Carbon footprint reduction

1. Carbon footprint reduction By chris krosky

2. Cell phone charger • People can reduce there carbon foot print by un plugging there cell phone charger or there ipod charger. • If you have a cellphone, have you ever noticed that your charger stays warm even when you are not charging your phone with it? That's because it is still draining electricity. "According to Future Forests, only 5% of the power drawn by cell phone chargers are actually used to charge phones. The other 95% is wasted when you leave it plugged into the wall, but not into your phone. The lesson? Unplug your charger when you are not using it [or plug everything on a power strip and use the switch to turn it off instead of manually plugging and unplugging things.

3. If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a light bulb that's earned the ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year, save about $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to those from about 800,000 cars. • Earning the ENERGY STAR means products meet strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Lighting products that have earned the ENERGY STAR deliver exceptional features, while using less energy. Saving energy helps you save money on utility bills and protect the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the fight against climate change.

4. Bottled water contains disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and pain medication • The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but comprehensive testing by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand analyzed, including toxic byproducts of chlorination in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Supermarket's Acadia brands, at levels no different than routinely found in tap water. Several Sam's Choice samples purchased in California exceeded legal limits for bottled water contaminants in that state. Cancer-causing contaminants in bottled water purchased in 5 states (North Carolina, California, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland) and the District of Columbia substantially exceeded the voluntary standards established by the bottled water industry. • Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry is not required to disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Instead, the industry hides behind the claim that bottled water is held to the same safety standards as tap water. But with promotional campaigns saturated with images of mountain springs, and prices 1,900 times the price of tap water, consumers are clearly led to believe that they are buying a product that has been purified to a level beyond the water that comes out of the garden hose.

5. Work cited • "Bottled Water Quality Investigation: 10 Major Brands, 38 Pollutants | Environmental Working Group." EWG Home | Environmental Working Group. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.ewg.org/reports/BottledWater/Bottled-Water-Quality-Investigation>. • "Light Bulbs : ENERGY STAR." Home : ENERGY STAR. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=LB>.