Green Tips Archive – June 2008
Green Tips Archive
Action of the Month Archive
- Turn down the thermostat on your central heating and water heating by just one or two degrees and save on CO2 emissions.
- When electrical items are not in use – turn them off! Leaving items on standby or in sleep mode uses a considerable amount of energy that contributes to CO2 emissions.
- Whenever possible try to walk rather than going by car. Reducing your driving by just 20 miles per week can save around 900 pounds of CO2 emissions over a one year period.
- Check the tire pressure of your car on a regular basis to ensure the tires are not under inflated. Under inflated tires reduce fuel economy which then leads to higher CO2 emissions.
- Recycle or return to the manufacturer your old MP3 players. Some companies give customers up to 10% off their next purchase when they return their old players. About 40% of all the lead in the U.S. landfills comes from improperly discarded electronic waste, which can result in toxic pollution of the air and groundwater. So be sure to seek out an e-waste collector or recycling service. Find out what manufacturers have electronic take back programs.
- Instead of using plastic, store your food in glass or porcelain containers. Chemicals that transfer from plastic to food and from food to body may cause health risks. Using non-plastic containers will mean fewer chemicals leaching from the container into the food. Read a report by the National Institute of Environmental Health about plastics containers (PDF, 412 KB).
- When charging your cell phone make sure you unplug it as soon as it has finished charging. Even when the battery is fully charged, a phone charger continues to use energy until it has been switched off.
- When using a washing machine or a dishwasher, make sure you have a full load. If you only have a small number of dishes, wash these by hand instead.
- Hang your clothes out to dry rather than using a tumble dryer to conserve electricity and reduce carbon emissions.
- When doing your shopping try to buy local produce, rather than produce that may have been flown in from hundreds of miles away. Find out about the Farmer's Markets here in Austin.
- Refill or recycle those ink cartridges and help reduce landfill waste and our dependence on foreign oil. It takes a gallon of gas to produce an ink cartridge. – San Jose Mercury News
- During the summer, only water your lawn twice a week. Follow the Austin Water Utility guidelines for watering. For single family homes, water before 10am or after 7pm. Odd numbered street addresses water Wednesday and/or Saturday. Even numbered addresses Thursday and/or Sunday. Following this schedule will conserver water, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep your lawn healthy throughout the summer.
- Go digital! By purchasing music online you can help conserve the oil consumed in transporting CDs to and from the store.
- Tune in and tune up. Tuning up your engine can increase fuel efficiency by 15%-50%.
- Keep your faucets turned to cold. You’ll waste significant energy turning on the hot water even before hot water starts to flow.
- Do your cooking outside. Outdoor grills take less energy than electric kitchen stoves. – NASA's Earth Observatory
- In the market for a large-screen television? LCDs and rear-projection models use less than half the energy of plasma TVs.
- Skip the pesticides and use nature's method of bug-eradication: other animals. Install birdhouses to shelter feathered friends who dine on beetles and grubs.
- Go with the low flow. Select low flow water fixtures such as showerheads, faucets and toilets to reduce consumption and cost. Austin Water Utility provides low flow showerheads, toilets and faucet aerators for free.
- If you are planning to buy a new computer, consider a laptop or notebook instead of a desktop. Laptops require fewer materials and less energy to produce than desktops and use a fraction of the electricity to run. In either case, look for the Energy Star label. If you choose a laptop over a desktop, you will save an average of 220 kilowatt-hours per year. – The Green Book
- Replace that old lawnmower with a more environmentally friendly electric mower. An average two-stroke, gasoline-powered lawnmower releases as many hydrocarbons into the atmosphere in 30 minutes as a car does in 90 minutes.
- Use energy efficient cookware. An insulated pan or a pressure cooker can drop energy consumption from anywhere between 58% and 68% as compared to a flat-bottomed pot. – The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Guide
- Replace two 3.5 gallon toilets with low flow toilets. Since toilets are the largest users of water in your house, replacing them with low flow toilets will save about 102,000 gallons of drinking water in 5 years. You can get a free low flow toilet from the Austin Water Utility.
- Seal your windows and save on heating costs by installing window kits (shrink foil) on 50% of your windows. Available at hardware stores, the window kits have shrink foil and double-sided tape that you apply to windows. If you have double-pane windows, this will save 2.5 gallons of heating oil a year for each square yard of your house. The savings double if you have single-pane windows. – The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Guide
- Plant a tree and cool your house. Planting deciduous shade trees on the east, south, or west sides of your house provides cooling in the summer. A tree can drop the temperature about 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, the net cooling effect of a young tree is equivalent to 10 room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day. In Central Texas, the best time to plant a tree is in the fall. Find out more about trees at Austin Energy's Tree Related Resources. – The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Guide
- Try naturescaping or xeriscaping your backyard to lower your water consumption. By using native plants they will be adapted to your local climate and therefore will require less water. Xeriscpaing, by using things such as rocks or pines cones, will provide a yard that requires little to no water. Find out more types for adapting your yard to the Texas climate at Grow Green.
- Conserve energy while washing your dishes. Use the air-dry setting to dry the dishes in your dishwasher. If an air-dry setting is unavailable, then turn off the dishwasher when it finishes rinsing (before the dry cycle). If you open the door of your dishwasher after the rinse cycle; the dishes will dry much more quickly.
- Need to re-carpet your house? Try buying carpet made from recycled materials. Instead of buying carpet from synthetic fibers, you can save manufacturing energy, reduce toxic emissions, and close the recycling loop by choosing carpet produced from recycled materials, such as plastic bottles. If you carpet 1,500 square feet of your home with recycled-content carpet, you could prevent the equivalent of more than eight thousand two-liter bottles from being landfilled. – The Green Book
- Instead of buying ceramic tiles for countertops, backsplashes, or flooring, choose 100% recycled glass tiles. For every one hundred square feet of recycled glass tiles that replace traditional ceramic tiles, 140 kilowatt-hours of manufacturing energy are conserved. This is roughly the amount of energy your refrigerator uses per month. – The Green Book
- Buy rechargeable batteries and you will save money over the long term. A single rechargeable battery can replace up to one thousand single-use alkaline batteries over its lifetime. Americans throw out approximately 179,00 tons of batteries per year. – The Green Book
This page contains documents in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. To view PDF files, you will need the Adobe Reader software installed on your computer.
