70 Ways to Save Energy and Money

Everyday Steps

1. Recycle, Recycle, Recycle. Recycle everything that you can.
2. Turn off lights that are not in use.
3. Turn off bulk freezers when not in use.
4. Take shorter showers, 5 minutes at most.
5. Turn off the water when brushing your teeth
6. Set your hot water heater at the lowest possible setting.
7. Use cold water to wash your laundry.
8. Turn your thermostat down during the day, wear a sweater.
9. Turn your thermostat down at night, use extra blankets.
10. Use a fan instead of an air conditioner during the summer.
11. Close up unused rooms.
12. Turn off dehumidifiers when not needed or buy an Energy Star approved unit.
13. Turn your hot tub down or off when not in use.
14. Turn your computer off when not in use.
15. Use a microwave instead of a stove or oven when possible - they use less energy.
16. Wash and reuse zip lock bags.
17. Use power strips. Appliances often use energy even when they are turned off. Plugging appliances into a power strip and turning the strip off when they are not in use prevents useless energy loss.
18. Replace incandescent light bulbs with CFL’s or LED’s. This will save you money on your electric bill.
19. Use a killawatt meter to learn about where the energy you use is going.
20. Use a clothesline instead of an electric or gas dryer

Shopping

21. Take your own reusable canvas or cloth bags to the store.
22. Purchase products in glass instead of plastic. Glass is easier to recycle and is a fully recyclable material without material loss.
23. Plan your shopping trips with the use of a tool like Google Maps.
24. Look for products with minimal packaging.

Health and Diet

25. Eat lower on the food chain. Eat less meat.
26. Buy bulk products to reduce waste produced by excess packaging.
27. By locally produced foods whenever possible.
28. Reduce the purchase of processed and frozen foods.
29. Purchase at least 10% organic foods
30. Purchase dairy products that do not contain rBST
31. Avoid canned goods due to Bisphenol-A

Gardening

32. Compost - the natural process of decomposition produces less methane emissions than the breakdown of waste a dump or landfill.
33. Rake leaves, do not waste energy by using a leaf blower.
34. Use rain barrels to supply water for gardens and lawns.
35. Plant a tree.
36. Use an electric or push mower for your lawn
37. Use native and drought resistant plants.
38. Reduce the amount of lawn planted.
39. Work on an edible landscape

Home Maintenance and Updates

40. Purchase a programmable thermostat.
41. Caulk and weatherstrip your doors and windows to prevent air leaks
42. Clean your chimneys
43. Shrink wrap your windows during the winter.
44. Purchase easy to use wrap around foam insulaters for your pipes.
45. Insulate your attic.
46. Insulate the duct work in your home.
47. Insulate the joist bays in your home.
48. Have your furnace cleaned and tuned annually.
49. Add solar powered outdoor lamps.
50. Insulate your water heater
51. Insulate your Garage Door
52. Replace your windows with Energy Star rated Windows
53. Use Low or Zero VOC paints in the home
54. Replace the wall-to-wall carpet with environmentally friendly flooring

Traveling

55. Walk or ride a bike - it is healthy!
56. Take public transportation or carpool.
57. Change your car’s oil regularly
58. Make sure your car is properly tuned up
59. Replace the air filter regularly
60. Inflate the tires on your car to the proper level. This increases fuel efficiency.
61. Drive at the speed limit. A speed of 35-55 MPH results in maximum fuels efficiency for most vehicles.
62. Turn your car off when parked. Never leave your vehicle idling.
63. Do not use drive-thru’s. Park your vehicle, turn it off, and walk inside.
64. Avoid having unnecessary weight in your vehicle.

Other

65. Freecyle - giving things away prevents them from ending up in the landfill, where they will end up producing harmful methane emissions as they break down.
66. Check out thrift stores and yard sales for furnishings and accessories
67. See if your favorite magazines have an online or digital edition
68. Use Online Banking from your financial institution and eliminate paper billing
69. Join a video subscription service or use Cable pay-per-view instead of purchasing movies

Use Netflix To Reduce Waste

Are you a movie fan? I know I am. I would rather watch a good movie than mind-numbing television. Because of this I had a movie habit. I was addicted to DVDs. There were times when I would buy 10 movies a week. Some sit on the shelves unwrapped even though I bought them years ago. We have so many movies in the household that friends come to us before going to Blockbuster. So a few months ago, I started thinking about this excess and realized that I was spending up to $500 a month on plastic disks that I was going to use once, or at most a few times over the rest of my life. There is only so much time to watch movies.

