Mast Humidifier - a beautiful and energy-saving alternative

This time of year can be incredibly dry for those people living in interior regions of the country. Without the warm, moist air of the ocean to humidify the air, it can get really dry, indoors and outdoors. And it’s not just those in winter regions, either. Desert areas like Nevada are also prone to these incredibly dry conditions.

And with really dry air comes all kinds of other problems not least of which is itchy, dry, irritated skin. Who wants that? To fix it, the best solution for most people is to plug in a power-hungry humidifier that adds a relatively big load to our electric bills.

So to save energy, why not try a non-electric humidifying solution? This beautiful Mast Humidifer is a great alternative to conventional plug-in humidifiers. It’s designed with a carved Japanese Cypress base that’s pretty to look at. It’s then fitted with thin pieces of wood that are creatively folded over upon themselves in loops.

This is even better than just putting a bucket of water out to evaporate and moisturize the air. Because of the larger surface area, the humidifier evaporates water about six times as fast as a glass of water would. And because of the type of wood, it emits a lovely, lemon scent. And it does all of this without the use of electricity. It’s a great energy saving option for us dry-skinned power savers. It’s available for purchase (in Japanese) at Masuza.

Installing a Water Heater Insulation Blanket Via Flickr - greenforall.org

The cold that many of us are facing these days has us turning inwards, sipping tea, wearing more layers, and huddling under blankets to stay warm. Hopefully you’ve already taken a look at your heating system to determine how efficient it is so that you’re saving on your monthly energy bills (be they electric, natural gas, pellets, wood, or heating oil).

But many of us also like to warm up by taking a nice long, hot bath or standing for a few extra minutes under the shower. And so here’s another place you can save energy during the cold months. Water heaters are responsible for a relatively large portion of our monthly utility bills, accounting for up to 25% of your average monthly bill! That’s a good chunk of energy, and provides a lot of room for improvement.

According to the US Department of Energy, adding an insulation blanket to your water heater can help to reduce your water-heating related energy costs by as much as 9%. An insulation blanket that you wrap around your water heater can save you around $15 every year in energy bills. These jackets (which are often pre-cut to fit water heaters), cost between $10 and $20 and are very easy to install, so they’re one of the simplest and cheapest things you can do to reduce your energy use. US DOE’s Energy Savers site has a guide to installing an insulation blanket to make it dead simple.

Another really, really simple (and free!) way to reduce your monthly water heating bill is to lower the temperature on your hot water tank from 140ºF to 120ºF or lower. Not only does this reduce the amount of energy you use to keep your water warm without sacrificing comfort, it cuts the mineral build-up in your hot water tank, lengthening its life and cutting your long-term costs, too.

Water Heater Insulation Blanket

Bring your power bills down in 2010 with energy-saving ideas - image via Flickr - Tanis Fox

In the spirit of the New Year, we thought it would be a good idea to make some suggestions as to how you might make 2010 greener than 2009. After all, according to a new nationwide survey conducted by Tiller Research LLC, more than 50% of all Americans are likely to get into the green spirit of things in the New Year, which is an increased interest in green compared to years past. In fact, 85% of all Americans are somewhat likely to reduce their household energy use this year, which is great news for the environment and those looking to save money on utility bills.

So here are some great resolutions you may want to try in your quest for saving power:

-          Make a big green impact on your energy consumption by choosing to take fewer flights this year. Since air travel has a significantly bigger footprint than driving or taking the train, this one energy-saving option can have a huge impact on your carbon footprint. Just one fewer cross-country flight can reduce your carbon emissions by 4 tons.

-          Get a power monitor like the Black & Decker Power Monitor (for less than $100) to find out where you’re wasting the most energy in your home. You can then take action to put a stop to energy waste.

-          Tune up your heating and cooling systems with a programmable thermostat and other energy-saving techniques.

-          Drive less by taking public transit, carpooling with co-workers and friends, walking, running, or cycling, or working from home. You’ll reduce wear on your vehicle and save fuel money, too.

For many more power-saving tips and tricks to inspire your New Year’s resolutions, check out our other SavingPower Tips section!

A programmable thermostat can significantly reduce your cooling and heating bills - image via Flickr - Mick Wright

Use alternative modes of transportation for your daily commute - image via Flickr - Richard Drdul

Take fewer flights to shrink your carbon footprint in 2010 - image via Flickr - america.gov

Gas bills often spike during winter months (image via Flickr - Editor B)

Christmas Day is nearly upon us, and so we offer you this gift—easy, effective ideas for saving energy in your home, for year-round lower utility bills. Now that’s a gift that keeps on giving!

• Turn down hot water heater: This one is ultra-easy. Sure, you want the heat of a nice shower to warm you in the morning, but if you turn down the thermostat on your hot water tank to 120F rather than 140F, your appliance will have to work less to keep you water warm. This could drain 6% to 10% from your water heating bill monthly.
• Get a programmable thermostat: They can cost as little as $30 but could save you upwards of $180 in heating costs every year. They take the hassle out of turning down the heat when you leave the house or at night, ensuring that you’re not heating empty rooms. Just set it and forget it!
• Prepare A/C unit for winter: If you haven’t already, get your a/c ready to save you money throughout the winter First, if yours is a window a/c unit, be sure to remove it from the window and store it away so that you’re not losing heat. Regardless, you should also drain any pipes and hoses and store them away, while ensuring that the outdoor shutoff valve is closed.
• Clean furnace and replace filter: Like any other appliance, your furnace requires regular maintenance to stay in efficient-shape. But one of the simplest, least-expensive up-keep tasks is to regularly clean and/or replace your furnace’s filter so that air can move freely and efficiently through the system. If you have a disposable filter, check it monthly for dust and debris, replacing it as necessary. But you can save even more with a replaceable filter. Though you’ll have to put out some money to buy the investment, they trap between 48% and 78% more debris and can be used over and over again for years. These need regular (monthly) cleaning (vacuum it of dust and debris). Mark your calendar and don’t forget.
• Stop up drafts: You could be letting dollars (from heat loss) walk out your front door if you’ve got air leaks around windows, electrical outlets, and doors. Do something to stop the drafts around your doors by making your own draft snake (use fabric scraps or leftover yarn; lots of free and fun patterns are available online). Seal up leaks around windows and other outlets by getting a tube or two of caulking and some weatherstripping. Similarly, seal-up ducts for heating and cooling to cut $140 from utility bills. According to the US Department of Energy, these measures could reduce heat loss in your home between 5% and 30%.
• Wear more: Finally put that ugly Christmas sweater to use by layering to stay warm without cranking up your home’s thermostat.

