Each year gardeners pour millions of litres of chemicals onto their lawns and gardens. Excessive use of herbicides and other pesticides threatens biodiversity and freshwater resources, two essential elements of life on earth.
Avoid using chemical weed killers. To remove weeds from your garden, hoe regularly, and pull weeds out before they can seed. Boiling water from a kettle (I tend to use what is left over from when I make a cup of tea), Vinegar and lemon juice can also be used to kill some weeds.
Making small adjustments to our daily habits is important. For example, if every household replaced one regular bulb with a compact fluorescent, it would prevent the equivalent of the emissions generated by 800,000 cars (however, at this stage we have decided against using CF's in our house, as I'm not totally comfortable with what may be some negative effects, more information on this website http://hubpages.com/hub/Negative-Side-Of-Compact-Flourescent-Bulbs-CFLs)
However, we cannot alleviate the strain on our planet simply by buying better dish soap or using rechargeable batteries. As we implement the small improvements, we must keep in mind the need for greater change. reducing the amount of petrol we use by driving hybrids or small fuel efficient cars is good, but creating public transport systems that eliminate the need for cars is much better. Some of the big-picture actions we should keep in mind are ridding ourselves of oil dependence; reducing the amount of land we require for food and limit the environmental impacts of big agriculture; re-imagining our communities and living standards to curb unsustainable suburban sprawl; and electing officials, from the local level to parliament, who have clear environmental priorities and policies.
Don't compartmentalise your efforts: Understand where each gesture fits into the larger context of sustainability and always look for ways to make a leap toward great change!
