5 Tips To Green Living

How about some useful tips for cutting energy consumption, saving money and the planet?  The following tips barely scratch the surface of what you can do to help yourself and Mother Earth, however, we have to start somewhere-sometime, right?  Use this list as a starting point of things that you can do right now, today.  Then, do some research on your own, talk to people and broaden your energy conservation and shrink your carbon footprint.

1. Plug electronics into one powerstrip. 
Turn the power strip off when not in use.  Even when small electronics are turned off, yet still plugged into an outlet, they still draw energy.  This accounts for nearly $1 Billion worth of electricity usage in the United States every year.

2. Use energy efficient cookware.

By choosing the proper cookware for every meal you cook, you can prevent unnecessary energy waste while you're cooking.  Here are some things for consideration:

The Size.  By choosing the right size pot or pan you will save energy because you won't have to heat the empty space on the pan.  If you are cooking one vegetarian burger, don't use a pan the size of a small pizza.  Use cookware that is appropriate for the meal you are making.

The Materials.  Some materials, such as cast iron, retain heat better than others.  Others, such as copper, reach the cooking point more quickly with less energy.  Select the cookware you use based on the type of meal you are making so that you have to apply as little energy as possible.

Keep A Lid On It.  If you're boiling water for pasta, making pasta sauce or just heating up a grilled cheese sandwich, cover your pot or pan with the appropriate sized lid.  By covering the pan, less heat will escape, your food will cook faster and you'll find that you don't have to cook your food on as high a setting as you would without a lid.

 3. Change out that old light bulb.

By now you've had to hear that If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

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• Look at the benefits:

*75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer.

*Save about $30 or more in electricity costs over each bulb's lifetime.

*Produce about 75 percent less heat, so they're safer to operate and can cut energy costs associated with home cooling.

*Are available in different sizes and shapes to fit in almost any fixture, for indoors and outdoors.

4. Compost.

The amount of food that goes into landfills in the United States every year is a staggering number that is beyond comprehension.  By composting you'll be:

A. Reducing the amount of garbage that goes into our landfills.

B. Providing a nutritious mix for your flowers and garden.  Compost has also been shown to suppress plant diseases and pests, and promote higher yields of agricultural crops.

C. Reducing the production of methane and leachate formulation in the landfills.

D. Contributing to economic benefits as composting can reduce the need for water, fertilizers, and pesticides.

E. Creating a product that has been shown to absorb odors and treat semi volatile and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including heating fuels, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and explosives.

5. Use unbleached coffee filters.

Are you a filter coffee drinker?  Did you know that another way to make your favorite brew more earth friendly is to use unbleached coffee filters - it doesn't cost you anything more plus you'll be minimizing the amount of organochlorines and dioxins that are released into the environment.  Bleaching happens to produce a by-product called chlorine. And, you can put used coffee grounds into your compost if you have one!

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