| Tips » Long haul |
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Tip 54:
Reduce junk mail at work.
Many people take the time to opt
out of mailing lists to get less
junk mail at home, but company mail
slots can get just as full of stuff
we don't need, using up trees. According
to the National Waste Prevention
Coalition, a study in one Seattle-area
mailroom found that staff spent
25 percent of their time sorting
advertising-related mail. Request
removal from irrelevant mailing
lists and cancel trade magazines
that go unread. Companies can have
a preprinted postcard made for easier
action on the mail front. |
$ Factor:
Having less junk mail to deal with
can equal having more time for the
business at hand. Productivity is
priceless. |
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Tip 55:
Commute smart.
That means walking or biking to work or the classroom if practical, or the ever-promoted public transportation option. Car and van pools are possibilities, too. Only 31 percent of children who live less than a mile from school actually walk there, and only 2.5 percent of students who live within two miles of school get there by bike. Half of all students go to school by car. |
$ Factor:
Filling up your gas tank less often can mean savings of
$100 or more per month, plus less
wear and tear on your car. The ideal
scenario is working for a company
with commuter benefits; more than
1,600 U.S. worksites have earned
the EPA's Best Workplaces for Commuters
designation for benefits such as
transit and vanpool subsidies and
telework options. If just 6 percent
of the students mentioned earlier
walked, it would save 1.5 million
drop-offs and pickups -- and 60,000
gallons of gasoline -- a day. And
the 600,000 students who bike to
school are saving almost 100,000
gallons of gasoline a day. |
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Tip 56:
Commute short.
If possible, find an employer close to home. A short commute is an easier one -- on you and on the environment. |
$ Factor: Again, lower gas consumption means fewer tank fill-ups. |
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Tip 57:
Do you need a whole car?
Consider car-sharing on campus or
if you live or work in an urban
center. Self-service, on-demand
cars from companies like Zipcar
are available in 23 U.S. cities
and on dozens of college campuses
-- allowing the convenience of having
a car when necessary without killing
the environment and denting the
checkbook by owning a car. |
$ Factor:
Zipcar's savings calculator indicates a Minneapolis resident who spends $790 a month on a car (including car payment, financing, insurance, gas, license, registration, taxes, maintenance and parking) could save up to $668 a month by using a Zipcar 16 times a month for one hour each time, at a cost of $122 a month. That is a savings of $8,021 per year. A Zipcar survey found that more than 40 percent of customers have either sold their cars or changed their minds about purchasing one. |
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Tip 58:
Tap the tap.
Each year, 89 billion liters of
water are bottled, using about 1.5
million tons of plastic. Encourage
your school or workplace to get
a filtration system for the faucet
instead, and it'll be part of the
solution rather than part of the
problem. Besides, many bottled-water
companies use tap water anyway. |
$ Factor:
According to one online
analysis, 260 five-gallon water
bottles delivered a year at $1.50
per gallon would cost $1,950 over
five years and $15,600 over 40 years,
while filtration systems cost a
lost less. For example, a plastic
faucet-mounted, solid-carbon block
filter would cost $195 over five
years but only $1,665 over 40. |
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Tip 59:
Seek an eco-friendly company.
Employers that consider themselves
green often tout their programs
in recruitment efforts. Two Web
sites that can help in the search:
Simply Hired's Eco-Friendly Companies
search engine (www.simplyhired.com/ecofriendly)
and SustainableBusiness.com's Green
Dream Jobs section (www.sustainablebusiness.com/jobs). |
$ Factor: Besides the satisfaction that comes with knowing your employer values sustainability, some companies offer employee incentives to go green. Take the Drive Clean to Drive Change initiative, launched in 2004 by Hyperion. The program offers any active full-time employee of the software giant $5,000 for buying a hybrid car that gets better than 45 miles per gallon. |
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Tip 60:
Carpool.
Carpooling saves time and money. On a typical day, the average mother with school-age children spends 66 minutes driving -- taking more than five trips to and from home and covering 29 miles. The average commuter carpooling every day would save 500 gallons of gasoline, and 550 pounds of poisonous exhaust emission every year. |
$ Factor: If more moms carpooled, it would save them all that time and gas driving. It also would reduce congestion, which costs Americans $78 billion a year in wasted fuel and lost time. Commuters sharing a ride to work would be the equivalent of taking 67.5 million cars off the road -- four times the number of new cars sold in the U.S. per year. |
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School/career: Long haul
