The first of many green ideas for the new year

We hope that you all had a wonderful and safe holiday season. As this year comes to an end we wanted to close out the year with a steady flow of blog entries and bring in the new year with a string of green ideas to help move eco consciousness forward. These ideas will help your immediate carbon footprint, with something that you personally can begin with, as well as some that will help the global carbon footprint, by us a society that we could begin to do.

Let's start with something that we all can begin to work on. An easy thing that we all can do to help eliminate the constant paper trail in our homes is to do our bill paying and banking online. The online security has come a long way to make this action safe. Just ignore the e-mails that are "phishing" for personal data. You should monitor all electronic statements and report any problems immediately and your credit won't get hit. This action alone will save trees, help eliminated fuel consumption by the trucks and planes that need to transport the paper checks and bills every month. We could cut solid waste by 1.6 billion tons a year and curb greenhouse emissions by 2.1 million tons a year according to the research group Javelin Strategy and Research.

You should ask your employer to directly deposit your paycheck to help you eliminate the noxious gases emitted from your car to the bank on paycheck day. You would eliminate your time waiting in the bank line, and you will have your money in your bank faster, too.

These small actions could begin to help the environment immediately. The overall impact would be measurable, albeit small, but the feel good factor would be quite high.