Mild Sustainability

Here are some of the easiest ways in which you too can reduce, reuse, & recycle. You may have heard some of these before but it never hurts to get a refresher. Also, what we've found extremely useful is that for each area or idea, see how it can apply to you and your family. Because an idea is nice, but a useful idea is a lot better! Just click each tep to reveal an explanation. If you have any others, please email us we always welcome more suggestions!

	Wash your clothes in cold water
	If you wash your clothes in cold water, you will find that they still end up clean. Most modern liquid laundry soaps are designed to work well in cold water as well as hot. Hot water is generally only necessary for heavily stained clothes. By washing your clothes in cold water, you will eliminate the majority of the environmental impacts, since 90% of the energy involved in washing clothes by machine goes to heating the water, not to running the machine. For two loads per week, you'll reduce up to 500 pounds CO2 annually!

	Use the microwave
	A microwave only uses one-third the energy of a conventional oven. It therefore allows you to cut down on your consumption of electricity or natural gas. Because it throws off less heat into your kitchen, you will also keep your kitchen cooler and save on summer air-conditioning costs (if you have an air conditioner). Alex Wilson and the other authors of the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings have estimated the costs and energy use of using different methods for cooking the same casserole. What would take an hour in a 350-degree electric oven takes only one-quarter of that, or fifteen minutes, in a microwave. The difference in energy used and expense is even greater˜2.0 kilowatt-hours and 16 cents versus 0.36 kilowatt-hours and 3 cents. Although crockpots, toaster ovens, frying pans, gas ovens, and electric convection ovens are all also better than a large electric oven, a microwave is two to nearly four times better than any of these alternatives.

	Adjust the thermostat
	It's cheaper and environmentally better to try to keep your home slightly colder in winter and slightly warmer in summer. Many people will barely notice a small adjustment in their home's temperature settings. Start by lowering the thermostat one degree in the winter and raising it one degree in the summer. If this doesn't bother you, increase the adjustments by another degree or two. It will cost nothing to make these changes, and you can save money on your heating and cooling bills. For every three degrees you adjust your thermostat (down in the winter and up in the summer), you can prevent almost 1,000 pounds of CO2 annually - not to mention the dollar savings. Also, what we've found is that if your thermostat allows, create day and night settings based on when you're at work or sleeping. You're under covers at night and nobody's home while you're at work so your furnace and air conditioner don't need to work as hard. If you currently don't have a programmable thermostat, replacing it with one that does can save you on average (depends where you live and how much you pay) $100 per year in energy savings alone. It's a small investment (about $50) that will pay for itself within months as utility bills don't seem to be on a downward-trend.

	Pull the plug
	Even when they are not in use, many appliances like televisions and VCRs continue to use small amounts of electricity for things like their clocks and remote controls. If you have a rarely used appliance, such as a TV or clock radio in a guest room, pull its plug and then plug it in on those rare occasions when it is going to be used. As to computer monitors, press the power button to turn it off when not in use. A good rule of thumb with electronics is that if you see any light coming from it (a red one, a green one, anything), it's draining power it doesn't need to drain and a lot of little ones add up to a lot!

	Reuse - if you can get more than one life out of it, why not?
	This is very easy but at the same time very elusive if we never saw it before. This is also the concept which rural communities and our forefathers used when supplies were limited. Ever notice why old buildings have no closet or storage space? They made due just fine re-using as much as possible. We can do the same with tinfoil to plastic plates to bags to shoe-boxes and everything in between. The options are endless - just hold it in your hand a few seconds before you're about to toss it and ask yourself "can I use this for anything else?". The answer will probably always be "yes".

	Change your driving habits in your existing car - yes, that's it...
	There is a term out there called "hypermiling" which means driving in a way that gets you the best fuel economy. This doesn't mean you have to install sails or solar panels on your car or anything, just simple techniques which really work! Like what, you ask? Here's a simple one: Ease off the Gas/Brake cycle. Ever find yourself pressing the gas, then the break, then the gas, then the break in a vicious cycle thinking you're actually getting "there" faster? You could actually increase your fuel efficiency by 20% (or about $300 per year) through gradual acceleration and braking. TWENTY percent!!!! The $300 isn't bad either... Here are a few more: Driving the speed limit not only saves you about 12% ($50), but also speeding tickets! Take out anything heavy from your car that you don't need. That's about 1% savings for every 50lbs. Keep your tires inflated. This translates to 3% savings Don't idle the car - that means no drive-throughs which are slower anyway. Idling just 10 minutes wastes about 5% in efficiency, oh and another $50. Roll down the window vs. AC and when you go over 45mph, roll them up. This saves you 10% or... another $50 per year. As you can see, all these little $50 here and there add up to many hundreds of dollars - in the very car you're driving now.

	Lower your water temperature
	By setting your water-heater temperature no higher than 120F degrees, you can reduce CO2 by 500 pounds annually for every 10 degrees you adjust.

