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!

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.

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.

Remember when McDonald’s stopped using Styrofoam containers? This was a big win for the environment.

But there are still some major offenders. Dunkin Donuts and their styrofoam cups add millions of styrofoam cups to landfills everyday. In December of 2004 Fast Company reported that Dunkin Donuts was serving over 2.8 Million cups a day.

Styrofoam cups also have potential health hazards. Styrene is transferred from the cups into your coffee. The health affects are not fully known at this time but adding chemicals to your food and drinks is usually not a good idea.

So what can you do?

• Avoid/boycott places that use styrofoam.
• Use a refillable cup. Most places will give you a discount for bringing your own cup.

I used to get coffee from Dunkin Donuts almost everyday. I bought one of the refillable cups and used it for about a year. The refill price was almost half the price of a regular cup. They jacked the refill price up and I abandoned ship and went to Starbucks. I reuse their paper cups and get $0.55 refills. If I rinse and dry the cup right away I can make it about a week on one paper cup before it starts to leak.

So not only can you save some money but you can help make the earth a better place to live for future generations at the same time!

According to National Geographic between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed each year.

Next time you go to the store to buy something that’s probably already packaged in three layers of plastic make a different choice. Plastic bags are often not biodegradable and are usually made from petroleum. Also consider the energy used to produce these bags and ship them to the store.

So should I choose paper or plastic?

The best answer is None of the above.

Either refuse the bag if you can carry the items without it or bring your own bag. Many stores now sell reusable shopping bags but you can use any bag. I recommend the heavy cloth bags like ones they’ve been selling at Trader Joes for years. They are durable, will last a long time, you can wash them and best of all you won’t have to worry about a flimsy plastic or paper bag ripping and spilling your groceries all over the place.

If all else fails choose paper over plastic. Although energy is consumed logging, milling the paper and transporting it to the store it is a natural and renewable product.