(These steps are in no specific order)

1. Reducing the Use of Your Utilities:

a. As you use your electricity, water and gas each day remember how you could use them less. Example: Turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth; Showering less than five minutes at least once a week; Turning off the lights when you leave a room; Unplugging anything not in use while you are not home; Only turning on the heat when you can’t use a sweater; Using a microwave instead of a stove to heat something up;

b. Use energy efficient utilities. Example: Install energy efficient shower heads that will reduce the amount of water coming out of your shower; Install energy efficient light bulbs that will lower the amount of electricity you use; Insulate your water heaters so that the heat won’t escape;

c. Use small changes to help lower your energy cost and effect. Example: Use items, such as liners and barriers, to place around drafty windows and doors to prevent heat from escaping; Use a light dimmer on your light switches to lower the energy use; Use a bucket of water, vs. constantly running the water, while washing dishes; Only use the dishwater when it is full;

(All of these will not only lower your energy use, but also lower the cost of your monthly bill.)

2. Recycle Product Containers and Furniture:

a. What you buy, you keep. Example: If you buy a food product that comes in a plastic container with a lid, re-use that container for your leftovers; If you buy a food product in a glass jar, re-use that jar as a drinking glass, vase for flowers, or a storage container; Try to re-use your old furniture by reupholstering it or painting it;

b. What you don’t want or use recycle. Example: If you have too many containers for leftovers, then recycle the container that your food comes in; If your furniture has seen better days and is unable to be painted or reupholstering, then recycle the furniture or break it down and use its materials for something else, like a shelf, or a frame.

Here are some other lists that supply you with ideas of how to reuse items.

Green Reuse
The Good Human
Re-use Everyday

Farmers markets are a place for locals to gather together and pick through a selection of locally grown or made vegetables, fruits, meats, cheeses, nuts, fish, eggs, honey, flowers, etc. The farmers market not only provide products to buy, but most often also supplies live music, food truck vendors, local designers products, and of course your local farmer. The best part about farmers markets is that you get to ask your local farmer questions regarding their products. The farmers who sell at the market brings a face to the food that you eat and you gain a little bit more respect and knowledge about where your food actually comes from.

The farmers may be an important piece to a farmers market for some, but for others it may be the abundance of products that you get to choose from. The days of choosing between the “red apple” and the “green apple” are over because at the farmers market the farmers provide you with fruits and vegetables that you don’t normally see sold in your grocery store. They most often grow many types of a single product, such as the Blue Pearmain Apple, Mutsu Apple, and so on. It beats going to the grocery store once a week and hoping that your food is grown locally, is made organically, and healthy for you like the labels say, and that your grocery store worker will know enough about the farms that the food comes from to provide you with information about sustainable food.

Farmers markets are a positive way to supply your refrigerator with a weekly dose of healthy veggies, fruits, meats, etc. There is much you can learn from your local farmer about which foods are better to eat, depending on the season, and to see a smiling face explaining to you what you are eating rather than a sign at the store.  Farmers markets are a sustainable source of buying locally grown products. Help support your local family farms and buy at farmers markets.

The link below is a website called local harvest that will pinpoint a sustainable farmers market or a farm near you.

Local Harvest Farmers Market Finder

Sustainability is on the rise and with it comes a boost of urban farming. Urban farms could be the solution to not only healthy and easier ways to get food for local communities, but also for the supply that the global community demands to feed the billions of people living in the world today. The farmers who run the urban farms have been using sustainable techniques such as properly using the layout of the land, like contour farming and crop rotation, and growing native plants. The use of the techniques of contour farming and crop rotation keep the soils rich with nutrients and more fertile, meaning no fertilizers or pesticides needed. The native plants work together to help one another grow and to make it into adulthood, supplying the community with better tasting food. The native plants also have a history of surviving well in the local environments of the urban farm. An advantage for urban farming compared to industrial farming is the transportation process. The urban farm requires little to no transportation while the transportation of the food from a large-scale farm to its grocery store location releases an abundance of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. The carbon dioxide then adds to the already high amounts of greenhouse gases that exist in the atmosphere. The urban farm is less likely to be destroyed by a disease, due to its poly-culture growth, is grown locally, and can provide enough food year round for the community. Urban farming is a fairly new concept that will meet the demand that the global community has been looking for. For more information on urban farming and urban agriculture please look at the links below.

Urban Agriculuture – United States Department of Agriculture

What is Urban Agriculture? – United States Environmental Protection Agency

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is so endangered, that experts are not even sure if this species is actually extinct. It was declared extinct until 2004, when people believed to have sighted a few of the population. If some do exist, according to AllAboutWildlife.com, the group is most likely very small (less than 10) and very susceptible to completely disappearing forever.
It is sad because these beautiful birds are in the state they are in now due to over-hunting by humans who wanted their feathers.
If you want to learn more about this species, or if you want to see the top 10 most endangered species list, click on the link below.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

SustPro is dedicated to protecting the environment, reducing C02 emissions, and saving polar bears. Humans are the reason why these things need saving in the first place. Not all humans are bad; in fact most of them aren’t.
However, oil excavation in Ecuador has cost human lives, as well as environmental damage that is irreparable. It is important for everyone to hear this story– that’s why I recommend the film: Crude, directed by Joe Berlinger.
It is available for Instant Play on Netflix, but you can also buy the film from the website listed below and part of the proceeds will go to the Clean Up Ecuador Campaign.

Crude

When men like Adam Smith founded modern capitalist thinking, did they also abandon earlier knowledge of what it takes to foster a sustainable world? Was the wisdom of ancients like Plato lost with the rise of ideas like free markets and the belief that the pursuit of self interest by itself creates a better world? Classical scholar and Princeton Philosophy Professor Melissa Lane makes that case in her book Eco-Republic, published by Princeton University Press.
Lane’s intriguing implication is that sustainability leadership is as much about fostering a new mindset as it is about adopting cleaner technologies or more equitable social policies. Leaders in the ancient world thought and made decisions differently. They understood that they were embedded in an interdependent social web and they knew that their decisions had to take into account not just self interest but the collective interest as well.

Read more…(Forbes)