Bit by Bit
Think globally. Act locally. See the effect!

When you recycle something, you feel that you're making a difference, but you don't exactly feel like you're changing the world, right?  It's hard to get excited about doing one little thing, since it doesn't feel like it makes much of an impact, even though it does.  It's hard to really feel that we're making a difference when we are so disconnected from one another.

The idea is a simple one - a large group of people, all doing the same thing at the same time, and seeing the combined results of our efforts would really bring it home.  We'd all be able to see it happen, right in front of us.

How would it work?

Once a week, based on suggestions from you, we'll choose a project or suggestion for all of us to do that week. People that do it will be able to click a link that says, "I did it!" We'll compute how much effect we've had, based on how many people said they followed the suggestion. For example, if our suggestion one week was to put a brick in the back of your toilet, to conserve water, our server would then calculate the results of the effort, like this:

Number of people who said they put a brick in their toilet: 435
Average number of flushes per toilet, per year (in North America, see disclaimer below): 2475 (example statistic)
Average displacement volume of a yogourt container: 750 ml or 25 ounces
Total water saved, per year: 807,468 Litres of water, or 77,618 Gallons.

and then we could convert that into something we can grasp, like the fact that it adds up to 7 of these pools.

Want to join our effort?

You can talk about the project at a special part of our forum, set up to discuss ideas for ways we could all work together, please join in our discussion there, if you'd like to contribute!