ONE THING YOU CAN DO READERS SHARE THEIR WAY TO HELP OUR EARTH-One person at a time

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There's another way to help the environment beyond simply paying attention to our surroundings. You can make your beliefs known to the business world through a simple but often overlooked process — filling out evaluation cards.

Many places of business have customer evaluation cards right in their stores. Some businesses, such as AT&T and Sears, regularly send their customers questionnaires asking for a company evaluation. What better way to express your feelings about a company's cooperation with the environment?

Here's how one restaurant-goer helped: After enjoying a meal at a chain restaurant, a woman found a card wedged between the salt and pepper shakers at her table. She commented on the good food and her appreciation of the cloth napkins which had replaced the paper napkins, since her last visit. She added, "I notice that your restaurant still uses styrofoam containers for people who want to carry their leftovers home. Perhaps you can think of a more environmentally compatible alternative."

Several months later, the woman received a personal letter from the restaurant's president, who thanked her for her kind words and promised to honor her request for replacing styrofoam.

Here's how another evaluation brought about environmental change. A retired navy man, who made frequent shopping trips to a nearby naval base, was impressed with the base captain's energy conservation efforts. However, during the hottest part of the summer, the navy man entered one of the exchange stores and discovered the thermostat set at 66°F This setting was 10 degrees lower than the base rules allowed. The man found an evaluation card at the customer service counter and wrote the exchange officer a polite note about the extreme setting.