West Glenmoore, PA - Beautiful. Green. Home.

WaterSense® makes Cents

WaterSense® is a program sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with a mission of promoting water efficient products and ultimately protecting the future of our water supply. The WaterSense® label on a product indicates that it meets water efficiency and performance criteria established by the EPA.

According to the EPA, the average American home uses more water for flushing the toilet than running the shower. If you install WaterSense® labeled toilets and faucets or faucet accessories you can save more than 11,000 gallons annually. The EPA states this will reduce your water bills, and could pay for itself in a few short years while continuing to save water and money for years to come! Taken from http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/basic/index.htm

Great PA Cleanup Scheduled April 26th

We have confirmed the date for the first cleanup of Little Conestoga Road. We will be performing the clean up on Saturday April 26th with Sunday April 27th as rain day. The two mile stretch of road we will be cleaning is Little Conestoga Road from Adams Road (where the development of Sycamore Lane resides) to Fairview Road (Fairview Church).  We are cleaning up our adopted road as part of  The Great PA Cleanup!  (click for more info).  Feel free to invite friends that might just want to lend a helping hand to clean up PA!

We’d like to meet at 8:30 AM on Red Sunset Drive, off of Adams Road. Please pull fully off of Adams Road and park along the right hand side of Red Sunset Drive. We will take about 15 minutes or so to review safety rules and hand out supplies (orange vests, gloves, signs, cones and bags) and then break up into 2 teams. One team will clean from Adams Road to Maple Flower (Lovell Lane side) and the other team will clean from Maple Flower (Lovell Lane side) to Fairview Road.

We are estimating that if we have about 16 people, that it may take 3-4 hours of volunteering to cleanup our adopted two mile section of LCR. Of course, by breaking into teams, it might not take this long! If you cannot help out during the entire time, that is fine, any help is great appreciated! Also, please remember that in accordance with PennDOT safety regulations, children must be 8 years of age or older in order to help out.

Thank you for you interest in volunteering!

Clean out your mailbox!

You can easily eliminate the number of catalogs you receive in your mailbox every week simply by visiting Catalog Choice. This is a free online service that allows you to designate which catalogs you no longer wish to receive in the mail. Reduce the amount of unsolicited mail in your mailbox at the same time as you are helping to save the environment. Not all direct marketers are on this site, but as more people visit this site, there is a good possibility more vendors will join. As of April 2008, Catalog Choice  boasts 711,924 persons strong, having already opted out of 9,489,205 catalogs. If anyone has seen our mailbox, they know that Jeff and I alone receive enough catalogs to fill our mailbox several times each week. We will definitely start opting out of some of these catalogs we end up just recylcing. The one zinger is you need the catalog in order to opt out so that you can enter your Customer Number (found on the label). Check out this site and let us know what you think!

Looking for College Scholarships?

Are you sending your child off to college soon and wondering how you are going to be able to pay for this large expense? I found this website called FastWeb which boasts that it has the largest listing of scholarships available. All you have to do is register on their website (you can even say No to being contacted by colleges with email) and then search away. Your child must be at least 14 years old in order to begin searching for scholarships opportunities. It looks like they also provide a search of Internship and Job opportunities. New scholarships are added every day.

Simple Steps to Reduce Paper Consumption

We could probably all try to consume less paper rather easily. I find myself printing emails out at work so that I don’t forget to address them. My husband jotts down notes on small pieces of paper, which I end up finding all over the house. We have all experienced the large amount of junk mail one can opt in to receive. Following are some quick tips on reducing paper consumption:

1. Instead of writing notes on post-its, notepads or notebooks, try a free service online service that you can call from your mobile phone, like Jott (www.jott.com). Sign up for an account with Jott and you can convert your voice messages to text, emails and reminders. It’s as easy and it’s free.
2. Sign up for e-statements and pay your bills online. According to TheGreenGuide.com, paper products make up the largest percentage of municipal solid waste, and hard copy bills alone generate almost 700,000 tons of waste and almost two million tons of carbon dioxide.
3. Reduce your print margins from default of 1″ to .5″ and “save an average of 475 sheets per year.” (Source: Idealbite.com) Also, you can check out ChangetheMargins.com to sign the Microsoft Petition to get them to reduce the default margins from 1.75″ to .75″.

4. Forgo the receipt. Do you click Yes at the gas pump when asked if you want a receipt, only to let it sit in your car for weeks? Do you get a MAC receipt, only to see how much money you don’t have in your account? When provided the option to pass on a receipt, accept the offer and think of the paper you are saving.

Looking for Ways to Save Energy? Here are 20!

This post is taken direct from the Consumer Reports website, featuring the publication Consumer Reports’ “Complete Guide to Reducing Energy Costs”. I have already mentioned some of these tips in my earlier blog posts, but thought some of these were worth repeating.

Read Article Here

Trade your Stuff with Zunafish

On those occasional nights when both kids go to bed nicely and it’s before 9 pm, I get to relax and take a bath. One of the many free magazines we receive is Oprah. Well, Oprah has some good stuff in her magazines from time to time. She once promoted this website where you can trade your stuff and ask for stuff which you need. You simply list the stuff you want to get rid of and search for things you would like. Not sure if it needs to be an equal trade with the same person or what. The site is called Zunafish (www.zunafish.com).

I myself haven’t checked it out but the front page says just a buck a trade. Not bad. Jeff will have to check this site out and get back with some more details.

Local Places to Recycle

Having two young kids, Jeff and I seem to have grown quite a large collection of used no-longer working batteries. This bag has been hanging on our laundry room door for about 6 months now. I’ve finally found a site which shows me where I can recycle not only our rather large bag of batteries, but our old cell phones, half-filled paint cans, oil and many more things.

Just go to this link earth911.org and at the top of the page in green is an area where you can type in your zip code and what you are looking to recycle. Great idea.

Cutting your Refrigerator Energy Consumption

Image via Wikipedia

Another short article I dog-eared in the March 2008 issue of Oprah Magazine, titled Chilling Effects. Louisa Thomas provides some eco-friendly tips, taken from thedailygreen.com.

• Keep the fresh-food compartment between 37 and 40 degrees, and the freezer at 5 degrees
• Check that the door seals are able to hold a piece of paper even when you pull on it. If they can’t, cool air may be escaping, decreasing efficiency.
• Make sure there is less than a quarter inch of frost on the freezer walls, since ice buildup puts more strain on the refrigerator’s motor.
• Keep your fridge well stocked but not overstuffed, to help maintain its ideal temperature most efficiently. If the fridge is close to empty, fill the space with pitchers of water.
• Clean the coils (usually located on the back of the fridge or behind a panel at the bottom) annually, and leave a space between wall and fridge to let air circulate more easily.
• Consider and Energy Star model. Starting in April 2008, refrigerators with the Energy Star tag must be at lease 20 percent more efficient than their conventional counterparts. You’ll save on utility bills - and, over the new refrigerator’s lifetime, you’ll also save enough energy to power the average household for months.

Adopt a Highway Program Update

Thanks to all those families that have volunteered to join my husband and I in our effort to keep Little Conestoga Road clean. Over 20 people have agreed to help us keep our local road clean. We have submitted the application for the section from Adams Road through Fairview Road. If we get enough interest and participation, we might even extend through Marsh Creek bridge. Marsh Creek Signs has the section of LCR from Marsh Creek bridge through Route 100.

As soon as we know our first cleaning date, we will email those who have signed up. If you are interested and you have not signed up, please contact us using the link at the top. Remember, kids must be over 8 and accompanied by an adult.