ecobites.com

Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Once you make a commitment to 'going green', you'll be surprised at how quickly even small savings turn into big ones - both for you and the environment. Here are 30 easy 'green', natural, eco-friendly tips that make gentler demands on the environment, and the pocket. Make environmentally considerate choices, for your home and how you live it.

1. Bike, use public transit, carpool to work and school, drive slower, keep your tires inflated. One-third of all traffic is commuters. Use alternative transportation when possible. If you must drive, go slower with proper tire inflation. It saves both fuel and tires, and lowers emissions. It also saves lives.

2. Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle and Compost....

Reusing packaging material saves more energy than recycling. By avoiding extra packaging, you save both energy and landfill space. Yard and kitchen waste (leaves/grass/vegetable scraps) are 30% of trash. Reduce this amount by composting. Also be sure to re-use plastic bags, or better yet... refuse plastic bags when you really don't need them. Reuse in the broadest sense means any activity that lengthens the life of an item. Recycling, on the other hand, is the reprocessing of an item into a new raw material for use in a new product — for example grinding the tire and incorporating it into a road-surfacing compound. Reuse is nothing new. What is new is the need to reuse.Look at everything that you touch in your daily life and ask "how can I reuse this for a new repurpose before tossing out".Just a few of the items you can compost: bread, cereals, and pastas, coffee grounds and filters, eggshells, fruits and veggies, grass clippings, and most teabags.

3. Conserve water. Don't let faucets run. Never water your lawn at midday. Place a brick in old toilets. Take low flow short showers. Run the dishwasher only when it is full. Let grass grow longer. Plant native or drought-tolerant garden plants.

4. Quit smoking. Second-hand smoke is a major indoor air pollutant and health hazard. When you quit, both you and your family will lead longer and healthier lives. Cigarette butts are dangerous to our waterways and killing sea creatures. 

5. Don't use pesticides/herbicides on your lawn. Along with nitrogen fertilizer runoff, these are major water pollutants.

6. Keep your cat indoors. Domestic cats kill over one billion small birds and animals every year (1 outdoor cat averages 40 kills per year). They upset natural predator/prey balances and eliminate ground nesting birds.

7. Eat less meat/eat more local and organic foods.Feedlots are a major source of organic pollution. Tropical forests are cut to raise beef. Organic foods are healthier food you if you just look at the obvious: pesticides. Your chances of getting pesticide residues are much less with organic food. But what about the nutritional content of the actual food?The biggest study ever of organic food in 2007 found that fruit and vegetables contain up to 40% more antioxidants that conventional equivalents, and that the figure was 90% for organic milk. The 4-year study was funded by the European Union and was the largest of its kind ever undertaken.

8. Lower your thermostat in the winter. Raise it in the summer.Wearing a sweater in the winter and short sleeves in the summer saves energy and reduces pollution. Wear adequate clothing when the weather cools and don't attempt to heat your entire house to the same even temperature. Keep one or two rooms cosy by shutting the doors to the rest of the house.

9. Dispose of old paint, chemicals, and oil properly. Don't put batteries, antifreeze, paint, motor oil, or chemicals in the trash. Use proper toxics disposal sites. Never buy more than you need.

10. Consider the environmental costs of major decisions and purchases.When relocating or changing jobs try to live close to work. Compare efficiency when purchasing new cars or appliances. Buy fewer things. Choose products with lower energy inputs.

11.Volunteer/Lobby for the Environment.Work locally and globally to save natural places, reduce urban sprawl, lower pollution and prevent the destruction of wilderness areas for timber and oil.

12. Plant a tree with a child. Take a walk in the woods, or plant trees which store CO2. Teaching our children to love and care for the planet is the most important thing we can do to insure the future of humankind.

13. Wash dishes by hand in a basin, and then use the dish water for outdoor gardens. Collect water in a bucket while you wait for your shower to warm up. The water you save can go to your plants or other household chores.In addition to the shower bucket, pour any leftover water (from glasses, teapots, anything) into a watering can to use on houseplants, or if it is filtered water, reuse in your pet's water bowl.

14. Avoid disposables, which invariably have a high carbon impact. For example: cover food with a dish, plate or lid instead of foil or plastic wrap; use hand towels and dish towels instead of paper towels; and buy sturdy, reusable utensils and dishes for barbecues and picnics, instead of flimsy disposables.

15. Buy services instead of products—such as leasing services for office equipment, so manufacturers will produce durable, updatable products, rather than ones that are obsolete in a few years.

16. One good way of reducing waste is to buy less. Avoid over-packaged products, don't replace something that still works just because you fancy a new one, alter clothes or use the fabric to make new ones and never buy bottled water. There is a huge environmental impact in manufacturing and packaging the product in the first place, plus delivering it to the store. If you really need something try and get it from a charity shop or arrange a swap with friends.

17. People have been recycling food for eons! It’s called leftovers. Food waste is the largest type of waste in our landfills, as well as one of the most harmful to the environment. By recycling food, you can do your bit to save money and the environment. Natural packaging (like banana skins) is always better than plastic. Still a quarter of our food ends up in landfill. So buy only what you need.

18. Install a solar or energy-efficient hot water heater. Since water heating accounts for up to 50% of a home's energy use, installing one of these heaters saves in energy bills as well as pollution.

19. Choose energy-efficient appliances when buying new ones. Many countries have star ratings to make the choice easier. Top-rated refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and air-conditioners are much less polluting and also cheaper to run.

20. Install a water-efficient showerhead. These usually pay for themselves in the first year of use. The shower is the largest user of household hot water and accounts for around 20% of the greenhouse polllution in the average home. These showerheads use less water, reducing both pollution and heating costs. Consider fitting a flow restriction disc to your current shower rose. Use a shower timer. To measure how much water your average shower uses, hold a bucket under the shower for 10 seconds. Measure this volume and multiply it by 6 to give you the number of gallons per minute.

21. Consider ways of adding thermal mass to your home if you live in a climate with cool winters. Thermal mass describes heavy building materials such as brick, stone or thick ceramic tiles that are slow to heat and slow to cool. In the winter they warm up in the day and continue to radiate heat in the evening, while in summer they proctect against excessive heat, especially when shaded. New brick, tile or concrete flooring is an obvious way of adapting an existing home to include greater thermal mass.

22. Use appliances only when you really need them. For instance, use a broom in the garden, not a motorized leaf blower.

23. Use appliances efficiently and maintain them well so they work optimally.

24. Don't leave the refrigerator door open unnecessarily. For every minute it is open, it takes 3 minutes to cool down again.

25. Switch off lights when they are not in use. Turn off TVs and sound systems at the power point, as they use power even when not operating. It’s the Green thing to do!

26. Replace your most frequently used light bulbs with compact fluorescents. Each bulb uses around a quarter of the electricity needed for a standard bulb and will prevent the emission of half a ton of greenhouse pollution over the life of the bulb. If you fitted all your lamps and lights with energy-efficient bulbs, you could reduce your lighting costs by 80%.

27. Put your PC into 'sleep' mode when you're away from your desk in order to reduce energy use to 5% of full power. Don't forget to switch it off at night too.

28. Switch off your microwave at the wall. A microwave oven uses more energy to run the clock over a year than it does to heat food. So use a watch to tell the time and keep the microwave for heating.

29. Pay bills online and save paper etc.easy, free bill pay, in case your bank doesn't provide the service. MyCheckFree.com

30. Continue to wash clothes in cold water if you're satisfied with the result. Consider pre-soaking heavily soiled garments first.