	Run your dishwasher only when it's full
	We've heard arguments about the notion that we're just wasting water if we wash dishes rather than using disposable dishware... well, if we run the dishwasher when it's full, we use less water per dish than if we were to hand wash it. Also, using the energy-saving mode rather than the hotter mode to dry the dishes saves 200 pounds CO2 annually. Another tip we received is to have a tub of cold water in the sink for the tough grimy stuff and let it soak in there rather than try and rub it and run the hot sink water before we put it in the dishwasher! Why wash it twice? Full load, grimy stuff in tub, energy-saver setting...easy!

	Buy local and buy organic when possible
	There are many reasons to buy local. Economically you're supporting your neighbor and putting money into the local community - giving back to where it belongs rather than out of state someplace. Environmentally you're reducing the amount of fuel used in bringing food to the stores from across the country. Also, if an organic option is given, you may want to consider that due to the lack of pesticides in produce and hormones in meat. You're also supporting an industry which believes more in quality rather than fast quantity. We get more into organics and pesticides later.

	Stop the junkmail!
	Oh boy! You don't have to tell us twice! By getting rid of junkmail, you're also decreasing the chance of your identity getting stolen! Mail gets lost, mail gets stolen, mail gets misused! Also, if one thousand people cut their junkmail by half, we would save 170 trees, about 46,000 pounds of CO2, and about 70,000 gallons of water! How, you ask? You can opt out in many ways. We've compiled our most accurate information for the DIY-crowd here, but if it seems like too daunting of a task, there are simple pay-sites that will do the work for you. It's very inexpensive (check the site, some get paid by the advertising on the page!) - you're essentially paying for their created automation and your fee will reduce an eventual thousands of pounds of waste: Catalogues: www.catalogchoice.org mail and credit-offers & these guys even plant trees for you!: www.greendimes.com send in your suggestions for others!

	Online banking!
	If possible, stop the bank and bill payment paper-trail! You can virtually eliminate all paper coming from your financial institutions such as banks, car-financers, insurance companies, and utility companies. You can most likely pay via credit card or directly from your bank for free! You not only save on the mailing resources, you also save on stamps, save on chances of lost mail or fraud, save on writing checks (you order less from your bank), save time, and with automatic calendar reminders, you will never ever miss a payment - which will improve your credit and saves you late fees! That's a win win win win and win situation!

	Plan your meals in advance!
	This may or may not fit your lifestyle but if it can, this can be a real time and money saver! By bringing your food to work and buying the right amount and the right kind of food at the market, you're throwing away less from spoiling, eating the way you want, and splurging less when you're hungry. Impulse food-buying usually also consists of excess packaging which can be quite wasteful!

	Kick the water bottle habit!
	Did you know tap water is more strictly regulated than bottled water? In fact, about 40% of the water bottle industry begins from the tap. If it still tastes odd, try a pitcher filter from the store. Yes, there's a small purchase here which may put this tip in the intermediate sustainability section but you'll save so much money from the lack of bottled water purchases that you'll more than offset the cost of it within a few weeks (depending how much water you drink). If everyone in the US would drink tap water, we'd save about $8 billion annually, about the same as what the US spends in drought response. 60 million water bottles are thrown away each day in the United States (about 86%). EACH DAY! In 2004, about 26 billion liters were sold in the US. Water bottles not only need to be shipped (which clogs our highways and makes transportation pollution), but it's made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is derived from crude oil... 1.5 million barrels of oil annually to be exact! That's enough for 100,000 cars for a year! Recycling is also not a rosy picture for this little guy as in 2004, 40% of the PET bottles were exported to China to be recycled - adding to the whole transportation problem! So, maybe it's a lot LOT easier to turn on the tap and shove it into a good portable water-bottle that will last a long long time! We get hydrated the way we need and we save lots and lots of money and energy we don't need to waste.

	Don't drown your lawn
	Your lawn needs only about an inch of water per week - most people in the US overwater by 20-40% (about 50 gallons a week too much!) Check with your local garden shop to see which grasses work best for your area to get the most out of your lawn as well as your pocketbook and our water-supply. Also (very important), water in the morning or evening to keep evaporation to a minimum.

	Tall, Grande, or Venti? - How about MUG?
	Did you know that you can take in your own comfortable coffee-mug to your neighborhood coffee and bagel-shop for a refill? Did you know that the price for a refill will be at times almost half of the original cost of a coffee in their flimsy paper and plastic cup? It's true! Keep a mug in your car and one at your work so all your java-needs will be comfortable and cheap! You're also eliminating the need for that disposable cup, lid, and extra cardboard hand protector (called a "koozie").

	and of course, recycle...
	We cover recycling of paper, plastic, and everything in between so there's really no reason to be throwing anything away when there IS a use for it someplace. It will most likely come back to life in another form - we're probably using some sort of reconstituted items as we speak! It's easy, takes very little effort, and truly does a world of good! It's not just you and I that are doing it, the big computer companies are as well.

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