Bundle up with multiple layers so that you can turn your thermostat down (image via Flickr - Vato Bob)

Making your own draft stopper is an inexpensive way to save energy and make your home more comfortable (image via Flickr - BitchBuzz)

Changing your furnace's filter can help reduce heating bills (via Flickr - Collin Anderson)

POWER-SAVING TIPS – HOME

Electronics

• Use your computer’s power management features to ensure it shuts down when not in use to save between $40 and $80 annually in electricity.
• If you’re in the market for a new computer, choose a laptop to save $25 in electricity yearly.
• Buy an ENERGY STAR television to save 30 percent in energy costs.
• Choose ENERGY STAR for your entire computer system (monitor, computer, printer, and fax) to save $115 in energy costs over the lifetime of your equipment.
• Look for the ENERGY STAR logo on all battery-powered devices you’re considering buying, whether it’s a power tool, a new electronic device, or a household appliance. These will come with battery charging systems that are 35 percent more efficient than standard models.
• Install a power strip to completely power-down all electronics, including televisions, computers, monitors, DVDs, VCRs, and set top boxes when they’re not in use. Although it’s difficult to estimate how much this will save one home since it depends on the quantity and efficiency of your electronics and the price of your power, as a nation, this could cut $750 million from our annual electricity bill.
• Choose an energy efficient television model to save $30+ every year on energy costs.
• If you’re television uses 130 watts, and your cable box 35 watts, and your electricity costs about $0.08 per kWh, one hour of television watching might cost $1.42. Save money by encouraging your kids to have one Green Hour every day away from the television and pocket the energy savings.
• LCD televisions are generally more efficient than plasma TVs, so choose a more efficient option to save up to $60 every year in power consumption.
• Choose a television with an energy-saving standby feature (and make sure it’s activated!) to save between $10 and $40 every year in electricity costs.

Appliances

• Use cold water for washing laundry to save up to $63 every year in energy costs.
• Choose an ENERGY STAR washing machine the next time you need to replace your old one to save $145+ every year on utility bills. If your washer is 10+ years old, it’s time to replace.
• Look for the ENERGY STAR label on a new dehumidifier to save $20/year or $250 over the life of the unit.
• ENERGY STAR dishwashers cut energy costs by $30 over other models yearly.
• A front loading washing machine uses less energy for spinning than top-loaders and could save you up to $100 annually in electricity costs. Front-loaders also use less water and less detergent, saving you even more.
• Close to 90 percent of the energy used for washing laundry is for heating the water, so wash your laundry in cold water to reduce energy consumption for that load by 50 percent.
• Hang your laundry to dry instead of running the clothes dryer to save $135 in energy yearly.
• Choose a dryer with a temperature sensing control (rather than just a time-drying mechanism) to save 10 percent on drying costs. A moisture-sensing dryer will save 15 percent.
• Empty the lint screen on your dryer to save 30 percent or more on drying energy.
• Choose a gas dryer for your laundry; gas dryers cost between 15 and 20 cents per load, whereas an electric dryer costs between 30 and 40 cents per load.
• Water costs energy, and hand washing requires more water—using your dishwasher could cut your water use by 37 percent.
• Choose the “air-dry” rather than the “heat-dry” setting on your dishwasher to save 15 to 50 percent off the energy used for a load of dishes. Save even more by just propping your dishwasher open to avoid drying altogether.
• When buying a new dishwasher, choose one that comes with a booster heater for warming the incoming water from 120F to 140F. This allows you to reduce your water heater’s temperature to 120F without compromising on your dishwasher’s cleaning ability, and could save 10 percent in dishwashing energy costs.
• Don’t use the “rinse hold” feature on your dishwasher as this uses 3 to 7 more gallons of hot water each cycle it runs.
• Use your microwave to re-heat or cook food to save on cooking energy costs by 50 to 65 percent.
• Do small baking jobs in your toaster oven rather than an electric oven to cut your energy from 2.0 kWh to 0.9 kWh and save 50 percent in energy costs.
• A crockpot uses less than half the energy than an electric oven, and just over half of the energy of an electric convention oven.

Lighting

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which use 65 to 80 percent less energy and last 8-10 times longer. CFLs are a bit more expensive up front, but by replacing the five most-used bulbs in your home with CFLs, you will save $60 yearly.
• Choose light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to cut lighting energy use in both outdoor and indoor fixtures by 75+ percent. These bulbs last 22+ years and because they use solid-state technology, they’re virtually indestructible.
• Obtain the ENERGY STAR Advanced Lighting Package (ALP) designation for lighting throughout your home and save $65/year or 75 percent in energy costs.
• Use ENERGY STAR qualified strings of light-emitting diode (LED) decorative lights for your holiday decorating. These strings cost more up-front, but will use 75 percent less energy than conventional strands and last 10 times longer (they’re unbreakable!).
• Install light timers or motion sensors in rooms like your bathrooms, closets, the garage, or even hallways to save on lighting energy costs by between 35 and 45 percent for those fixtures.

Heating/Cooling

• Adjusting the shades on your windows can help to reduce heat transfer. Keep the shades raised during daylight hours in winter months to allow the sun’s heat into your home, and lower the shades during the day in summer months to keep solar heat out. This could cut your heating and cooling bills between $10 and $100 annually depending on your local climate, efficiency of your windows and shades, and direction your home faces.
• Seal air leaks around your windows and doors, recessed lighting fixtures, ducts, plumbing and utility access points, water and furnace flues, electrical outlets and switches, and chimney flashing with caulking, weather stripping, and other weatherizing products. Energy savings will vary, but can be estimated with the Home Energy Saver Calculator.
• Install an ENERGY STAR programmable thermostat to save $180 in heating and cooling costs every month. These devices regulate your home’s temperature for you on a pre-set schedule.
• Replace old heating and cooling equipment with ENERGY STAR models to reduce your heating/cooling costs by $200 annually.
• Install a geothermal heat pump to heat and cool your home and save $600 in heating/cooling costs over the 20-year life of the system.
• Purchase an ENERGY STAR ceiling fan to reduce your energy costs by 50 percent and save more than $15/year on each cooling unit.
• Save up to 50 percent on energy bills by upgrading your old air conditioner with a new, more efficient model.
• If your heating ducts travel through uninsulated or unheated spaces like an attic or crawlspace, you could be losing energy. Improve your home’s efficiency by as much as 60 percent by insulating these ducts.
• Incorporate passive solar designs—large insulated windows on south-facing walls, thermal mass materials for absorbing heat, etc—and you could lower your heating costs by more than 50 percent.

Hot water

• Add an insulation wrap to your hot water tank for about $20. This investment will pay for itself in a couple of months, and will then continue to save you money for years to come.
• Install a tankless (also called on-demand) water heating to save between $160 and $200 annually.
• Taking a shorter shower will reduce the amount of hot water you consumer on a monthly basis. And since it takes energy to heat and store your hot water, a shower timer can reduce your family’s utility costs by $25 for every minute less each person takes to get clean.
• Install four faucet aerators and two low-flow showerheads to save $255 every year.
• Hot water used for showering adds to your monthly water heating bill, so using less water to shower will reduce that utility expense. A low-flow showerhead can cost between $8 and $50 and will save you around $200/year depending on your water and energy costs.

Whole house

• Replace old windows with ENERGY STAR qualified, high-efficiency, double- or triple-pane windows to cut heating and cooling costs by $125 to $340 yearly.
• Replace household equipment with ENERGY STAR models to save $450 every year in energy costs.
• According to The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Handbook, a $150 tune-up can save the average homeowner 12 percent in heating costs, and save on average $385 every year.
• Add storm windows to your home to reduce heat loss during the winter by 25-50 percent.
• Buy a green-certified home to reduce your overall energy consumption from an average of 16,000 GJ to 6,400 GJ.

