Five Great Steps Everyone Can Make to Conserve Global Resources

1. Save ALL Pennies!!
   Pennies are not just worthless cents, they are a significant amount of zinc , and copper (pre-1982) when you add up everyone you save. When thousands of people do this across a nation, it reduces the amount of zinc that has to be mined in the world to produce more pennies as a result of waste and abandonment.
   
2. Create a Rubber Band Ball
   Three fourths of today's rubber is synthetically produced from crude oil. So whenever you have extra ones, dont throw them away, just make a ball! You will never have to buy or borrow bands again, and its kinda fun.
   
3. Use All Left Over Food(that has not gone bad) Within Seven Days
   Why throw away something perfectly good, when you can challenge yourself and make it taste good again. always see that as the fun part of leftovers, how to make them taste at least as good as when your first got it. Many people are starving in the world, even though enough food is produced to feed everyone today. Lets not waste something that took alot of resources in and of itself to create.
   
4. Replace All Incandescant Bulbs With Compact Flouresence or LED Light Bulbs
   Saves you alot of energy in the long run. Why replace a regularly used incandescent that has to be replaced in as little as four months, when a Compact Flourescent will use a third less energy and last uyou muhch longer using about as much resources to create it. And once LED bulbs become more practical, the benefits really start coming in!
   
5. Recycle As Much of Your Consumable Goods Packaging
   This one is probably the easiest of all. Most cities offer good curbside pickup programs, or at least ideally locate drop-off centers. Do your thing and recylce. It takes less energy and resources to recycle something than to make a new product from scratch.
   

This list is not directed at anyone, or to be taken as directive to save the world. It is just five easy things I thought could remind people where opportunities to conserve exist, and even make it fun. The pennies challenge could be an educational game for your kids by having them sort out the pre-1982 copper pennies from the post 1982 zinc ones. Heck you can even have them calculate the true net worth of the metals seeing as the penny weight of zinc has long surpassed the 1 cent worth.

And the food thing, man if you got some good recipes to make leftovers like new, go ahead and post them ya know?

[edit on 4/18/2007 by DYepes]