For Those Who Want to Save and Be Earth Friendly.

Someone visited and leave a comment on my Green Tips article. Curiosity prompted me to check out his/her blog and I discovered that the author is researching on how to save and be earth friendly at the same time, which explained why this post got his/her attention.

Let me quote from Naturally.Natalie’s blog: "I am writing this as a log of my own personal investigations and attempts at various ways to: a.) help the environment, b.) spend less money, and c.) spend less money WHILE helping the environment!”

Though, I am not sure if the tips I have enumerated on the Green Tips I have posted will in any way help the author with his/her objective, because I am assuming that we have different country, belief, climate and way of life. But in spite of this, those words encourage me to still share my own personal experiences not only to the author of that blog but also to all those who share the same interest and objective. Being in the country wherein the financial crisis is common, we became expert in spending less money and thus unwittingly helping the environment. Some of the information I will be sharing might already been known to you, so you may just consider it as a review.

First thing that I remember doing to save and help the environment is by buying secondhand. Since majority of Filipino cannot afford brand new car, we usually settled to a secondhand car. Second hand car here is one-fourth or up to one-sixth of the price of the brand new car. And if you are in a country wherein public transportation is accessible, don't buy at all and patronage the public transportation. Imagine how much savings you can get with it and not only that, you can help the environment because, it will prevent the carbon emission of assembling a new car or using your own car. No offense to the car manufacturers but that is the name of the game today. You can also do that with other merchandise, here in the Philippines , you can rent clothes, jewelry or bags and there is lot of secondhand merchandise you can buy, including handkerchief and underwear. Underwear? Yes I said it right and I am not kidding.

Another tip I can share is if you want to reduce weight, instead of buying weight reducing drugs, eat less and be vegetarian. And if you want to have an athletic figure, instead of going to the gym or buying equipment, learn how to exercise without using equipment. Exercises can be done almost anywhere using your own body weight. If your house needs a minor repair, try to fix it yourself. And if your work is few meters away, instead of riding in your car, you can just walk or use your bike.

Even though the author did not include earning money as one of his/her objective, let me also share the things I am doing to earn a little money while helping the environment. Here in the Philippines we have what we called "May pera sa basura." (english translation - "there's money in trash.") Junk Shop is proliferating in the Philippines , this is where you can sell your trash like used plastic bottles, tin cans, aluminum cans, cartoons, papers, scrap metal, tires and anything that can be recycled or reused. Some Filipino now, including me, separates the garbage that we can sell, from those that are no longer reusable. And when it's time for me to pick up the kid's from school, I will put it on my tricycle and sell it to the junk shop that is located along the way to the school. If you will say that this is not feasible in your location because there is no Junk Shop in your area, why start your own, you will earn more if you will be the one to own the Junk Shop. Here in the Philippines , many became rich because of Junk Shop. This is why the Junk Shop here spread like mushroom. You may not only get rich, you might also influence or encourage your neighbor or countrymen to recycle and thus help the environment and your country’s waste management system.

Something to Look Forward To: I will post the information on how to recycle your garbage that we got from our local government.

Scorching Heat during Rainy Season

The temperature is still hot, in spite of early rainy season. The rainy season usually start in June but this year, it started as early as April. The frequent dose of rain and strong wind blows failed to get rid the scorching heat.

This only means that green house gases already trapped so much heat and that more actions are needed to remedy this problem. Occasional earth hour is not enough; we need to initiate more earth saving activities.


I remember during my elementary days, Ferdinand Marcos, who is the president of the Philippines at that time, implemented a Green Revolution project, which encourage every Pinoy to plant trees and vegetable on any idle government land.

Our schools then responded to that call, and mobilized all students and have them plant trees on the side of the street going to the school. I hope all public and private schools, initiate the same project, this will awaken the student's environmental awareness at the early age.