Celebrate Earth Day by Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

Published in

SHOPPO Blog

3 min readApr 19, 2018

Earth Day is on April 22nd! Celebrate our beautiful blue planet with a few quick and easy changes that will lower your impact on both the environment and your wallet.

Eat less meat (specifically, beef)

You don’t have to go full vegan in order to do your part to reduce some of the very real impact that eating meat has on the environment. Animal cruelty aside, the National Academy of Sciences states that livestock-based food production causes of 1/5th of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and places huge demands on land resources like feed grain and potable water. You can efficiently mitigate some of these issues (and save some serious cash in the process) by reducing your consumption of beef to just a few meals a week.

Use a clothesline

Although dryers are preferred by a vast majority of Americans (Project Laundry List claims that up to 80% of American households use one), a clothes dryer is one of the most energy consuming appliances in your home. Because it uses electricity to produce heat, dryers use five times the energy of washing machines on their own; World Wildlife Magazine reports that line drying your clothes can reduce their total carbon footprint by up to one-third.

Replace incandescent lights with LEDs

LED lights have gained a lot of popularity in the last few years, and for good reason. According to the Department of Energy, LED lights use up to 75% less electricity AND last 25 times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs. Yes, they’re a bit more expensive, but over time LED lights will help save you money as they help to save the planet, one long-life bulb at a time.

Slay your vampires

Or at least unplug them when they aren’t in use. According to the National Resources Defense Council, energy vampires are plugged-in appliances that continue to use energy even when turned off. Many people think this “idle load electricity” has a negligible impact, but in 2015 the NRDC found it can account for up to a whopping 23% of your electricity bill.