People are used to hearing about how being eco-friendly is good for the environment (obviously), but if you don't really care about the environment than its not really going to mean a lot to you and it kinda misses out of the fact that being environmentally friendly is also good for you as well.
For me, the biggest benefit, to you rather than to the environment, is to your health. The most obvious is leaving your car at home and waking or biking instead. Obviously there would be a drop in the amount of greenhouse gases you produce, but the benefits that this type of 'gentle' exercise can have on your body is immense. Just 30 minutes walking a day helps with weight loss and the prevention of serious illnesses like heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. I won't go into this too much more as I've already spoken about the benefits of walking in my blog post The Wonders of Walking, and obviously the benefit of staying healthy is huge for the individual, but its also important when you realise that these diseases cost the NHS over £50 billions a year. There's also the benefit it has for our mental health, and that's not just depression. Just 10 minutes stroll can greatly reduce stress levels, helping you cope with everyday problems and reducing the negative health affects that stress produces.
Food is another area where you can be both eco-frinedly and you-friendly. I'm already rambled on about what the benefits of being a veggie are for both the environment and health, but you don't have to go all out if you love your meat. Even just having a meat free day can make a huge difference to your health, and you'll probably find its not as bad as you thought it was going to be. You might even decide to increase it to more than one day.
And then there's the whole local and organic issues. Research has shown that organic vegetables don't have any more nutrience than non-organic vegetables, but there is the lack of pesticides and herbicides to consider. These are known to have a negative affect on wildlife and to produce greenhouse gases during production, but they are also know to be irritants to skin and eyes in humans, have affects on the hormonal and endocrine system of the body, and to contain carcinogens. Like a number of different things, how much is 'bad' for you depends entirely on the individual, and I tend to err on the side of not at all.
If organic is a little too pricy than local is another good route to take (obviously both would be better). Food grown in Britain not only has to follow the EU policies on farming, some of the greenest and most animal friendly in the world, but the shorter distance of travel to your local store and the reduced need for refrigerating means that it has a much lower carbon footprint than those flow in from abroad. But the biggest issue about the long distance travel of food is the reduction in nutrience. As soon as vegetables are harvested they begin to loose their nutrience, hence the big deal companies make about freezing their vegetables so soon as they pull them up, and the longer it takes for it to get to your plate the less benefits you will get out of them. There's also the satisfaction of knowing that you are supporting your local community.
The last benefit I'm going to talk about is reducing connected to reducing the temperature of your home. This probably seems like a weird one and it's easy to see the environmental benefits of reducing the amount of energy you use and, therefore, reducing the amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere. But reducing your homes temperature from the average of 23-24 C does have some benefits for you as well. The of the largest allergens in the home are dust mites. They, or more truthly their faeces, can cause allergic reactions on almost anyone, but they cause serious problem in 85% of asthmatics and eczema suffers and the like temperatures of a warm 18-24 C. Because of this it is recommended by many health boards that you keep your home at a temperature of 16-18 C to reduce the amount of dust mite activity, though obviously not below 16 as that can cause a whole load of other health issues. Temperature also affects how you sleep and the recommendation of room temperatures for a good night's sleep ranges from 15 C to 20 C depending on how high your core temperature rises around bed time. In fact, the West Midlands Public Health Observatory (now the Public Health England) has recommended that for a healthy home you should have your living room at 21 C and your bedroom at temperatures of 18 C. All of these 'recommended' temperatures are below the average temperature many of us keep our homes at and show the benefits we would get from saving the planet a little. And, if you think that sounds a bit chilly, there's nothing like a good jumper.
So its not all about the planet when it comes to being green.
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