POWER-SAVING TIPS – LIFESTYLE

Transportation

• Remove weighty items from your trunk to improve your mileage by 1-2 percent for every 100 pounds removed.
• Take public transit instead of driving to work and you could cut your transportation costs by $8,000 annually.
• Opt to carpool with a fellow co-worker one day every week to shave $339 from your commute every year.
• Driving on underinflated tires will subtract 0.4 percent from your overall vehicle fuel efficiency. Doing a monthly check of your tires can save you 7 cents/gallon.
• For every 5 miles per hour you slow down on the highway, you’ll improve fuel consumption by 7 -23 percent and cut fuel costs by $0.17-$0.56/gallon.
• Stop idling your car and save $0.01/gallon for every two minutes your car is shut off.
• When looking for a new vehicle, purchase the most fuel-efficient in the class you’re interested in to save $300-$700 every year in fuel costs.
• Join a car share program and realize up to $6,500 in savings every year over owning and maintaining your own vehicle.
• Choose to telecommute to work just one day every week to reduce your gasoline costs by $1,000 every year.
• Choose a more vehicle that gets 30 mpg rather than 20 mpg to cut fuel costs by $3,050 in five years!
• Drive less aggressively (foot lightly on the pedals) and you’ll raise your gas mileage by as much as 33 percent, saving you between $0.12 and $0.81 per gallon.
• Maintain your vehicle by having it tuned-up regularly to improve fuel economy by 4 percent, which will save you $0.10/gallon.
• Reduce the total number of miles you drive each month by combining trips or choosing alternative forms of transportation (walking or public transit, for instance). Reduce the total miles by 5 percent to save up to $65 yearly on gas costs.
• Remove your unused roof rack or carrier to improve fuel economy by 5 percent.
• During your next oil change, make sure you get the recommended grade of motor oil to improve fuel efficiency by 1-2 percent.
• Your car’s a/c unit will use the most energy when on the maximum setting. Turn it down to improve fuel efficiency by 5-25 percent.

Outdoors

• Plant three trees in optimum shading locations around your home to save between $100 and $250 every year in heating and cooling costs.
• Replace your old pool pump with a more efficient, and properly -sized model to reduce energy consumption by about $100.
• Run your pump for less than 3 hours per day (which will still maintain healthy water quality) to cut this energy consumption by up to 60 percent.
• Install a solar pool water heater for between $2,000 and $4,000. You could receive a return on this investment (compared to a traditional fossil fuel heater) in as little as 1.5 years.
• Install a high-quality pool cover to reduce your pool heating costs by up to 90 percent, which will also cut your water loss to evaporation by 70 percent.
• If you use a portable spa that’s used once a week, decrease the temperature three degrees when not in use to save 5-10 percent in heating costs.

Consumables

• Shop online. Even if your product is shipped via air transport, this can reduce the fuel expended to get the item to you by 40 percent.
• Take books out from your local library rather than buying new books. You’ll pay $20 every year in taxes to support your library and could easily see a return on that investment by borrowing one or two books instead of buying brand new.
• Rent outdoor gear for your next hiking or camping trip. This will cost you much less than purchasing new gear and will save the energy cost of producing new gear that may only get used once or twice each season.
• Growing your own food requires less energy for transporting it to the store and then transporting it home. A $3 package of tomato seeds can grow $60 worth of tomatoes and cut your gas bill, too.
• Manufacturing disposable plastic water bottles requires significant infusions of energy. Choosing to carry water in a reusable water is cost effective and energy-saving, and could reduce your drinking water bill annually by upwards of $1,400.
• Although you’ll have to pay to power-up rechargeable batteries, and they cost more up-front to purchase, overall they will save on energy (it takes more energy to produce disposable batteries). An $80 charger and a $35 package of four rechargeable batteries could save you $670 in replacement costs over disposable batteries.
• Ruminating animals (cows, sheep, goats, etc) add significantly to climate change by emitting a powerful greenhouse gas: methane. Eat one less pound of beef weekly to save $109 yearly in food costs.
• Smoking adds pollutants to the atmosphere and your own body. Quit and you could save almost $1,500 every year.
• Instead of buying take-out food for lunch, bag your own lunch in reusable containers and save between $5 and $6 daily.
• The average American receives 41 pounds of unsolicited mail every year—on paper that requires the removal of trees and the use of energy to produce. Disposing of this unwanted mail costs our country $320 million every year. Cut your aggravation and paper-related energy use by contacting the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) to have your name added to the “do not mail” list.
• Buying and trashing thousands of diapers per child adds a significant energy burden to the environment. The average baby will go through $2,000-$3,000 worth of disposable diapers, whereas a three-year supply of cloth diapers will cost anywhere between $300 and $800.

POWER-SAVING TIPS – BUSINESS

Lighting

• Convert your exit signs to use light-emitting diode (LEDs) bulbs. A typical incandescent exit sign will cost $28/year to run, whereas a compact fluorescent exit sign will cost $11/year and an LED exit sign, by far the most efficient, will cost only $4/year. Plus, they last 10 or more years, which will significantly reduce maintenance costs as well.
• LEDs (light-emitting diodes) can be used in a variety of light fixtures—from display lighting to task lighting to outdoor lighting. These bulbs produce no heat (so they reduce cooling costs), are unbreakable, last 35 to 50 times longer than conventional bulbs, and save upwards of 75 percent on electricity costs.
• Install light timers or motion sensors in various rooms throughout your building to garner energy savings: 65percent in locker rooms, 55 percent in large work rooms, 50 percent in rest rooms, 45 percent in file rooms, and 40 percent in small work rooms.
• Replace T12 lamps and magnetic ballasts with T8 lamps to reduce your lighting energy needs by 17-48 percent.
• Choose metal halide lamps (HID) that have pulse start options to reduce energy consumption by 20-30 percent.
• Install dimmable lights combined with daylighting designs to ensure electric illumination is only on when outdoor light is insufficient. This could reduce your lighting energy costs by 22 percent, and cut cooling demand by $1.13 per square foot.

Electronics

• Purchase an energy efficient copier that has a power-saving “sleep” mode enabled to save $170+ in lifetime energy costs.
• ENERGY STAR copiers are 25 percent more efficient than standard models and could save American businesses $3 billion in energy costs over the next five years. That’s similar to taking 4 million cars off the road.
• Choose a duplexing copier to save on paper and energy costs. Lifetime paper cost savings could be up to $920 per copier.
• ENERGY STAR computers use much less energy when they’re in standby and when their active than standard models. If all computers purchased in the US were ENERGY STAR, we’d save $2 billion every year in electricity costs, which would be like taking 2 million cars off highways.
• If you’re looking for a new digital duplicator for your business, opt for an ENERGY STAR model to cut energy consumption by 25 percent.
• If your business manages its one servers, go for ENERGY STAR models to cut energy use by 30 percent.  These models can save as much as 1,000 kWh or $500 over a five-year period per server.
• External power adapters used to power small electronics like laptops can suck huge quantities of energy. An ENERGY STAR model uses 30 percent less energy.
• Your mail room’s mailing machine may be costing you energy unnecessarily. Choose an ENERGY STAR model that’s 25 percent more efficient than standard models.
• Equip each workstation with ENERGY STAR systems, including monitor, computer, printer, and fax machine to save $115 in energy costs over the lifetime of each system.
• Small business owners and big corporate headquarters alike can benefit from purchasing all-in-one printer-scanner-fax machines with the ENERGY STAR label. These use 25 percent less energy and save $115 in energy costs over the course of their lives.
• Cell phone and PDA chargers turn nearly 90 percent of the energy they draw into heat. Have employees unplug them while they’re not in use. If just 10 percent of all cell phone chargers in the world were unplugged, we’d save enough energy to power 60,000 European homes every year.

