Five Issues with Impact
Tips for Making Responsible Consumer Choices
by Steven Krieger
We make hundreds of decisions per day. When we consider the importance of living consciously to protect the environment, our choices can become even more complicated — but (to quote Spiderman), “with great power comes great responsibility!”
Consumers can have a remarkable influence on economic markets. Here’s a list of specific consumer choices with suggestions to help you raise your environmental decision-making awareness.
The table below outlines several issues, the environmental impacts of conventional choices, and possible alternatives (though other solutions exist). We also wanted to show how those results become even more dramatic when embraced by a larger community — so we’ve calculated what would happen if 100,000 people took action to preserve environmental resources. (Not coincidentally, this happens to be the number of people in the New Dream Community online action network… Imagine the possibilities!)
If this setup sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been running a similar program, Turn the Tide, since 2001. We’ve invited thousands of people to take nine actions in unison to benefit the planet, and the reaction and results have been overwhelmingly successful. If you’ve already taken the nine Turn the Tide actions, the issues below can provide new challenges. If you’re unfamiliar with Turn the Tide, check out the original nine steps — and see the impact your choices can make.
Gold
Environmental impact: The production of one gold ring generates 20 tons of mine waste. (Mined ore is 99.99999 percent waste.)1
Additional problems: Digging for the golden .00001 percent devastates landscapes. Treating it uses cyanide which runs off into waterways.2 Smelting produces smog and acid rain.3
Actions you can take: Wear heirlooms, shop at antique and pawn shops, or buy recycled gold from companies like Green Karat.
If 100,000 people took this action: It would prevent 4 million pounds of the mine waste from being created and discarded. That’s a mound of trash equal to the weight of 850 Hummer H3s!4
Newspapers
Environmental impact: Getting The Washington Post or a comparable newspaper each day for a year uses roughly .35 trees.5
Additional problems: Paper production destroys animal and plant habitats and creates toxic runoff that pollutes waterways.
Actions you can take: Read articles online. Visit the library or share a subscription with a friend, neighbor, or coworker.
If 100,000 people took this action: It would preserve about 35,000 trees (or it would preserve about 24,000 trees if 100,000 people bought Sunday paper instead of seven papers a week).
Coffee
Environmental impact: Drinking two cups of conventionally grown coffee each day for a year requires 12 trees, 11 pounds of fertilizers, and a few ounces of pesticides, and results in 43 pounds of pulp being dumped into rivers.6
Additional problems: Conventional coffee producton isn’t just bad for the land, its business model is also notorious for paying workers poor wages. Clearing shade trees to grow beans for conventional coffee also destroys some bird habitats.
Actions you can take: Buy organic, shade grown, fair trade coffee, of course. Fair trade companies pay small farmers nearly double in wages,7 and the coffee tastes great!
If 100,000 people took this action: It would conserve 12 million trees, 11 million pounds of fertilizers, 12,500 pounds of pesticides, and 21,500 tons of waste from entering rivers.
Energy loss
Environmental impact: Ordinary household appliances like televisions, computers, cell phone chargers, and cable boxes use power even when they’re off, needlessly wasting energy.
Additional problems: All that wasted energy means not only additional greenhouse gas emissions (if you power your home with fossil fuels), but also wasted money!
Actions you can take: Unplug electronic equipment you aren’t using and save 5 to 10 percent or more on your electric bill.8 Power strips make it easy to turn off multiple gadgets with one switch.
If 100,000 people took this action: It would save about 4,500 kilowatt hours of power and 2,560 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.8
Bottled water
Environmental impact: The average American drinks 22.6 gallons of bottled water a year.9 Making all that plastc releases over 4 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per person10 and consumes a surprising amount of petroleum (.005 barrels, or nearly a quart of oil per person).11
Additional problems: With prices as high as $10 per gallon (factoring the high cost of smaller bottles), water can cost four times as much as gasoline! Plus, only a meager 12 percent of plastic water bottles are recycled nationally.12
Actions you can take: Drink from the tap — that’s where 40 percent of all bottled water comes from. Check the quality of your water in the Environmental Working Group’s national database at www.ewg.org/tapwater and buy a filter and reusable bottle if necessary.
If 100,000 people took this action: it would save 400,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, and save enough petroleum (500 barrels of oil) to travel around the earth’s equator 8.5 times!
Steven Krieger was Grassroots Coordinator & Community Liaison for the Center for a New American Dream.
1. From www.nodirtygold.org/pubs/20TonsMemo_FINAL.pdf.
2. From www.nodirtygold.org/poisoned_waters.cfm.
3. From www.nodirtygold.org/polluted_air.cfm.
4. We calculated this figure based on a Hummer H3 weighing 4,700 pounds (www.hummer.com).
5.According to www.spiritone.com/~brucem/savetree.htm, one tree yields approximately 1,660 newspapers. Daily Washington Post newspapers weigh approximately 1.3 pounds each and Sunday papers weigh approximately 3.5 pounds each based on our measurements.
6. Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things by John C. Ryan and Alan Thein Durning, Northwest Environment Watch,1997, page 8.
7. “Pursuing Justice One Cup at a Time” by Caryle Murphy, Washington Post, March 7, 2004 (online at www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/1686.html).
8. This figure is based on a chart from http://standby.lbl.gov/data/International.html, however usage varies widely. Learn how to measure your home’s energy loss at www.kouba-cavallo.com/phantom.html.
9. From the Beverage Marketing Corporation, cited in www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279230.
10. Figure is calculated using statistics from www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/coefficients.html and www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update51_data.htm.
11. Calculated using stats from www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update51_data.htm.
12. Cited in www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279230.