Ready for Blog Action Day? Great! We are all about saving the planet and staving off climate change in any way possible. Every little bit helps!

Here are ten easy things we can all do to reduce emissions:

Walk everywhere you can but especially if it’s less than 1.5 miles. The less gas you use, the less fossil fuels burning in the atmosphere. The more exercise you get the better you feel!

If you drive a diesel, look into converting to used vegetable oil to fuel it.

You can save your own used oil or ask your local fast-food chain for their waste. It’s a great way to ‘get off the grid’ so to speak and take your energy needs into your own hands. One more way to cut down on the use of fossil fuel and save yourself a lot of cash in the process!

You’ve heard it many times before but it bears repeating: Switch every lightbulb in your home to super efficient CFL’s or, even better, LED’s.

You’ll save money every month on your electric bill and be accomplishing more than you realize. If every U.S. household replaced 1 incandescent bulb with a CFL or LED, it would be the equivalent of taking 800,000 cars off the road!

Limit your red meat intake to twice a month.

Beef is only 30% of all meat consumed but is responsible for 78% of the emissions. Another happy side effect will be the amount of precious clean water used. It can take from 441 to 18,492 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef.  Hamburgers are the Hummers of food.

Have one meatless day a week.

Sample menu items: BREAKFAST – Oatmeal, fruit, yogurt. LUNCH – Salad, lentil soup, Pita with hummus. DINNER – Bean burrito’s, falafels, pasta primavera.  You can get more information and countless recipes at http://www.meatlessmonday.com/

Teach your cat to go outside.

At the very least get it used to something other than traditional cat litter. Most cat litter is made of bentonite clay or its cousin, fuller’s earth; both materials are extracted through surface mining, an environmentally taxing process. Meanwhile, because the litter is nonbiodegradable, there’s no place for it to go but the landfill.

A better option would be to use newspaper or commercial litters that come from recycled newspapers, wheat, corn cobs or reclaimed sawdust. These litters—along with the cat waste—can be composted, as long as you use the right precautions, and they provide a good use of recycled material.

Composting

There are many different ways to compost. You can bury your food scraps in the backyard, use community compost centers, worm composters, etc. If you live in an urban area there are even compact electric composters you can store under the sink for your food waste. This creates less garbage, less garbage trucks on the road, less landfill.

Buy and use recycled paper products of all kinds

Computer paper, toilet paper, tissues, paper towels, napkins and so on. Every paper product is a tree that is no longer here to clean our air.

Take your reusable bag everywhere you go

Between the trees that are chopped down to make paper bags and the natural gas and oil used for plastics, not to mention the energy expended in processing – those free bags at the grocery store aren’t much of a bargain.

Grow a little garden of your own

If you have a back yard then set aside some space to grow your favorite veggies. If all you have is a window ledge try growing your own fresh herbs. You’ll save emissions by having less food transported to you and everything grown by your own hand tastes that much better.

Find out more at www.blogactionday.org

Our lazy frog has created a petition asking Target to stop buying plastic bags for their stores and offer only reusable bags for their customers. We chose to speak with Target first among the many retailers out there because they claim in their TV commercials, and on their site, to be 100% committed to the environment.

We sent a letter – below – to Target first, asking them to cut out the plastic bags and received a sad little response which we chose to answer with this petition. You can sign the petition here

If a lazy frog can write an entire petition from a lily pad, you can certainly muster up the strength to sign!

Dear Target,

I am an admirer of Targets stated commitment to the environment.

It has come to my attention however, that Target purchases 1.8 Billion plastic bags every year to serve it’s customers. Plastic bags foul our water supplies and oceans, harm our plant life and fish, are ingested by and kill our animals, and use millions of gallons of oil to produce. Not to mention the fact that every plastic bag Target buys and distributes will remain on the planet, clogging up landfills, for the next 1,000 years.

In keeping with your environmental stance I would like to request that you stop this practice. Consumers are much more ecologically aware these days and will certainly applaud such a move on Targets part. If Target would like to continue to supply bags to customers to carry their purchased items, may I suggest charging a reasonable price for canvas tote bags of varying sizes with the lovely Target ‘bullseye’ logo on them? They would be very eye catching and I am sure they will become a fashion statement in no time. If Target needs any assistance with such a change please feel free to contact me as I would be happy to assist in healing our planet in any way possible.

Sincerely,

Ecoeasy

Dear Ecoeasy,

At Target we have a responsibility – as team members, as a company, and as global citizens – to minimize our environmental footprint. I’m pleased to tell you that our efforts include using plastic shopping bags made with environmentally friendly soy and water-based ink. Our plastic shopping bags have codes printed on them to help make recycling easier for you. The codes may vary based on the size of bag, ink used and other factors. You can also bring back previously used bags for new purchases at our stores. If you’d like to reuse your Target shopping bags, just let the cashier know during your checkout. Because local regulations and services can vary greatly, you might need to do a little checking to find out how and where to recycle the bags in your community. Right now, we’re exploring even more states where we can offer a bag recycling service. For the most current details about all Target does for our environment, please visit: www.target.com/environment.

Sincerely,
David
Target Guest Relations
(800) 440-0680