West Glenmoore, PA - Beautiful. Green. Home.

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!

HP Computer Recycling Coupons

Ready for some Spring Cleaning? Maybe you found a few old computers under boxes or other junk in your basement like I did! Here is a great way to recycle them or other equipment like printers, monitors, etc.

To celebrate Earth Day, throughout April you can be a good steward of
the earth…and get coupons for your next computer or printer purchase
through HP’s Computer Recycling Coupon Program.

HP does charge a recycling fee to defer their cost, but this cost is reimbursed through coupons for new HP equipment.

Money Saving Specials for Readers of The Daily Green

View Original Article

Tags: springcleaning, HP, recycling, green living

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.

10 Pretty Simple Things You Can Do To Improve Our Environment

1. Change a lightbulb. Lighting accounts for close to 20 percent of the average home’s electric bill. Some Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) s use up to 75% less energy than incandescent light bulbs, last up to 10 times longer, cost little up front, and provide a quick return on investment. If every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified CFL, in one year it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of more than 800,000 cars.

2. Washing your car? Don’t – take it to a commercial car wash. If you can’t do that, then wash your car on a grassy area or pour your bucket of soapy water down the sink when you’re done.

3. Check your car for oil leaks regularly. A well tuned car uses less oil. Recycle used oil at auto supply stores or gas stations. Use your car air conditioner sparingly and avoid idling your car.

4. Position gutter downspouts, with extensions if needed, so that rain water runs into the garden or onto the lawn.

5. Water the lawn or garden during the coolest part of the day and don’t water on windy days. If you use a humidifier, use the water it collects to water plants and gardens.

6. Don’t use anti-bacterial hand soaps – the anti-bacterial agents can end up in our drinking water.

7. Operate dishwasher and clothes washer only when full.

8. Turn the faucet off when brushing your teeth.

9. Reduce air and noise pollution with an electric or rechargeable battery operated lawn mower.

10. Plant a tree!! Some trees (i.e. London Plane) will intercept over 130 gallons of water during a minor rain storm.

Sources: www.eartheasy.com, www.dep.state.pa.us, www.treevitalize.net, www.psat.wa.gov

Lawns Do More Than Make Your Yard Look Good

Lawns absorb and hold water, which helps reduce storm runoff and improve water quality. Lawns also have a significant cooling effect, provide oxygen, trap dust and dirt, promote healthful micro-organisms, prevent erosion and filter rainwater contaminants.

Lawn care, however, has come at a high cost to the environment. According to the U.S. National Wildlife Federation:

• 30% of water consumed on the East Coast goes to watering lawns; 60% on the West Coast.

• 18% of municipal solid waste is composed of yard waste.

• The average suburban lawn received 10 times as much chemical pesticide per acre as farmland.

• Over 70 million tons of fertilizers and pesticides are applied to residential lawns and gardens annually.

• Per hour of operation, a gas lawn mower emits 10-12 times as much hydrocarbon as a typical auto. A weedeater emits 21 times more and a leaf blower 34 times more.

• Where pesticides are used, 60 - 90% of earthworms are killed. Earthworms are important for soil health.

• Much of the environmental cost associated with lawn care can be avoided.

Read the rest of this entry »

How much power does your computer monitor use?

For those of you that leave your computer monitors on at home or work, you may need to think again, especially if you still are using an old CRT type monitor instead of a newer LCD. I get a daily PC Mag email sent to one of my email accounts and the subject finally caught my attention.

As stated in the article by PC Mag,

“CRTs use more power when operating than LCDs do, but use slightly less power at idle (according to a power-management study conducted by Microsoft ).”

Also don’t fool yourself that just by using a screen saver that you will reduce power. It’s the opposite actually. By having a screen saver running your monitor never goes to “sleep” and keeps operating as if it were actively being used. A typical 35-watt LCD will use about 2.5 watts per hour while idle.

Even a screen saver that puts up a black screen results in no power decrease whatsoever. In fact, some 3D-intensive screen savers, while very pretty, may draw even more power, since they’re using the 3D graphics card to render those colorful pixels.

  You are better off using your operating system to set  a “time  out” for when your monitor will shutdown and go into “sleep mode” reducing the overall wattage of the device.

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

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.

Fact Sheet on Healthy Lawns to Prep for Spring

Source: Wikipedia THE DANGEROUS FACTS: Lawn Chemicals Are Hazardous to Your Family’s Health

• There is a direct link between the use of lawn chemicals and cancer risk in dogs (published 2004, in the Journal of American Veterinary Medicine.) Local veterinarians report high incidence of cancer in dogs where owners use lawn chemicals.
• Results will come out soon about other at-risk family members, especially children who get cancer and other disease caused by these agents.
• These chemicals, are a combination of fertilizer, weed and bug killers, and they run off lawns into well water, potentially polluting the water you drink
• Lawn chemicals are known to contaminate creeks and streams and eventually make their way to the ocean and bay where they poison aquatic life.
• Lawn chemicals can be tracked into the home, get into carpets and become an indoor airborne hazard to all.

THE ROAD TO A BEAUTIFUL GREEN LAWN

• Mow high: there is a fight for sun, grass will then shade out the weeds
• Leave clippings on the grass as a natural mulch to enrich the soil
• Plant a variety of grass such as Tall Fescue which has deep roots, is drought tolerant, grows in sun and shade and is the hardiest to fight off weeds.
• What to do for grubs? Don’t poison them or you will poison their natural enemy: birds. Use Milky Spore or Beneficial Nematodes to take care of grubs.
• Add topsoil if your soil is in bad shape and compost material to the lawn every spring and fall
• Keeping the nitrogen and PH at proper levels will keep the grass growing strong! Enlist the local Agricultural Extension Service to test your soil. (look in the Blue Pages of your phone book)
• Fertilize with organic fertilizer in the spring and fall. Organic fertilizers and beneficial agents to cure lawn problems can be found at your local home/garden stores as well as on the Internet.

“Also, there is a new cleaner out by Clorox, called Green Works Cleaners, that is “green” and I would remind folks that everything that goes down their drain can enter their drinking water,- and eventually make its way to the bay/ocean. So these new cleaners are really great, work well and smell nice too.” — Catherine Poole