Appliances

• An ENERGY STAR commercial dishwasher will save your food service department 25 percent in energy and 25 in water costs every year. On average, that saves companies $850 and $200 for electricity and water respectively per unit.
• Restaurant-owners take heed: ENERGY STAR commercial fryers are 15 percent more energy-efficient than standard models, saving most owners $600/year for gas fryers and $80/year for electric fryers.
• Cook with less energy by choosing an ENERGY STAR griddle. An electric version could save you up to $190/year in utility costs, whereas a gas model will save $175/year.
• Cut energy consumption for food warming by 60 percent with an ENERGY STAR commercial hot food holding cabinet. These appliances save the average user $430/year in energy costs.
• Put the chill on your energy consumption by choosing an ENERGY START commercial ice machine to save 15 percent on energy consumption (about $100 annually) and 10 percent on water consumption (about $10 annually).
• ENERGY STAR commercial ovens are 20 percent more efficient than standard models, saving most kitchens $190 every year in energy costs.
• Commercial kitchen owners can cut energy consumption and save money with ENERGY STAR commercial refrigerators and freezers. An ES freezer will put $120 back on the books every year and a refrigerator $170 annually.
• Get a big return on your investment by choosing an ENERGY STAR commercial steam cooker to save 50 percent in energy costs or about $550 every year.
• Make the chatter around the water cooler more sustainable with an ENERGY STAR water cooler. These use about 50 percent less energy compared to standard models.

Heating/Cooling

• If you’re installing a new HVAC system for your business, you’ll definitely want to explore ENERGY STAR light commercial equipment, which use 7-10 percent less energy. These could save a 12,000 square foot building between $36,000 and $48,000 over the life of the equipment.
• Install a cool reflective roof that’s ENERGY STAR qualified to reduce the temperature of your lower roof surface by up to 100F and cut your peak cooling demand by 10-15 percent.

Whole building

• Get your building or plant the ENERGY STAR stamp of approval to really get your energy savings into high gear.
• Green roofs absorb stormwater, provide natural habitat for wildlife and recreational space for employees, and can reduce heat gain by up to 95 percent, which reduces cooling costs dramatically.
• Recycling aluminum is 95 percent more efficient than mining new; recycling plastics uses 70 percent less energy than making new plastic products; making paper from post-consumer waste requires 40 percent less energy. So save energy throughout your building by starting a build-wide recycling program.
• Hospitals that opt for reusable products can cut costs and reduce medical waste by 70 percent. When the Staten Island University Hospital adopted this practice, they started saving $1,200,000 in waste management and close to $750,000 in disposable supplies.
• Get a building energy audit and implement the suggested changes to achieve upwards of 50 percent better efficiency of energy use. Buildings that achieve this level may qualify for tax incentives.
• Energy is used for pumping and cleaning water supplies. You can reduce your impact by installing efficient, low-flow faucet aerators throughout your washrooms. They cost between 50 cents and $10 and generally pay for themselves in two months.
• It takes about $400-700 to maintain one acre of lawn. Choosing a low-mow turf variety to reduce the amount of money you spend cutting your building’s lawn dramatically.
• Use an air filter to improve the indoor air quality in your building, which in turn will boost employee efficiency and productivity. An ENERGY STAR air filter will cut energy use by 50 percent and could save $16 or more in energy costs compared to standard models.

Waste and Recycling

• Significantly reduce costs for water at your next conference by offering water in pitchers rather than individual bottles. One MeetGreen conference saved $87,000 with this tip.
• Choosing to purchase milk and cream in bulk rather than in individual packets will cut costs for these products by 62 percent and 50 percent respectively.
• Switch from disposable paper plates and plastic cups to reusable dishes and flatware to cut your meeting and conference costs. The Ford Foundation did so and now saves $10,500 every year.
• Collect and recycle your waste to save on disposal costs and save energy that would otherwise have been used to manufacture something from new resources. The Oakland Coliseum and Arena now collects beverage containers, compostable materials, and garbage saving themselves $80,000 in disposal costs in the first two years.
• All water requires energy for purification and pumping. Reduce the amount your building uses by installing waterless urinals which could save you anywhere from $800 to $40,000 over the lifetime of each unit (depending on how much it’s used).

Travel

• Have your employees stay at Green Seal Certified hotels to ensure your company supports hotels that opt for products are in the top 25 percent in terms of efficiency.
• Both car and air travel are heavy polluting activities for getting to meetings and conferences. Choose to teleconference and you could cut your air travel significantly. Vodafone now requires that all employees justify their travel, a move that has saved the company 20 percent in just one year.
• Help employees carpool to work by offering incentives to those who do. This will save you money, too, since it costs between $2,000 and $5,000 to build a single-surface parking spot, and $10,000-$12,000 to build one spot in a three-story structure. Reducing the number of spots you need by encouraging carpooling can cut these expenses significantly.
• Parking stalls must be maintained at a cost of about 1.5 percent of the initial investment. Reduce the number of parking stalls you need and your maintenance costs, too by offering facilities to employees who bike, walk, or run to work. Divert five parking stalls from cars to facilities for bikers, a company could save anywhere between $10,000 and $60,000 annually.

We look to the heroes in our world for direction, inspiration, and motivation when fighting against impossible odds like those facing us today in the environmental community. Here are a few influential environmentalists you should watch as they change the world with their good green message.

• Wangari Maathai

• Perhaps one of the most influential environmentalists in Africa, Wangari Maathai is a fearless leader, working to improve human health, foster vibrant communities, and encourage women to become economically independent, all with a green angle. She was the first woman from Africa to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and started the Green Belt Movement.

• Despite the recent smear campaign against Van Jones, he is a leader in the environmental community worth watching. He has a knack for linking good jobs to social justice and environmentalism, skilfully connecting the dots and coming up with ambitious and innovative solutions for today’s greatest environmental problems.

• Founder of Better Place, Shai Agassi has a vision to make electric vehicles affordable and mainstream in short order. His solution is to provide battery swap stations that are powered by renewable energy, making personal vehicle ownership virtually emissions-free.

