Greener Than Thou

1. Use energy-efficient lighting. Replace incandescent bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, which use 66% less energy and last 10 times longer.

 2. Use green household cleaning products, made of natural, non-toxic substances instead of toxic ones

3. Enforce temperature control in your home. More than 50% of a home’s energy bill is from heating and cooling appliances. Adjusting your thermostat according to the weather goes a long way in reducing energy consumption.

4. Upgrade to greener appliances. Replace old appliances with energy-efficient models.

 5. Choose bamboo flooring over hardwood. It is more environmentally-friendly, most hardwoods take anywhere from 50 to 100 years to mature, bamboo matures in 4 to 6.

6. Use eco-friendly paint. Environmentally safe paints are organic and solvent-free.

7. Use green garden products. Synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides can be replaced with organic manure such as compost and non-chemical pest control methods.

Hey everyone. My name is Kevin, and my mid-year resolution is to be much much greener without having to move off the grid. Maybe I’ll work up to that, but for now I’m happy to be just slightly greener than thou (thou being most of the people out there – at least that I know). Of course, you can be green than thou too – just do these easy thing below:

1. Change your light bulbs
The energy efficient ones may be less attractive and SLIGHTLY more expensive, but you really won’t care about that if you’re dead in ten years from Global Warming effects to our climate.

2. Pay your bills online
For every 38,000 bills paid online, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved, according to NACHA—The Electronic Payments Association, a non-profit. Using direct payment also saves a person about $150 annually in stamp and check costs and late fees, NACHA estimates. Ask your employer pay you through direct deposit to further cut back your paper trail.

3. Drive responsibly and keep your tires pumped appropriately
Every gallon of gas burned emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, so make the most of your tank. Driving aggressively (including braking and accelerating suddenly) wastes gas, and every 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional 20 cents per gallon, according to fueleconomy.gov. Keeping your tires properly inflated reduces fuel use by 3 percent to 4 percent, according to Ford Motor Company’s Eco-driving tips. Also, filling your gas tank during cooler times of the day gets the most bang for your buck and prevents fumes from heating up and creating ozone, the EPA advises.

4. Nix the junk mail
The Postal Service delivers 17.8 tons of bulk mail each year, 44 percent of which goes unopened, according to the EPA. Just 22 percent of bulk mail is recycled. To stop the flow, visit the Direct Marketing Association, the largest supplier of mailing lists for commercial advertising, at dmaconsumers.org and get put on the “do not mail” list. It costs $1, but it’ll remove your name from the lists for five years. Also visit optoutprescreen.com, an official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry site, to opt out of receiving credit card and insurance offers. It’s free.

5. Maintain your home and check your Thermostat
Cleaning a dirty air filter, wrapping your hot water heater in an insulation blanket (readily available at any Home Depot), properly insulating your walls and windows, and caulking and weatherstripping can save a total of 5,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, according to climatecrisis.net, the Web site for “An Inconvenient Truth.” Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to withhold another 2,000 pounds of CO2. Buying appliances with the EnergyStar certification and installing a programmable thermostat helps too. You get your reward in lower gas and electric bills.

6. Rethink your laundry
Washing your clothes in cold or warm water instead of hot saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, according to climatecrisis.net. Drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

7. Pay for your carbon emissions
You can offset the carbon “footprint” of your car, home and air travel by funding renewable energy projects. Through terrapass.com, you can calculate how much carbon dioxide you are personally responsible for as a result of driving or even flying, as well as much it would cost to offset those emissions through renewable energy. Carbon credits you buy go towards funding clean energy projects like wind energy farms. In addition to TerraPass, you can try carbonfund.org and gocarbonzero.org.
You also can buy “green tags” directly from companies with renewable energy projects as a way of supporting those projects. Visit green-e.org for a list.

8. Unplug
Cell phone chargers, TVs, DVD players, stereos, microwaves and any other electronics with transformers continue to draw power—even when they’re off or not charging anything—as long as they’re plugged in. In the U.S., such “phantom electricity” emits about 12 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere a year, according to Conservation International. Also, turn off your computer when you’re not using it. Continually just putting your computer to sleep is not good enough.

9. Recycle
Everywhere and anywhere you can – recycle. If your city offers a recycling plan, use it. If your city does not, complain to your local government!

10. Get a water bottle
Americans buy 28 billion single-serving plastic water bottles every year, and 80 percent of those end up in landfills, according to the Container Recycling Institute. Meeting the nation’s demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year, the Earth Policy Institute estimates. Cut back on plastic with a reusable water bottle you fill with tap water.

11. Green your baby
It doesn’t have to be a choice between plastic diapers that pile up in landfills and cloth diapers that require frequent laundering.
With a product called gDiapers, you snap a flushable insert into the water-resistant liner of cloth “little g” pants, which look like colorful diapers. The company says the only thing that gets soiled is the insert, which you remove and flush down the toilet. A starter kit, which includes two “g pants” and 10 flushables, costs $24.99. Visit gdiapers.com.

12. Ditch your car
Avoiding 10 miles of driving every week would eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year, according to climatecrisis.net. The majority of car trips people make are under 2 miles, so even though it may take some getting used to at first, swapping driving for a bike or public transit is something that is good for you and the environment. Of course, if driving is unavoidable, trading your gas guzzler for a hybrid or more gas-efficient car helps. Aim for a car that gets at least 30 mpg. Or go without your own wheels and use car-sharing services I-Go and Zipcar.

13. Shop local
Food travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles to get from the farm to your plate. Shop at your local farmers market instead, and get both better produce and be better to the earth.

14. Say no to paper and plastic!
Take cloth bags with you to the grocery store. Reusablebags.com sells them online, but you can probably get them at your local grocery store as well.