We CAN Be Green

Green Tips: Energy Conservation: Home Energy Audit

Save up to 20 percent on your energy bills and reduce your home’s CO2 emissions by 2,808 pounds per year by sealing leaks and adding insulation where needed. A great way to find out where you have leaks or where you need insulation is to have an energy audit done. Check with your local energy company to see if they offer energy audits at a discounted price, or free. You can also conduct an energy audit yourself.

Roughly half of our home energy expenses come from heating and cooling, which also sends 150 million tons of CO2 emissions into the air every year. You can easily fix leaks in attics, basements, crawl spaces and around doors, windows and recessed lighting fixtures with inexpensive tools from your hardware store, like caulk and weather stripping. Using tape or mastic to seal connections on heating ducts, then wrapping ducts in insulation can make your home’s heating system 20 percent more efficient. It will also help keep out dust and toxins. This tip came from "Go Green, Live Rich " by David Bach.

Video courtesy of NJRenewableEnergy.com

Green Tips: Energy Conservation: CFL Cleanup & Disposal

CFL Clean-up and Disposal Guide

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Green Tips: Energy Conservation: Participate In Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a World Wildlife Fund initiative that began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour.

Last year, 50 million people switched off their lights. This year, the World Wildlife Fund has set their goals sky high, hoping to have participation from one billion people worldwide.

The theme for this year's event is "Vote Earth." Each person participating in Earth Hour will be counted as a "vote." The results will be presented to world leaders at the 2009 Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Using too much energy doesn’t just waste resources, it affects the health of our planet. Conserving energy not only lowers energy costs, it also reduces the need for more power plants, preserves natural resources and decreases pollution.

So how can you participate?

• Read more about Earth Hour at www.earthhour.org. 
• Be extra diligent to turn off lights at your location after work.
• Turn your lights off at home between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. local time.
• Spread the word about the importance of conserving energy.

Will you be participating?  Do you have anything else to add?

Green Tips: Water Conservation: Toilet Water Saver

Did you know that toilets account for the largest percentage of water use in homes today?  A conventional toilet can use more than 3.5 gallons per flush.  One solution to this problem would be to upgrade to a low-flow toilet (one that uses less than 1.6 gallons of water per flush).  Or, for a quick and cheaper fix, you can fill one or two soft drink bottles with water and some stones, cap them, and place them in your toilet's tank.  By doing this, you will be able to reduce the amount of water it uses when flushing.  In addition, you can check for leaks by adding some food coloring to the toilet tank and, if after a couple of minutes, you see any of the food coloring in the toilet bowl, you know you have a leak that needs to be fixed.

Do you have any other tips to share with us?

Green Tips: Energy Conservation: Use Less Electricity

On average, 75 percent of the electricity used to power electronics is used while the products are turned off.  To stop this invisible energy drain, plug your electronics like TVs, DVD players and stereos into power strips.  When these items are not in use, turn the power strips off.  You can also purchase power strips with individual on/off switches for even greater control.

 

Green Tips: Waste Reduction: Stop Junk Mail

One relatively easy way to reduce waste is to limit the amount of junk mail you receive.  Reducing junk mail will cut down on the amount of paper that you send to the landfill or recycling center.  Even if you recycle paper, resources are still used in the transportation and recycling processes.  In addition, if more people chose not to receive junk mail, the companies producing the junk mail will eventually produce less of it, which will save natural resources and reduce CO2 emissions.

Here are some resources to help limit the amount of junk mail you receive:

• Register online with the Mail Preference Service. It costs $1.00, but should significantly reduce the amount of junk mail you receive.
• Have your address removed from the Valpak and Advo mailing lists from their websites.
• To keep from getting credit card offers, you can call 888-5-OPTOUT (888-567-8688).  You will be connected to a recorded message (24 hrs a day) that will prompt you for your full name, address, telephone number and SSN. Your SSN is requested to verify your request.  Choose option 3 to have your name removed permanently, or choose option 1 to have your name removed for just two years.
• For catalogs and other mailings from a specific source, you can call the company’s 800 number and ask to be removed from the mailing list.  If it is somewhere you shop often, or somewhere you frequent, you can ask to receive e-mails instead of catalogs, so you can still stay informed.  Also, you can go to a free service called Catalog Choice and choose which catalogs you would like to stop receiving. 

Do you have any other resources that you use to help limit the amount of junk mail you receive?

Eat locally grown foods

Locally grown produce tend to be fresher, have more nutrition and taste better. Pesticides and chemicals are used more sparingly and responsibly in the growth of locally grown produce. By going local, we help ensure that we limit the quantity of produce that has to be brought in from elsewhere. The transportation of these "imported" produce usually involves travel of thousands of miles. Obviously, this would mean that large amounts of fuel are consumed leading to an increase of greenhouse emissions.

The increasing popularity of locally grown produce is a positive development for local farmers and their local economies. All over the United States, local farmer coops are popping up that will deliver fresh produce to your home or business on a regular basis.  For more information on finding a local produce coop, please visit www.localharvest.org

Green Tips: Paper Conservation: Online Payments

Many institutions including banks and utilities have used the online medium to make life easier for their customers. They offer them the options of managing their accounts and paying bills online. This not only saves the customer time and effort but, more importantly, there is absolutely no need now to write or use paper checks or to keep any paper record of that transaction. By reducing the amount of paperwork both at the customer's end and at the end of the institution, it will help slow down deforestation and global warming.

 

It is not difficult to sign up to manage your accounts online. In fact, many of these institutions now offer you rewards for using these online options.