• Founder of Patagonia, a leading-edge, eco-friendly outdoors company, Yvon Chouinard has been experimenting with green concepts for over fifty years.
• Main character in An Inconvenient Truth and advocate for audacious climate goals, Al Gore is naturally one of the most well-recognized faces in the fight against global warming.
• An environmental hero in Canada and beyond, David Suzuki has been talking and writing and filming about the environmental challenges of our time for decades.
• If you’re looking for a humorous slant on the environmental movement, check out Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno for a quirky twist on the issues.
• Bringing the green to Hollywood, Ed Begley Jr. has been talkin’ up eco-friendly living for decades, too. He’s even got his own show, Living with Ed.

Taking a vacation or getting away for a holiday is the reward for hard work and a well-deserved break from regular life. Making your holiday one that helps the planet rather than harming it is increasingly challenging in a culture that values traveling afar. But there are ways for you to cut your vacation’s impact…

• If you’re able-bodied and looking for an active getaway, why not try an eco-volunteer vacation? They’ll put you to work cleaning-up the planet so you can leave feeling good about your holiday. Many require you to “rough it” a little, which often means lower vacation costs. Search online for “eco-friendly volunteer vacations” to find options near you.
• Whether you’re going off for a long weekend or are going to be away for a month, you can reduce your travel footprint by saving energy at home while you’re away. Turning down the air conditioning or heating, making sure lights are switched off, lowering the temperature on your hot water heater—these are all great ways to reduce energy consumption and save a bit of money while you’re out of the house.
• Instead of flying to your destination, look into taking the train or traveling via motor coach (bus). These options produce significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than flying and depending on your destination, may just be more affordable, as well.

If you’re open to new possibilities, why not explore a sustainable vacation with a tour provider that’s got the planet’s best interest in mind. While these aren’t always less expensive than traditional options, good deals can often be found. Try out: Green Globe, Sustainable Travel International, or Rainforest Alliance’s Sustainable Tourism for unique and earth-benefiting getaways.

Every year, we burn the equivalent of 9 billion gallons of gas stuck in traffic jams, congestion that is most common during the morning and afternoon commuting times. Over time, this number has gone nowhere but up. In addition to wasted fuel, employees also spend enormous amounts of time in their vehicles—about 47 hours each and every year. That’s a lot of wasted energy, talent, and time.

Studies show that when employees have a choice about their commuting schedule and support for choosing less stressful methods of getting to work, they are more satisfied with their jobs and more productive, too. Helping your employees make greener commuting choices is not only good for their health and good for your bottom line, it can also improve your green reputation.

• Take public transit instead of driving to work and you could cut your transportation costs by $8,000 annually.
• Opt to carpool with a fellow co-worker one day every week to shave $339 from your commute every year.
• Join a car share program and realize up to $6,500 in savings every year over owning and maintaining your own vehicle.
• Choose to telecommute to work just one day every week to reduce your gasoline costs by $1,000 every year.
• A compressed workweek schedule (four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days) will give you a long weekend, cut your commute expenses by 20 percent, and could save you $500 annually.
• Instead of driving a car to work, choose a power-assisted bicycle, such as the Avanti Electra,Schwinn’s Streamline, and the Stokemonkey. These generally have a range between 40 and 50 miles, can go between 14 and 30 mph, and can pay for themselves in as little as a few months in gas savings.
• Have your employees stay at Green Seal Certified hotels to ensure your company supports hotels that opt for products are in the top 25 percent in terms of efficiency.
• Both car and air travel are heavy polluting activities for getting to meetings and conferences. Choose to teleconference and you could cut your air travel significantly. Vodafone now requires that all employees justify their travel, a move that has saved the company 20 percent in just one year.
• Help employees carpool to work by offering incentives to those who do. This will save you money, too, since it costs between $2,000 and $5,000 to build a single-surface parking spot, and $10,000-$12,000 to build one spot in a three-story structure. Reducing the number of spots you need by encouraging carpooling can cut these expenses significantly.
• Parking stalls must be maintained at a cost of about 1.5 percent of the initial investment. Reduce the number of parking stalls you need and your maintenance costs, too by offering facilities to employees who bike, walk, or run to work. Divert five parking stalls from cars to facilities for bikers, a company could save anywhere between $10,000 and $60,000 annually.
• If every US commuter car carried just one more person to work every day, we’d save 8 billion gallons of gasoline.

Whether it’s talking on your cell phone, watching TV, or playing online games, the electronics you use in your home could be adding to your monthly electricity bill. Only five percent of the energy used by cell phone chargers, for instance, goes to actually charging your phone; the rest is consumed when your phone isn’t even attached to the charger. Similar idle power drains—often called “phantom power” drains—occur with most electronic devices, including printers, computers, televisions, VCRs, DVD players, stereos, and more.

This unnecessary energy waste is completely preventable with a few simple and easy tricks. Buying more efficient models is certainly one way to save energy and money, but an even simpler, low-cost method is to enable your electronics’ power-saving features. You might just save enough to buy yourself an extra latte or video game!

• Look for the ENERGY STAR logo on all battery-powered devices you’re considering buying, whether it’s a power tool, a new electronic device, or a household appliance. These will come with battery charging systems that are 35 percent more efficient than standard models.
• Install a power strip to completely power-down all electronics, including televisions, computers, monitors, DVDs, VCRs, and set top boxes when they’re not in use. Although it’s difficult to estimate how much this will save one home since it depends on the quantity and efficiency of your electronics and the price of your power, as a nation, this could cut $750 million from our annual electricity bill.
• Choose an energy efficient television model to save $30+ every year on energy costs.
• If you’re television uses 130 watts, and your cable box 35 watts, and your electricity costs about $0.08 per kWh, one hour of television watching might cost $1.42. Save money by encouraging your kids to have one Green Hour every day away from the television and pocket the energy savings.
• LCD televisions are generally more efficient than plasma TVs, so choose a more efficient option tosave up to $60 every year in power consumption.
• Choose a television with an energy-saving standby feature (and make sure it’s activated!) to save between $10 and $40 every year in electricity costs.
• If your television has a “quick start” or standby mode, consider turning it off. This mode typically consumed on the order of 50 times more power.
• Use your computer’s power management features to ensure it shuts down when not in use to save between $40 and $80 annually in electricity.
• If you’re in the market for a new computer, choose a laptop to save $25 in electricity yearly.
• Buy an ENERGY STAR television to save 30 percent in energy costs.
• Choose ENERGY STAR for your entire computer system (monitor, computer, printer, and fax) tosave $115 in energy costs over the lifetime of your equipment.
• Although you’ll have to pay to power-up rechargeable batteries, and they cost more up-front to purchase, overall they will save on energy (it takes more energy to produce disposable batteries). An $80 charger and a $35 package of four rechargeable batteries could save you $670 in replacement costs over disposable batteries.
• Smoking adds pollutants to the atmosphere and your own body. Quit and you could save almost $1,500 every year.

Getting outdoors is important for your health and it’s a great way to get in touch with the planet we’re trying to save! But don’t let your outdoor adventures cause further problems for the earth. Choosing eco-friendly outdoor activities and gear is important if you truly want to enjoy this planet we’re part of.

