http://www.care2.com/greenliving/10-simple-and-cheap-green-ideas.html
10 Simple (and Cheap) Green Ideas
By Annie B. Bond
Being green can be easy after all!
Browse through this list of simple solutions designed to save energy and reduce carbon emissions for the planet, and at the same time save you money.
10 Tips to Save Energy (and Money) in Your Home
A whopping 46 percent of home energy use is, umm, energy loss! In other words, no productive energy use at all! Here are simple ways of reversing this, mostly by changes of habit.
Thanks to climatecrisis.net and The Home Energy Diet (New Society Publishers, 2005), for many of the carbon savings figures.
1. Each degree you turn down the heat saves 3 percent of heating costs, while each degree you raise the temperature of your air conditioner saves 3-4 percent of cooling costs. By changing the temperature by 2 degrees all year, you can save about 2,000 pounds of C02 a year.
2. Cook with a slow cooker or a toaster oven (or even a solar oven!) to reduce electrical use from kitchen appliances. For a meal that requires one hour to cook in an electric oven, and which uses 2.7 pounds of C02, a crockpot uses 0.9 pounds of C02 for seven hours, a toaster oven takes 1.3 pounds of C02 for 50 minutes, and a microwave only 0.5 pounds of C02 for 15 minutes of cooking. A solar cooker requires NO C02!
3. Switch to a laptop instead of using a desktop computer and cut three-quarters off your electrical use. Turn off the laptop at the end of the day.
4. Switch to cold water washing and save 80 percent on energy used for laundry and save an estimated $60 a year. Hang dry your clothes instead of using the dryer and save 700 pounds of C02 a year.
5. Plug anything that can be powered by a remote control or that has a power cube transformer (little black box) into a power strip, and turn it off, and/or unplug, when not in use. (Power cubes are 60-80 percent inefficient.)
6. Turn off the lights when you aren’t using them and reduce your direct lighting energy use by 45 percent. Stop using heat-producing halogen lamps (they can also be fire hazards). Install occupancy or motion sensors on outdoor lights.
7. Switch to compact fluorescent from regular incandescent bulbs and use 60 percent less energy per bulb and save 300 pounds of C02 a year.
8. Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket and save 1,000 pounds of C02 a year. Insulate your hot water pipes.
9. Use public transportation whenever possible, carpool, shop locally, and ideally switch to a hybrid or energy-efficient car (if you haven’t already).
10. Keep your tires inflated to improve gas mileage by 3 percent. Every gallon you save also saves 20 pounds of C02 emissions.
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151 comments
add your comment »I will try to follow this guide.
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thanks
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Thanks for the tips, already do most of them!
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Good tips, though I would add a caveat. We live on a small farm; we also do not use paper products that are typically used in an American home. Therefore, in my laundry might typically be dirty rags, napkins used at the table, handkerchiefs, as well as all the dirty clothing we generate. I need to ensure that things like napkins and hankies are truly clean and free of any animal fecal matter, etc. I use a warm water wash , cool rinse.
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Annie, Thanks for the nice post. I have also heard about filling your automobile tires with Nitrogen like they do in race cars.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1713452/
This article outlines how a small town in NC with a 60 car police fleet cut their fuel and maintenance costs by about 10% by switching their tires to nitrogen.
Brad
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Nice to see your page. I am also working towards fighting Global Warming.
I have created a website www.carpoolglobal.com that helps people to contact each other and carpool together.
Our motto is to encourage people to go for carpooling to save fuel consuption, check pollution, reduce traffic congestion etc..
Hope you like it too.
Regards
Kislay
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Living Green
Here is my comment:
Computer or your PC consumes more electricity than a laptop computer. Encourage employees use laptops in office and save up to 90% of energy.
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Living Green
Here is my advice:
Computer or your PC consumes more electricity than a laptop computer. Encourage employees use laptops in office and save up to 90% of energy.
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You can build your own solar cooker in about an hour using the plans found here: http://solarcooking.wikia.com/Fun-Panel
Tom Sponheim
Solar Cookers International
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For things that you have to buy online, like plane tickets or that great deal from Wal-Mart, try shopping through www.weshopgreen.org.
They earn a commission from your purchases and donate their profits to green organizations. You can give back where you once thought you couldn't!
Every little bit helps! www.weshopgreen.org
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