So to cut down, I joined Netflix (www.netflix.com). They deliver the movies I want via the USPS and I send them back and get new ones when done. All for a low fee of about $15.00 a month. This allows me to put the rest of that money in my savings account or to offset the purchase of higher quality foods. The great thing about delivery by USPS is that they are coming to my home 6 days a week anyway, so there is no net carbon gain by my movie rentals as opposed to driving to a local video rental store. Plus, I don’t have to worry about storage or disposing of packaging.

Raising Eco-Conscious Kids While Helping the Planet

Having a child is often a motivating factor for protecting the environment, as most parents go green in order to improve their children’s future.  If you are like many eco-conscious parents, you hope to raise children who will have a positive impact on the environment.  However, true eco-parenting involves much more than teaching your children about recycling.

Babies and children create more waste each than several adults, which means you must begin by reducing the carbon footprints of your children.  Moreover, you must teach your children by example, and extend your green activism into your community.  Buying organic baby food and fair-trade toys is not enough.  You must reduce your family’s waste, create an environmentally friendly home, and educate your community about green living.

One common reason that parents are hesitant about going green is the belief that green living is expensive.  However, green living is often cheaper, and it can save you money both in the short term and in the long-term.

Eliminating disposable products from your home is an easy way to help the environment, and it is one eco-friendly option that will also save you a significant amount of money.  Disposable cups, plates, paper towels, diapers, and napkins are convenient items that can have a negative impact on the environment.  By decreasing the amount of these products used in your home, or eliminating the use of these items altogether, you are saving money and teaching your children an environmentally friendly alternative that they will likely carry over into their own adult lives.

Another excellent way of saving your family money while helping the environment is to reduce your family’s consumption of energy.  Turning off appliances at the wall, consolidating car trips, and using energy efficient light bulbs are simple ways to reduce energy usage that will likely turn into lifelong habits in your children.  Installing solar heating panels and reducing the temperature setting on your hot water heater are additional ways to improve the energy efficiency of your home.

Protecting the environment means making changes to more than just your home, though.  To truly have a positive impact on your environment, you need to reach out to your community.  Educate your local schools on how to go green, and become involved with an organization that plants trees or lobbies for eco-friendly legislation.  Visit organic farms with your children, and speak with your local grocery stores about increasing their stock of organic and sustainable products.

Of course, living green does not mean you cannot enjoy spending time with your family.  It simply means you need to do what you can to protect the environment.  Whether you choose to use cloth diapers instead of disposables, buy toys and furniture second-hand, carpool, plant trees, or lobby for community recycling containers, your ultimate goal should be to reduce the carbon footprint of your family, teach your children about green living, and produce more than you waste.

Environmentally Friendly Computer Use That Saves You Money

Simple Tips to Keep Your Business ‘Green-Friendly’

As global warming and environmental awareness continues to be a much discussed topic, it is possible that we have become completely desensitized to this pressing issue and have simply written it off as ‘too hard’ or ‘not something that we can do anything about’.

On the contrary, there are many seemingly small practices and changes that business and individuals can implement in order to ‘do their bit’ for the environmental situation.

From turning off the lights and your PC when they are not needed to using recycled paper, every little thing, when reproduced across the globe, can indeed have a positive effect. And in most cases not only will you be helping the environment but you will save on costs too!

Some examples of ways that you, and particularly businesses, can ‘do your bit’ include:

* Turn off lights when the room is not in use, this includes meeting rooms, offices, living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens.

* Turn off your computer when it is not in use, this includes overnight and can even stretch as far as turning it off when you go to lunch if you want to really be conscientious and proactive.

* Use recycled paper - this may be as small as reusing scrap/waste paper by printing drafts and documents for review on the reverse blank side, or even reverting to purchasing and utilising fully recycled paper for everything from contract and documents to business letterhead.

