GreeniacsGuides
Activities
Camping Make it an Even Greener Experience
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Written by Lindsay Crowder
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| Wednesday, 03 June 2009 | ||||
Camping: Make it an Even Greener Experience!Fortunately, because of the concern of the cumulative effect of thousands of visitors to our natural areas over time, a greener approach to camping is becoming increasingly popular. Aside from stocking up on environmentally friendly camping gear and goods, the “Leave No Trace” model was created to provide a cohesive set of principles to learn and practice while on your next camping trip. For more on the “Leave No Trace” model and eco-tourism, check out this Greeniac Guide. BENEFITS for the Environment: High COST: Minimal TIME and EFFORT: Medium. Once you learn the principles of “leave no trace” while camping, the time and effort is minimal. GETTING STARTED: Before you decide to green your camping experience, it is essential to review the principles created by Leave No Trace—as many campgrounds now require you to follow them. According to www.lnt.org, “Leave No Trace is a national and international program designed to assist outdoor enthusiasts with their decisions about how to reduce their impacts when they hike, camp, picnic, snowshoe, run, bike, hunt, paddle, ride horses, fish, ski or climb. The program strives to educate all those who enjoy the outdoors about the nature of their recreational impacts as well as techniques to prevent and minimize such impacts.”2 The Principles of LEAVE NO TRACE include: Plan Ahead and Prepare • Know the regulations and special concerns for the area you'll visit.Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces • Durable surfaces include established trails and campsites, rock, gravel, dry grasses or snow.Dispose of Waste Properly • Pack it in, pack it out. Inspect your campsite and rest areas for trash or spilled foods. Pack out all trash, leftover food, and litter.Leave What You Find • Preserve the past: examine, but do not touch, cultural or historic structures and artifacts.Minimize Campfire Impacts • Campfires can cause lasting impacts to the backcountry. Use a lightweight stove for cooking and enjoy a candle lantern for light.Respect Wildlife • Observe wildlife from a distance. Do not follow or approach them.Be Considerate of Other Visitors • Respect other visitors and protect the quality of their experience.Once you have mastered a good understanding and practice of Leave No Trace, you can continue greening your camping experience by investing in green camping gear. Obviously it is not necessary to consume new goods if you already have functional gear, but if you are in the market for new stuff, there are many options to go green.
1 http://www.lnt.org/programs/principles.php. 2 http://www.lnt.org/programs/index.php.
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 August 2011 ) | ||||
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Green Facts
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82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.
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Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.
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In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.
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A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.
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Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.
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Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.
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Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.
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Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.
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Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.
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You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.
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One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.
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Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.
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In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.
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77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.
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You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.
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States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.
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Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.
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You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.
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The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.
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Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.
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Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.
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Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
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It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.
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A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.
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Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
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An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!
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Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months
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Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.
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Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.
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If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.
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For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.
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Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.
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Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.
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A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.
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Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.
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A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.
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Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.
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Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.
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American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.


