Our President
We at Paralyzed Veterans of America may be the last to board the environmental train. It’s leaving without us. The Department of Veteran’s Affairs awards a Go Green citation, TV Commentator Brian Williams spent an entire week promoting it. Local TV stations, a dedicated cable channel, even our local Chamber of Commerce gives a monthly award. It would be a great idea if all our chapters participated in saving this great country’s resources. It’s patriotic and even more important in these dire economic times, it saves money.
Most people think Going Green means to recycle. It’s so much more than
that. We need to learn the three important R's of the environment: reduce, reuse,
and recycle. Then we must practice what we preach: don't buy things you don't
need, don’t buy over packaged items, don’t buy anything that cannot
be recycled. Reduce, Reuse, and recycle whenever and whatever you can. If you
keep those three precepts in mind, available options will begin to appear wherever
you look.
At
our offices we no longer print individual reports for board meetings. We project
a power point on the board room wall and save nearly a ream of paper every month.
It’s a lowly five bucks, but it also saves on ink. Which, according to
the magazine PC World costs $4,700 a gallon.
We
can save money. It’s not a matter of how, it’s simply a matter of
where. Nearly every one of us uses a computer, at our chapters, at our homes,
even traveling. Savings can start right there.
Did you know that 90% of desktop computers are not optimized for energy efficiency?
If yours is the one-in-ten that is, then you’re ahead of the game. However,
if you're like the rest of us, you can easily adjust the settings and save up
to 50% of the operational costs.
There
are simple things we can do like change our light bulbs. Compact Fluorescent
Light bulbs cost more, but they use 75% less energy and last ten times longer.
It’s a saving of $30.00 over the lifetime of the bulb. An average home
has 45 light bulbs, so at $5 per bulb, the cost of replacing all of them is
$225. The savings over a lifetime is over a thousand dollars. Even better, use
Light Emitting Diodes. Now we’re talking less than five watts and a life
of fifty to one hundred thousand hours. A bulb with that unheard of life boggles
the mind. It’s eleven years!
The
savings are everywhere, how we buy our food, the vehicle we drive, cosmetics,
air conditioners, even razors and socks. I believe it would be a novel idea
if we, as veterans, worked to save this great country’s resources the
same way we gave of ourselves to protect it. It’s patriotic and as an
added bonus, it saves money.
The
choice is ours, do we want everyone on board? Please take the time to consider
how you can personally help to create a leaner, greener America.
Steve Kirk
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