What can you do without spending an extra cent? Below are several things you can do to help our environment
1. Buy local
Since you have to buy groceries anyway, spend the grocery money wisely: buy items grown or produced within 100 miles. Not only will you get fresher, better tasting produce, but you’ll reduce the carbon emssions by reducing the amount of diesel fuel needed to ship food. By the way, organic food tastes better and it’s kinder to the earth. Thirty percent of the fossil fuel used on farms goes into the making of fertilizers.
Setting your thermostat a few degrees lower in the winter and a few degrees higher in the summer can translate to substantial savings on your utility bills.
3. Change the wash cycle for your laundry
Use the warm / warm or warm / cold setting rather than the hot / warm cycle when washing the laundry. Even better, use a drying rack or clothesline rather than the dryer.
Buy rechargeable batteries to accompany electronic gifts, and consider giving a battery charger as well. Batteries contain a lot of poisonous chemicals that will eventually make its way into the ground water.
5. Skip bottled water - get it from your faucet or refrigerator
Filter your tap water for drinking rather than using bottled water. Not only is bottled water expensive, but it produces large amounts of container waste, uses large amounts of fossil fuels to ship (why, for example do we need to ship water all the way from Fiji ?) and reduces demand on land fills after used bottles are discarded.
6. Make your own cleaning supplies.
Stock up on a few safe, simple ingredients that can be used in most cleaning situations. Soap, water, baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, borax, and a coarse scrubbing sponge can take care of most household cleaning needs.
- Instead of using a standard drain cleaner, which likely contains lye, hydrochloric acid, and sulfuric acid, try pouring a quarter cup of baking soda down the clogged drain, followed by a half cup of vinegar. Close the drain tightly until fizzing stops, then flush with boiling water.
- For an effective glass cleaner, use a mixture of half white vinegar and half water.
- Baking soda and cornstarch are both good carpet deodorizers.
- To clean up mildew and mold, use a mixture of lemon juice or white vinegar and salt.
- A paste of baking soda, salt, and hot water makes a great oven cleaner.
In the rare instance you need to use a hazardous product, use as little as possible and dispose of it in a way that will cause minimum harm—for example, by bringing it to a hazardous waste recycling or treatment center.
Turn off electronic devices, lights, and appliances when you are not using them. Saves you money, too.
While strict vegetarianism isn’t for everyone, even the most devout carnivores can cut back on meat consumption without cramping their style—and save money in the process. Industrial meat production requires huge energy inputs and creates waste problems. The proliferation of factory farms is damaging the environment, and the global nature of the industry creates conditions that promote the spread of diseases such as avian flu, potentially costing society billions.
Just think of this: Each calorie of beef requires 11-17 calories of feed to produce. Producing 8 pounds of beef requires 25,000 liters of water.
Replace the paper towels with cloth towels – or use your old t-shirts as rags. Keep lots of rags handy wherever you keep a paper towel roll today and get in the habit of using those. When you need to reach for something to wipe up a spill or do a quick clean up of a particular space, you can now reach for a washable cleaning rag instead of a paper towel.
Save money on ink and paper by checking to see if you really need a paper copy of a particular document before hitting the print button.
Additionally, you can buy paper from 100% recycled material for everything from greeting cards to toilet paper. Paper with a high post-consumer waste content uses less virgin pulp and keeps more waste paper out of landfills. Also make sure it is unbleached paper. The bleaching process creates harmful byproducts, including dioxins, which accumulate in our air, water and soil over time.
Other tips:
- Remove yourself from junk mail lists. Each person will receive almost 560 pieces of junk mail this year, which adds up nationally to 4.5 million tons, according to the Native Forest Network. Opt out of credit card or insurance offers at OptOutPrescreen.com or by calling 888-567-8688, a single automated phone line maintained by the major credit bureaus.
Neither. Carry your own cloth bags to the store to avoid using store bags. Several municipalities are already contemplating legislation to completely ban plastic bags.
Do your part to reduce waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables. Buying products with minimal packaging will help to reduce waste. And whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans. If there isn't a recycling program in your community, ask about starting one. By recycling half of your household waste, you can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.
And if you have a few of dollars to spend?
13. Replace your old PC monitor with an LCD model
Looking for an excuse to replace that bulky computer monitor in the home office? An LCD flat panel model uses as little as a third of the electricity of conventional tube-based models, saving you on your power bill the equivalent of leaving a 50-watt bulb on all year.
When buying large-screen TVs, the savings comes from LCDs and rear-projection models, which use less than half the energy of plasma TVs.
Getting rid of that old refrigerator in the garage could save you as much as $150 a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Appliance use comprises about 18% of a typical home’s total energy bill, with the fridge being one of the biggest energy hogs. If any of your appliances is more than 10 years old, the EPA suggests replacing them with energy-efficient models that bear their "Energy Star" logo. Energy Star-qualified appliances use 10%-50% less energy than standard models. According to the Energy Star site, if just one in 10 homes used energy-efficient appliances, it would be equivalent to planting 1.7 million new acres of trees.
Replacing old light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones can trim two thirds from your monthly cost to light up your home. But this doesn’t mean you have to live beneath the ugly glow of low-end fluorescent bulbs.
Go for the premium fluorescents that cast a pure white or buttery golden light across your interior. The cost difference? Bargain basement fluorescent bulbs cost between $3 and $5; the higher grade ones cost $9 to $12.
Several models feature dual-flush buttons that let you opt for 1.6-gallon or 0.8-gallon flush. This will trim around $90 from your annual water costs. They don’t flush as well, you think? Low-flow toilets have become very powerful. Manufacturers have use advanced computer modeling to deliver more flush power with less water.
17. Consider low-flow shower heads.
Install low-flow showerheads and take shorter showers to save water and the energy used to heat it. Or, consider eventually installing a solar hot water heater on your property.