* Only print what you need to - do you really need a hard copy of that email, or can you store a copy electronically? There may be many other types of files that you can store electronically as well.

* Ensure that you, and your employees, not only have access to but make use of recycling bins for paper, bottles, jars, cans and any other recyclable material that your business may use.

Some businesses have become particularly proactive in the environmentally friendly arena. With technology such as video conferencing it is possible to meet with clients and do business deals without leaving your office. This not only saves travel time and costs but will reduce the impact on the environment as there is no transportation required, whether this is via taxi to the next suburb, or airplane to the next state.

As a way of ensuring that your workplace moves forward towards a ‘greener’ future you can possibly look to implement regular review and reporting processes. This may be through appointing a staff member to be responsible for monitoring current practices or even incorporating environmental awareness into employee evaluations, depending on what is appropriate for your situation.

Whatever steps you choose to take, the fact remains that we all need to start addressing what we can do to move towards an environmentally friendly workforce and business community.

Use Cloth Napkins

Purchase cloth dinner napkins and/or small fingertip towels for non-disposable use at the table or as wipes for children. It works for us. For normal everyday use, we simply use standard cotton washcloths that we have gathered over the years. They are durable and easy to care for. Just toss them in with a regular load of laundry when done with them. You can use your older washcloths to recycle or purchase them from a thrift store for relatively inexpensively.

For formal occasions, you can use linen or cotten napkins made for this purpose to cut down on waste. Napkins are a lost commodity in today’s throw away society. This eliminates a waste stream from your home and reduces your footprint without even trying.

Going Green

The phrase ” going green” is something that we hear frequently these days. It seems everywhere we turn we are bombarded with products and suggestions that promise to help our families live a more green lifestyle. Unfortunately, it is not always economically feasible for every family to make some of the more obvious large changes. However, there are many small simple changes everyone can make that will have a big impact on the environment over time. Read more

What Are The Benefits Of Organic Food?

There is much discussion today about the pros and cons of organic food. People want to know whether organic food is better than non-organic food. They wonder whether the term “organic” is nothing more than the latest money-making marketing term being thrown about. They question the regulatory oversight bodies that determine whether the food that’s labeled organic really meets all of the criteria. These are difficult questions to answer with certainty especially since the answers often depend on who is asked. Regardless, there are several very real benefits of consuming organic food. Here is an overview of the most common.

Organic Food Tastes Better

The people who eat organic food claim that organic food is more flavorful and studies have actually been conducted that confirm this belief. The chemicals that are used in the production of non-organic food definitely affect flavor.

Organic Food is Better for the Body

The United States Environmental Protection Agency now lists many of the chemicals used in the production of pesticides and fungicides as potential cancer-causing components. It makes sense then, that when non-organic foods are consumed, so too are these cancer-causing ingredients. Since these types of chemicals cannot be used to grow organic foods, they simply are not present and therefore, they cannot be ingested. Eating organic foods won’t unfortunately prevent cancer because there are plenty of genetic and environmental factors that can cause it to develop. However eating organic food greatly reduces the chance that certain cancers will develop.

In addition, organically-grown produce contains up to 50% more of the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants the body needs to stay healthy and perform at optimum capacity. If you’re trying to add more fruit and vegetables to your diet, you can double the benefits by eating organic ones.

You Can Feel Good about What You Eat

When you eat organic food, you know what you’re not getting. You know you’re not eating food that’s been genetically altered or shot up with growth hormones and antibodies. You know that the skins of your fruits and vegetables aren’t a thick covering of chemicals and other harmful ingredients. The bottom line: You know that you are fueling your body with healthy fuel. Centuries ago, people did not have as many health-related issues as they do in these more modern times. Plenty of people feel it is our food that is killing us.

You Help Protect Environment

When pesticides and fertilizers are applied to plants, there is no way to keep the chemicals used in their production from covering the ground. Rain and irrigation cause these chemicals to be absorbed into the ground. As they absorb into the ground, they percolate down to the underground water tables. Ultimately, the chemicals leach into nearby water bodies. The soil as well as the water begins to be contaminated. Over time the birds, fish and other animals living in these environments become affected. Since organic foods are grown without using these dangerous chemicals, their growth will never impact the environment in this manner.