• Rent outdoor gear for your next hiking or camping trip. This will cost you much less than purchasing new gear and will save the energy cost of producing new gear that may only get used once or twice each season.
• Whether you’re out for a hike or on the road for a few weeks of camping, you’ll likely want to charge up your electronics (cell phones, radios, laptops, and the like). Power-up all of your battery-using technology with the sun! Find solar chargers of all shapes and sizes for every imaginable purpose to make your trip really green.
• Manufacturing disposable plastic water bottles requires significant infusions of energy. Choosing to carry water in a reusable water is cost effective and energy-saving, and could reduce your drinking water bill annually by upwards of $1,400.
• If you’re in need of outdoor gear but don’t want to rent, why not purchase used equipment? You’ll be keeping usable items from being trashed and saving money in the process. In addition to sites likeFreecycle and Craigslist, you can check out GearTrade and CampingSwap to find all sorts of secondhand outdoor gear.

Traditional grilling will not only cost you for fuel and briquettes, it’ll also add loads of air pollution to the environment. Needless to say, there are better ways to enjoy the great outdoors, and a solar oven is a great way to do so. With these clever devices, all you’ll need is the warmth of the sun to cook almost anything! It’ll take a bit more time than normal, but you’ll save on fuel and other barbecuing supplies, while being kinder to the planet and your own lungs, too.

Producing your own clean, renewable power is perhaps one of the most effective methods for you to limit your impact on climate change. By producing your own locally-grown energy with renewable technologies like solar, wind, micro-hydro, and geothermal, you’ll be removing your support from dirty energy and demonstrate to your friends and neighbours your commitment to fight global warming. Remember as well, that most renewable energy systems will qualify you for rebates or subsidies from the federal, state, or municipal governments: Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency.

• Perhaps the most obvious renewable energy solution for the average homeowner is solarphotovoltaics. With this technology, all it takes are a few panels on your roof and you’re producing your own electricity with the power of the sun. You can alternatively install solar shingles or pole-mounted photovoltaics, depending on your home’s configuration. Regardless of your choice, you’ll have a system that guarantees the price you’ll pay for electricity for at least 25 years so you won’t have to worry about rising electricity costs, which are sure to come.
• The sun can also be used to produce warm water to use in your home (for showers, laundry, dishwashing, and more) as well as for your pool or spa. Solar water heaters are one of the most economical forms of renewable energy because of their lower up-front cost and quicker payback time.
• Growing in popularity are geothermal systems. These can be adapted in a number of different ways—they can produce electricity, provide hot water, and even heat and cool your home. They do have a longer payback time because of the higher capital costs, but geothermal systems last for decades and are one of the most reliable forms of renewable energy. They also add to your home’s value significantly.
• If you live out of town or are able to install a small turbine on your city home’s roof, wind energymay be a great option for you. These can be very economical and produce clean energy even when the sun isn’t shining.

One final option to those living near a water source is micro-hydro. By tapping into the energy in moving water without impacting the local stream or river, you can produce your own energy with very little expense.

Gardening

What goes on outside your home is almost as important as what you’re doing to green your life indoors. Landscape and garden maintenance can make a big difference on your overall environmental impact depending on how you treat your soil, what you do with water, and whether you’re using your outdoor environment to cultivate spaces that are healthy for you and for local wildlife. But your gardening and landscaping habits also have an impact on your budget. Choosing green gardening and landscaping techniques will preserve your green thumb while also safe-guarding your green bank account.

• Plant just three trees strategically in your yard and you could save between $100 and $250 every year in energy bills. That’s because well-chosen and properly-placed trees will reduce summer air conditioning bills (by up to 50 percent) and cut winter heating bills (by up to 25 percent).
• Plant native species in your garden to cut irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide costs dramatically. Native plants are particularly well-suited to surviving in your local climate with no human intervention!
• Apply mulches in your vegetable garden, on your flower beds, and around trees and shrubs to prevent frost (and plant death), reduce irrigation costs, cut down on weeding requirements (and pesticides/herbicides), and more! Get low-cost mulching ideas at Less Lawn – Mulch for Less Moola.
• Install a rain barrel to collect rainwater and use it for irrigating your garden and lawn. Depending on how dry your climate is and how thirsty your plants are, you stand to easily pay for the barrel investment in no time at all.
• Choose a water-conserving irrigation system, like drip irrigation and soaker hoses, to reduce your water consumption outdoors by as much as 60 percent!
• If you’re charged by the weight or number of garbage bags you produce each week, consider using a mulching lawn mower. Rotting grass clippings—like other organic matter—adds to methane emissions (a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide), and to your waste disposal costs. Leaving the clippings on your lawn adds nutrients and prevent evaporation, too, which means you save on irrigation and fertilizer.
• Grow your own fruits and vegetables so that you can eat organic, locally-grown produce while in season. Growing your own takes a little time, but will save you money, especially when you consider that a single packet of tomato seeds can turn into over $40 worth of fresh, ripe tomatoes! Cut your gardening budget even more by saving your own seeds or participating in a seed exchange.
• Put your egg shells in your compost pile to add calcium and other minerals naturally to your garden.
• Think of the money you’ll save on medical bills by choosing organic gardening! Many of the common chemicals used as pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are poisonous to you, your family, and your pets. Save yourself the heartache and the cost of a trip to the emergency room by practicing organic gardening methods.
• The average gas-powered lawn mower adds 11 cars-worth of pollution to the atmosphere in just one hour! Riding mowers are worse, putting the equivalent of 34 cars-worth of pollution in the air in the same amount of time. In fact, they represent 5 percent of US air pollution! Get a push mower and you’ll no longer have to deal with gasoline or electric cords. They’re lightweight and easy to use, and will save you big-time in maintenance and operational costs.
• Cut down on the cost and hassle of messy trips to the gas station to get fuel for your gas-powered lawn mower by opting for an electric mower. These will cost you about $5/year in electricity and you can say goodbye to the stink and trial of spilled fuel. Many municipalities have rebates for exchanging gas-guzzlers for electric options.
• Get even more ideas for going green in your garden on a budget by checking out the No-cost gardening blog that challenges you to grow half of your food without a huge financial investment.

Organic Food

They say you are what you eat. Likewise, the earth is what we eat, too! The more we pour conventional agricultural chemicals into our landscapes, the more polluted the planet becomes, harming us and our non-human friends as well. Choosing organic food is a great way to reduce your impact on the planet and promote good health in the process. And we know that when we’re healthier, we’re more productive and less prone to requiring trips to the doctor. So eating healthier means saving money, too!

• Buy food in season! These fruits and vegetables will have traveled a shorter distance and therefore be fresher (and healthier!). And because they’re in season, they’ll also be cheaper.
• Cut prepared foods out of your diet. Pre-packaged foods are usually more expensive than cooking at home and they’re higher in preservatives, fat, salt, white flour, and other unhealthy ingredients, making them pricier for your wallet and pricier in terms of your health.
• Get your produce from a local CSA (Community Support Agriculture) organization to get inexpensive, often organic fruits and veggies delivered to your door! You’ll save money on gas for trips to the grocer, too. Find a CSA via LocalHarvest.
• Farmer’s Markets are great places to find locally-grown, often organic food options of all types that usually cost less than what you’d find at the grocery store. They’re also a lot of fun and support your local economy. Find a market with FarmersMarket.com.
• Eat at home rather than at a restaurant. Doing so will reduce your gasoline bills and save you at the till, too, since most restaurant meals are costlier than home-cooked options. Plus, they’re usually healthier, which means smaller medical bills in the long-run, too.
• Choose store-brand organic foods to save money of Certified Organic options. These are usually good quality but more affordable than name-brand items.
• Ruminating animals (cows, sheep, goats, etc) add significantly to climate change by emitting a powerful greenhouse gas: methane. Eat one less pound of beef weekly to save $109 yearly in food costs.
• Whether you buy your food at the local farmer’s market, the grocery store, or grow it in your own backyard, canning, dehydrating, and otherwise preserving food is a great way to enjoy season foods year-round—at a fraction of the cost. Check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation for ideas and tips.

