World Environment Day (or in short WED) is a special commemorative day established by United Nations to stimulate awareness of the environment.  This year’s host the event is Mexico which reflects the growing role of the Latin American country in the fight against climate change. The United Nations official WED website has some great tips on how to “Easily Green Your Daily Routine“, but what would a “green matter” list look for a stamp collector?  Below is my “star advice” that I wish every environment cautious stamp collector would use.

Save clean water

1985 Australia - "Water is precious" stamp. Michel #938.

Clean water is the worlds most prestigious and rarest assets.  Despite this, the average american consumes over 500 liters of clean water per day and the average European splashes half of that; in comparison most people living in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing areas have to survive with 20 liters or less for full day.

My green tip is “when soaking kiloware, look for your water consumption“. Yesterday I did some “kitchensink philately” , and (first time ever) I measured my water consumption. Soaking of a batch of 50 stamps consumed 3 litres of clean tap water.  I estimate that I could rather easily reduce this by 30-50% without affecting the quality of soak.

What about the “used soak water”? Instead of pouring it down to drain, why not to use it for watering flowers or something similar?  After all, it’s still good household water suitable for many uses…

By limiting and recycling the use of  ”soak water”, each stamp collector can save hundreds, possibly even thousands of liters of clean water (and energy) each year.  It’ may sound little, but when hundreds of thousands of other collectors do the same thing, it will have a notable footprint on our consumption of natures resources.

1979 Spain - Save Energy postage stamps, Michel #2400 - 2402 (cat. value 0.30€). Energy conservation is not a new topic in stamps - only the reasons why energy saving is important have changed.

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