Every day we shape our planet's future when we make small life decisions - what we buy, what we eat, how we travel. The future of the planet is in our hands; the future is man-made. And we are all "Futuremakers". If we choose to live sustainably, we can assure a future for all living things. And we can have some fun doing it too!
This site, created by WWF-Australia, is a place where you can share ideas with other Futuremakers so that we can live more sustainably. We hope the tips and stories here will be useful for you. (More about this site)
To browse the ideas on this site by category or difficulty, click on the icons below.
Trina, over at Greenfoot, points us to G Magazine - “Australia’s first green lifestyle” magazine according to the website, and the Green Pages which are popping up all over the place (I know a few people that already have a copy - I picked one up just recently too).
It’s great to see some new publications making it easier to find information on enviro-friendly products being sold in Australia.
Melanie, on her blog bean-sprouts, posts some ideas for reducing the energy you use to cook.
A few more ideas and tips can be found in the comments on that post. If you’ve got any further ideas or thoughts, leave a comment either here or on Melanie’s post…
Here’s one for the more adventurous Do-It-Yourselfers - instructions on converting an old lawn mower to solar power. [via Hugg]
Treehugger reports that HP are reducing the packaging for their printer cartridges. Even though the changes seem small, they definitely add up:
These changes, according to HP, will cut down on 15 million pounds of materials over the course of 2007, including 6.8 million pounds of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic.
… Overall, the company estimated that it will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 million pounds. Because shipping containers will be able to accommodate many more packages, truck traffic for cartridge shipments is expected to be cut down by 1.5 million miles this year. Company calculations indicated that is the equivalent impact of 3,600 cars operating over the same period.
Our correspondent at Treehugger is quick to point out the other environmental issues with home printing. But this is still a good step forward.
Excessive packaging is a real issue, and an easy win for companies and the environment, as reduced packaging often means reduced costs (as the HP example shows). The EPA in Victoria recently ran the DUMP Awards [via GreenFoot] highlighting problematic packaging. You can check out the “winners” (or should we say losers), which were announced just the other day.
If you live in Sydney, you might have heard about Earth Hour. The basic gist is this: at 7:30pm on 31 March 2007, Sydney will turn its lights off for one hour.
In addition to turning off your lights on the night, why not celebrate at an Earth Hour event?
Did you know that possibly more than 5% of your electricity bill is a result of appliances on standby?
This site is a place where you can share their ideas, your stories, and what you’ve learnt. We hope that in sharing, it will be easier for more and more people to make the small life choices that add up to create a big positive impact on the planet.
But for the site to work we need to hear from you…
TechEBlog has posted Top 5 most creative uses for old CDs which highlights some pretty clever ideas for recycling unused or damaged CDs. [via EcoGeek]
The 3CBDs Greenhouse Initiative encourages businesses to reduce the climate change impact of office buildings in Sydney’s three largest CBDs ‑ City of Sydney, North Sydney and Parramatta.
Trina from Greenfoot has just written a guide for GadgetGuy.com.au about energy efficiency at home.
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