If you can’t afford to buy all of your food organically, go for those options that would otherwise be the most laced with pesticides. Check out this Dirty Dozen list for those fruits and veggies that should be at the top of your “organic foods to buy” list.

Organic Clothing

Demonstrating your commitment to living a greener lifestyle can be as simple as throwing on a pair of organic cotton jeans or a bamboo T-shirt. Even if people don’t readily notice your eco-friendly attire, you’ll know that you’ve made the choice to support sustainable clothing systems that limit the quantity of chemicals going into the environment for the sake of style.

• Looking for affordable, eco-friendly clothing made from organic cotton, bamboo, wool, and other green textiles can be a challenge. So if you’re looking for a deal, check out these sites for great green deals: Ecobunga.com and GoGreenDeals.com.
• Buy quality organic clothing rather than cheaply-made inexpensive clothing. Well-made clothing will last longer, stretching your investment in organic clothing much longer and driving your per-wear cost down, too.
• Want to get some stylish “new” clothing for free? Host a clothing exchange party for you and your friends! This is an especially great idea for kids clothes.
• When you can’t afford to purchase new organic clothes, go for secondhand sweaters, T-shirts, jeans, shoes, coats, and jackets. Buying at a thrift store, swap meet, or garage sale will save you money and will prevent perfectly good clothing from going to the landfill. Everyone wins!
• Dry cleaning your clothes is expensive, and it’s costly to the planet. The dry cleaning chemicals used in the process have been linked to cancer as well as kidney, reproductive system, and liver damage and can cause nausea and dizziness. They will also pollute your indoor air. So save some cash by purchasing clothes that don’t require dry cleaning and/or choose to dry cleaning your clothes yourself using a safer at-home kit.
• Shop online. Even if your product is shipped via air transport, this can reduce the fuel expended to get the item to you by 40 percent.

Outdoor Activities

Getting outdoors is important for your health and it’s a great way to get in touch with the planet we’re trying to save! But don’t let your outdoor adventures cause further problems for the earth. Choosing eco-friendly outdoor activities and gear is important if you truly want to enjoy this planet we’re part of.

• Rent outdoor gear for your next hiking or camping trip. This will cost you much less than purchasing new gear and will save the energy cost of producing new gear that may only get used once or twice each season.
• Whether you’re out for a hike or on the road for a few weeks of camping, you’ll likely want to charge up your electronics (cell phones, radios, laptops, and the like). Power-up all of your battery-using technology with the sun! Find solar chargers of all shapes and sizes for every imaginable purpose to make your trip really green.
• Manufacturing disposable plastic water bottles requires significant infusions of energy. Choosing to carry water in a reusable water is cost effective and energy-saving, and could reduce your drinking water bill annually by upwards of $1,400.
• If you’re in need of outdoor gear but don’t want to rent, why not purchase used equipment? You’ll be keeping usable items from being trashed and saving money in the process. In addition to sites like Freecycle and Craigslist, you can check out GearTrade and CampingSwap to find all sorts of secondhand outdoor gear.

Traditional grilling will not only cost you for fuel and briquettes, it’ll also add loads of air pollution to the environment. Needless to say, there are better ways to enjoy the great outdoors, and a solar oven is a great way to do so. With these clever devices, all you’ll need is the warmth of the sun to cook almost anything! It’ll take a bit more time than normal, but you’ll save on fuel and other barbecuing supplies, while being kinder to the planet and your own lungs, too.

Travel

Taking a vacation or getting away for a holiday is the reward for hard work and a well-deserved break from regular life. Making your holiday one that helps the planet rather than harming it is increasingly challenging in a culture that values traveling afar. But there are ways for you to cut your vacation’s impact…

• If you’re able-bodied and looking for an active getaway, why not try an eco-volunteer vacation? They’ll put you to work cleaning-up the planet so you can leave feeling good about your holiday. Many require you to “rough it” a little, which often means lower vacation costs. Search online for “eco-friendly volunteer vacations” to find options near you.
• Whether you’re going off for a long weekend or are going to be away for a month, you can reduce your travel footprint by saving energy at home while you’re away. Turning down the air conditioning or heating, making sure lights are switched off, lowering the temperature on your hot water heater—these are all great ways to reduce energy consumption and save a bit of money while you’re out of the house.
• Instead of flying to your destination, look into taking the train or traveling via motor coach (bus). These options produce significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than flying and depending on your destination, may just be more affordable, as well.

If you’re open to new possibilities, why not explore a sustainable vacation with a tour provider that’s got the planet’s best interest in mind. While these aren’t always less expensive than traditional options, good deals can often be found. Try out: Green Globe, Sustainable Travel International, or Rainforest Alliance’s Sustainable Tourism for unique and earth-benefiting getaways.

Transportation

Every year, we burn the equivalent of 9 billion gallons of gas stuck in traffic jams, congestion that is most common during the morning and afternoon commuting times. Over time, this number has gone nowhere but up. In addition to wasted fuel, employees also spend enormous amounts of time in their vehicles—about 47 hours each and every year. That’s a lot of wasted energy, talent, and time.

Studies show that when employees have a choice about their commuting schedule and support for choosing less stressful methods of getting to work, they are more satisfied with their jobs and more productive, too. Helping your employees make greener commuting choices is not only good for their health and good for your bottom line, it can also improve your green reputation.

• Take public transit instead of driving to work and you could cut your transportation costs by $8,000 annually.
• Opt to carpool with a fellow co-worker one day every week to shave $339 from your commute every year.
• Join a car share program and realize up to $6,500 in savings every year over owning and maintaining your own vehicle.
• Choose to telecommute to work just one day every week to reduce your gasoline costs by $1,000 every year.
• A compressed workweek schedule (four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days) will give you a long weekend, cut your commute expenses by 20 percent, and could save you $500 annually.
• Instead of driving a car to work, choose a power-assisted bicycle, such as the Avanti Electra, Schwinn’s Streamline, and the Stokemonkey. These generally have a range between 40 and 50 miles, can go between 14 and 30 mph, and can pay for themselves in as little as a few months in gas savings.
• Have your employees stay at Green Seal Certified hotels to ensure your company supports hotels that opt for products are in the top 25 percent in terms of efficiency.
• Both car and air travel are heavy polluting activities for getting to meetings and conferences. Choose to teleconference and you could cut your air travel significantly. Vodafone now requires that all employees justify their travel, a move that has saved the company 20 percent in just one year.
• Help employees carpool to work by offering incentives to those who do. This will save you money, too, since it costs between $2,000 and $5,000 to build a single-surface parking spot, and $10,000-$12,000 to build one spot in a three-story structure. Reducing the number of spots you need by encouraging carpooling can cut these expenses significantly.
• Parking stalls must be maintained at a cost of about 1.5 percent of the initial investment. Reduce the number of parking stalls you need and your maintenance costs, too by offering facilities to employees who bike, walk, or run to work. Divert five parking stalls from cars to facilities for bikers, a company could save anywhere between $10,000 and $60,000 annually.
• If every US commuter car carried just one more person to work every day, we’d save 8 billion gallons of gasoline.

