Green for Less

A certain well-known frog might have once claimed that “it’s not easy being green,” but when you’re talking about environmentally conscious living, there are loads of resources sprouting every day for someone who wants to trade a wasteful and pollution-filled lifestyle for more efficient practices. Web sites, podcasts, television shows, books, magazines, and even personal consultants on the topic are easy to find. So ... what’s stopping a lot of folks from getting their act together?

With many people like myself, it’s the cost. Usually, you can count on paying a couple dollars more for a cleaning product for all natural ingredients as opposed to it’s chemical-laden counterpart, and the price of energy-saving light bulbs is enough to make you put them back on the shelf without blinking if you are on a tight budget.      

But, we’re not off the hook that easily, because saving the planet doesn’t have to entail losing your shirt in the process. There are plenty of things you can do for little or no cost at all, depending on your situation and interest level, including: walking places or riding a bike more often, buying re-usable cloth shopping bags, or skipping the long, steamy showers in favor of shorter and cooler ones.  

Begin by practicing the green mantra of “reuse, reduce, recycle,” because those three things don’t cost a dime, and take very little effort. 

REDUCE CONSUMPTION

Around the house, there’s lots of silent energy suckers, one being electricity. When your appliances are plugged in, they are using electricity whether they are turned on or not. These “phantom electricity loads” can cost a consumer up to 20-percent of their home energy use. Unplug electronics you do not use, or try consolidating everything into a power strip which can be turned off. And when you leave a room, just like mom used to say, turn the lights off. Some other ways to lessen your drag on energy consumption include:

• Wash clothes in cold water (instead of warm or hot) to reduce the energy used in heating the water. Also, skip the dryer if you can, and air-dry clothes. I have always found that this also keeps them looking newer, longer.

• Turn down the thermostat in winter, and turn it up (or off) in summer. Try taking cold showers before bed and sleeping with the windows open in the summer, when Michigan temperatures are comfortable in the evening. I skip the central air in summer and use a programmable thermostat in the winter months. According to DTE Energy, a programmable thermostat can save you $500 in heating and cooling costs over three years.  

• Reduce the amount of paper you use at home or at work by using both sides of a sheet, or go paperless by saving documents to your computer as PDFs. Not wasting resources shows your employer you care about saving the company money ... and that can’t hurt these days!

RE-USE COMMON ITEMS

One challenge in developing green behavior is that just like any other habit, you will need to recondition yourself to think a little about your actions and how efficient they are. Part of that is training yourself to not always reach for something new. For example, start with asking for paper bags at the grocery store, and keep them when you get home. 

I reuse the paper bags with handles that I get from Nino Salvaggio’s all the time. Keep a few folded brown paper bags in the trunk for when you are out shopping. It might feel weird at first, but trust me, retailers are becoming accustomed to the practice, which reduces waste and keeps plastic bags ---- which can take up to 1,000 years to degrade ---- out of landfills. Other simple ways to re-think your urge to ditch and pitch are:

• Save paper clips and rubber bands from your paperwork to reuse at home or at the office.

• Instead of throwing away used clothes or those that don’t fit, donate them to your local Goodwill, St. Vincent DePaul or Salvation Army. Someone always needs them. Also, consider thrift store shopping for common household items like pans, glassware, curtains or clothes. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it ---- you will be surprised at the amount of brand new (or almost new) stuff you can land for a tiny fraction of the price of buying it new.

• Extend the life of your kitchen sponges by microwaving them for up to two minutes, immersing them in boiled water, or sticking them in the dishwasher with a drying cycle to kill harmful bacteria. Microwaving will kill 99-percent of all living pathogens in the sponge.               

  

RECYCLE & GET PAID

Here’s something to feel good about: according to the American Forest & Paper Association, in 2007, people in the U.S. recycled 56-percent of the paper consumed. That’s an all-time high record achieved five years before its set target, so ... you know what to do with this newspaper when you are done reading it, right? Right.

Recycling is one of the easiest things to do to play your part in curbing poisonous landfill waste. Paper, plastic, bottles and pop cans are the easiest to recycle, since most communities provide residents with recycle bins and grocery stores usually have recycling machines for the aluminum, glass and plastic. It’s as simple and straightforward as taking the trash out each week, so you and I both know you really have no excuse...

    

And here’s even better news about recycling electronics:  you can get paid to do it. Web sites like www.nextworth.com and www.gazelle.com will buy your cell phones, digital cameras, video game consoles, laptops and more at market value. Gazelle even sends you a postage paid box to ship your item, all you have to do is mail it. 

If you can’t sell it there, The National Center for Electronics Recycling (www.electronicsrecycle.org) helps you find recycling centers in your area for things like computers and cell phones. Or, contact your local Best Buy, Radio Shack, Office Depot or Staples --- each has its own recycling program for electronics, and Radio Shack will even reward you with a gift card if you bring back an item you bought there.