My Green Tips

If you are like me most of the mail you get these days is junk mail. Credit card and insurance offers come almost everyday. There’s a way to stop most of this mail and keep it from every being printed, mailed in a gas guzzling truck or ending up in the recycle bin.

You can stop a lot of this mail by telling the Direct Marketing Association you don’t want it. You can sign up on their website or print out a form and mail it in with $1. This will stop a lot of junk mail because a lot of mailers are members of the DMA. Here’s where to learn more: https://www.dmachoice.org/MPS/proto1.php

You can also Opt Out of all those pre-approved credit card offers by telling the credit bureaus you don’t want them. This website will help you contact them all. https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

It may take a few months for the junk mail to slow down. You can also contact companies that mail you and tell the you want to receive all your communication via email or have them add you to their do not mail list.

Turn off the water while you brush your teeth. Dentists say you should brush for at least two minutes. Turning the water off during that time will save about eight gallons of water!

Chemical free stain removal- long known by Grandmothers– pour boiling water on the spot as soon as possible and it comes right out.  No detergent or soap needed! This may not be advisable on some materials but it keeps that bottle of chemicals out of the water supply. This could save you a lot of scrubbing and maybe even keep that garment out of the landfill.

When ordering take out or delivery, ask only for the condiments you are planning to use.  Most ketchup, relish and soy sauce packets end up in the trash or deep in your desk drawers. These little condiments are a prime example of over packaging and reducing the number that end up in your bag ultimately reduces how many will be produced and eventually end up in landfills.

Cut flowers are beautiful but most are treated with pesticides and flown thousands of miles — using loads of precious fossil fuels.  Unfortunately cut flowers die in just a few days.  Consider buying potted indoor plants that, hopefully, will live happy, long lives.

Most of us use way more shampoo and soap than we need.  Try using smaller portions, dime-size rather than quarter.  When you are half way through the bottle, add some water to dilute it.  It will work just as well.

Or you could shave your head like me and not use any shampoo at all!

Much of the energy we use everyday goes to heating and cooling. Whether it’s heating our home or refrigerating our food it takes a lot of energy.

By hanging your clothes out to dry on a clothesline you will save a lot of energy and your clothes will last longer and retain their color better. Why put one of those fresh air dryer sheets in with your laundry when you can have the real thing!

Some other ways to reduce energy consumption when drying your clothes.

• Put a retractable clothesline in your basement for the winter months. This will actually help add humidity to the dry winter air in your home as well.
• Use a lower heat setting.
• Wear your jeans twice before washing them.

Buying locally grown food supports local farmers and minimizes the environmental costs of transporting the food to market.

Do we really need to eat asparagus flown in from Argentina in the dead of winter?

You can also skip the buying part and grow the food yourself. Some of my favorite memories from being a kid are in the garden. This also gives you a piece of mind if you are concerned about chemicals that might have been used in growing the food you buy at the store. You can’t get any fresher food than picking it right off the vine yourself!

Here’s a link to find a farmer’s market in your area: http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/localfood_dir.php

I’ve seen people and companies selling energy efficient bulbs recommend that you go through your house and replace all you bulbs right away. Compact fluorescent light bulbs consume much less energy than a typical incandescent bulb but I don’t recommend pulling out all your bulbs and replacing them all at once. I haven’t see any research on this but I suspect the effort that goes into creating these more complex light bulbs and getting them to market probably consumes a fair amount of energy. This is wasteful unless you have something to do with the old bulbs besides filling up a landfill. Maybe donate them to a church or school or use them in a rarely used place like the light on a pull chain in a closet or the attic. But if they still work no sense in junking them all.

Replacing them all at once can also be expensive. Compact fluorescent bulbs cost considerably more so I would recommend just replacing your old bulbs as they burn out. You could also move your bulbs around so you use compact fluorescent bulbs in lights you use most often and put the old bulbs in rarely used lights to live out the rest of their lives. They will probably pay for themselves in energy savings over time but unless you have a lot of bulbs that are on all the time I don’t you aren’t going to see a drastic change in your electric bill. Every little bit counts though.

The U.S. government has also past regulations that will phase out the sale of incandescent bulbs in the U.S. by 2014. So you might as well do the environment and yourself a favor and start switching out those old light bulbs now.

I recently peeked up in my attic to find some disturbing things. The insulation was ripped off the duct work and there was a hole in the duct from one of the previous owners crawling over it. The previous owners had moved phone lines around and added recessed lighting in one of the bathrooms and never put the insulation back so there we several spots that had no insulation. On top of that someone in the past had paid someone to blow extra insulation in the attic but the contractor only blew insulation around where you could see when you stuck your head up there.

I repaired the ducts and wrapped them with foil faced insulation from Home Depot which made an immediate difference since I wasn’t heating the attic anymore.

I started looking for deals on insulation and doing a little research on how much insulation should be up there. For my area (Chicago) most recommendations were between R-38 and R-50 in the attic. You can lookup your recommended R-values here. I found a rebate on insulation and ended up adding R-25 on top of what was already there which got me to about R-50. It took me one day to roll out a whole layer of insulation up there. It wasn’t very much fun because it’s a real tight space and I definitely recommend getting the encapsulated stuff if you are doing it yourself so you don’t get covered in fiberglass. But the difference was immediate, no more cold and drafty areas upstairs and the next months heat bill had a nice surprise. Although it was colder in December 2007 than it was in 2006 my Natural Gas usage dropped nearly 30% which lead to a nice savings.

Adding insulation to your home can be an easy weekend project which will conserve energy and conserve some cash. I spent about $400 on insulation and saved $60 on my first month’s gas bill. The insulation will more than pay for itself in a few months and will continue to save me money in heating and cooling bills for as long as I own the home.

Here’s some additional reading on the benefits of insulating you home better: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/insulation/ins_01.html

I also recommend watching the newspaper or checking online for rebates or sales. I’ve see deals for rolls of insulation at buy one get on free. Some power and gas companies offer rebates and you may be eligible for a tax credit for the money you spend on adding insulation to your home.