Consider purchasing a Hybrid Vehicle: Purchasing a new hybrid
vehicle can even earn you a tax credit, as the IRS has
a list of several hybrid vehicles, which qualify for a
tax credit up to $3,400.
For more information on hybrid cars visit http://www.hybridcar.com.
Whenever possible leave your car at home and take advantage
of your community’s transit system or car pool.
Replace all of your old appliances with Energy Stars
certified appliances.
If your clothes washer was manufactured prior
to 1994, then you could save up to $110 per year on
your utility bill if you replace it with an ENERGY
STAR qualified clothes washer.
In addition installing an energy star qualified
dishwasher can save you $90 over the lifetime of the
dishwasher because it uses 41% less energy than the
federal minimum standard for energy consumption.
Recycle! If you
are not already recycling, then start recycling such
items as paper, glass, and plastics. In addition, don’t just toss out your old obsolete computer.
Instead, recycle it.
Log onto Earth 911 at http://www.earth911.org/,
for
valuable information on how and where to recycle your
old computers as well as your cell phones and
rechargeable batteries (by state and city).
Use recycled paper for your office supplies.
You can also recycle your computer ink
cartridges at many Office Supply stores instead of
throw them away.
Replace your old heating and cooling systems with either a
renewable or high efficiency heating and cooling
system.
Support local agriculture by eating food that is grown
locally.
Take a page from UPS and carefully plan out your driving
routes. UPS
plans their routes so that there is no or very few
left hand turns.
By eliminating left hand turns, UPS expects to
save $600 million a year, and reduce 100 million miles
of travel in the U.S., which translates, into
approximately 14 million gallons of fuel.
Readjust your refrigerator and freezer temperature settings.
Refrigerators consume the majority of the
electricity used in the average American household.
To reduce energy usage and to maximize energy
efficiency set your refrigerators at 37o F
and freezers to 0oF.
Change your light bulbs to Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs or
CFLs. CFLs
are more expensive than regular filament light bulbs,
but they will help reduce your energy bills and last
up to 10 times longer.
Another way to save on your electric bills is
to turn off lights in rooms and parts of your home
that are not in use at the time.
The following is a good guideline as to when
certain light bulbs should be turned off:
Standard incandescent: turn off every time you leave the
room.
Compact fluorescent light bulbs: turn off when you leave the
room for more than 3 minutes.
Standard fluorescent: turn off when you leave the room for
more than 15 minutes.
Plant native plants and shrubs as well as drought resistant
plants in and around your yard instead of plants that
require large amounts of water or that are not native
to your area. Check
with your local nursery for help.
Instead of a desktop computer consider a laptop.
Laptop computers use considerably less energy.
You can save thousands of tress and landfill space simply by
getting off junk mail list.
You can register at the Direct Marketing
Association's Mail Preference Service http://www.dmaconsumers.org.
Within approximately 3 months you
should begin to see a significant reduction in junk
mail.
Paper or Plastic—Try neither! Consider taking your own shopping sacks to the grocery story.
You can visit the following websites for
reusable grocery bags:
Cath Kidston http://www.cathkidston.com;
ACME Workhorse Style 1500 http://www.reusablebags.com
When purchasing any product, pay close attention to its
packaging. This
will help reduce the amount of garbage produced each
day. The
average American consumer produces approximately 4.5
pounds of garbage daily.
Instead of using paper coffee filters, use reusable gold
filters.
Start a compost pile instead of tossing food scraps into your
trash can. You can purchase a Kitchen Compost Crock, which is a ceramic
countertop composter from http://www.gardens.com.
Purchase Green Energy! An
ever-growing number of electric utilities are offering
their customers the option to purchase green energy on
their bill. When you purchase green power this often
means that you are helping to support energy that
comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar, or
biogas.
Turn off your power adaptors. Power adaptors also known as wall-warts stay warm even when
they are turned off. This is because they are
continually drawing energy from the wall all the time.
By turning off your power adaptors when they are not
in use, you can help reduce your energy bills.
One to do this without having to unplug them
from the wall is to purchase “smart” power strips,
which know when the devise is off.
Replacing your old deck—consider using
composite wood. It’s
true that composite decking is more expensive
initially to install, however, its resistant to rot,
and the weather so you never have to stain it or
replace it.
