is that marketing companies for bottled water have made it their goal to convince us that water is unsafe to drink when in fact it isn’t.

Forget the stationary
Following my re-branding a few years ago, I had a large amount of stationary printed. I used to send all my invoices on nice letterhead and envelopes. I started using Blinksale about a year ago, and much prefer that system. My invoices may not look as good, but email does save on paper.

Pull the plug
I’m a bit of a workaholic. If I have a choice between watching TV, reading a book or working. I’m working. I just can’t stop. In an effort to work less and spend more time relaxing, I started turning off my computer around 6PM. I don’t just log off, I literally turn everything off. Again the amount of electricity saved is not much, but it does add up.

Reduce is the most important of the 3 R’s
We all know the three R’s, Recycle, Reuse and Reduce. These days it seems that recycling gets the most attention. It’s easy enough to recycle, but recycling isn’t good enough. If there’s a way that you can reduce your amount of paper, plastic and energy this reduction is what will save the planet.