Alternative Fuels/Power

Producing your own clean, renewable power is perhaps one of the most effective methods for you to limit your impact on climate change. By producing your own locally-grown energy with renewable technologies like solar, wind, micro-hydro, and geothermal, you’ll be removing your support from dirty energy and demonstrate to your friends and neighbours your commitment to fight global warming. Remember as well, that most renewable energy systems will qualify you for rebates or subsidies from the federal, state, or municipal governments: Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency.

• Perhaps the most obvious renewable energy solution for the average homeowner is solar photovoltaics. With this technology, all it takes are a few panels on your roof and you’re producing your own electricity with the power of the sun. You can alternatively install solar shingles or pole-mounted photovoltaics, depending on your home’s configuration. Regardless of your choice, you’ll have a system that guarantees the price you’ll pay for electricity for at least 25 years so you won’t have to worry about rising electricity costs, which are sure to come.
• The sun can also be used to produce warm water to use in your home (for showers, laundry, dishwashing, and more) as well as for your pool or spa. Solar water heaters are one of the most economical forms of renewable energy because of their lower up-front cost and quicker payback time.
• Growing in popularity are geothermal systems. These can be adapted in a number of different ways—they can produce electricity, provide hot water, and even heat and cool your home. They do have a longer payback time because of the higher capital costs, but geothermal systems last for decades and are one of the most reliable forms of renewable energy. They also add to your home’s value significantly.
• If you live out of town or are able to install a small turbine on your city home’s roof, wind energy may be a great option for you. These can be very economical and produce clean energy even when the sun isn’t shining.

One final option to those living near a water source is micro-hydro. By tapping into the energy in moving water without impacting the local stream or river, you can produce your own energy with very little expense.

Electronics

Whether it’s talking on your cell phone, watching TV, or playing online games, the electronics you use in your home could be adding to your monthly electricity bill. Only five percent of the energy used by cell phone chargers, for instance, goes to actually charging your phone; the rest is consumed when your phone isn’t even attached to the charger. Similar idle power drains—often called “phantom power” drains—occur with most electronic devices, including printers, computers, televisions, VCRs, DVD players, stereos, and more.

This unnecessary energy waste is completely preventable with a few simple and easy tricks. Buying more efficient models is certainly one way to save energy and money, but an even simpler, low-cost method is to enable your electronics’ power-saving features. You might just save enough to buy yourself an extra latte or video game!

• Look for the ENERGY STAR logo on all battery-powered devices you’re considering buying, whether it’s a power tool, a new electronic device, or a household appliance. These will come with battery charging systems that are 35 percent more efficient than standard models.
• Install a power strip to completely power-down all electronics, including televisions, computers, monitors, DVDs, VCRs, and set top boxes when they’re not in use. Although it’s difficult to estimate how much this will save one home since it depends on the quantity and efficiency of your electronics and the price of your power, as a nation, this could cut $750 million from our annual electricity bill.
• Choose an energy efficient television model to save $30+ every year on energy costs.
• If you’re television uses 130 watts, and your cable box 35 watts, and your electricity costs about $0.08 per kWh, one hour of television watching might cost $1.42. Save money by encouraging your kids to have one Green Hour every day away from the television and pocket the energy savings.
• LCD televisions are generally more efficient than plasma TVs, so choose a more efficient option to save up to $60 every year in power consumption.
• Choose a television with an energy-saving standby feature (and make sure it’s activated!) to save between $10 and $40 every year in electricity costs.
• If your television has a “quick start” or standby mode, consider turning it off. This mode typically consumed on the order of 50 times more power.
• Use your computer’s power management features to ensure it shuts down when not in use to save between $40 and $80 annually in electricity.
• If you’re in the market for a new computer, choose a laptop to save $25 in electricity yearly.
• Buy an ENERGY STAR television to save 30 percent in energy costs.
• Choose ENERGY STAR for your entire computer system (monitor, computer, printer, and fax) to save $115 in energy costs over the lifetime of your equipment.
• Although you’ll have to pay to power-up rechargeable batteries, and they cost more up-front to purchase, overall they will save on energy (it takes more energy to produce disposable batteries). An $80 charger and a $35 package of four rechargeable batteries could save you $670 in replacement costs over disposable batteries.
• Smoking adds pollutants to the atmosphere and your own body. Quit and you could save almost $1,500 every year.

Important People

We look to the heroes in our world for direction, inspiration, and motivation when fighting against impossible odds like those facing us today in the environmental community. Here are a few influential environmentalists you should watch as they change the world with their good green message.

• Perhaps one of the most influential environmentalists in Africa, Wangari Maathai is a fearless leader, working to improve human health, foster vibrant communities, and encourage women to become economically independent, all with a green angle. She was the first woman from Africa to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and started the Green Belt Movement.

• Despite the recent smear campaign against Van Jones, he is a leader in the environmental community worth watching. He has a knack for linking good jobs to social justice and environmentalism, skilfully connecting the dots and coming up with ambitious and innovative solutions for today’s greatest environmental problems.

• Founder of Better Place, Shai Agassi has a vision to make electric vehicles affordable and mainstream in short order. His solution is to provide battery swap stations that are powered by renewable energy, making personal vehicle ownership virtually emissions-free.

• Founder of Patagonia, a leading-edge, eco-friendly outdoors company, Yvon Chouinard has been experimenting with green concepts for over fifty years.
• Main character in An Inconvenient Truth and advocate for audacious climate goals, Al Gore is naturally one of the most well-recognized faces in the fight against global warming.
• An environmental hero in Canada and beyond, David Suzuki has been talking and writing and filming about the environmental challenges of our time for decades.
• If you’re looking for a humorous slant on the environmental movement, check out Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno for a quirky twist on the issues.
• Bringing the green to Hollywood, Ed Begley Jr. has been talkin’ up eco-friendly living for decades, too. He’s even got his own show, Living with Ed.

Videos

• Wangari Maathai

• Van Jones

• Shai Agassi

• Yvon Chouinard

New Products

Pushing the boundaries of existing technologies to find ways to produce energy, reduce the effects of climate change, and make our lives greener, healthier, and more productive is the task of the great thinkers of the world. Here are some of the projects they’ve been working on.

• Not necessarily new, but definitely significant in the fight against climate change, green roofs are super environmental. They help to mitigate stormwater runoff, provide habitat for wildlife and green spaces for humans, are a source of food, filter the air, and reduce the urban heat island effect.
• Electronic paper, which acts much like traditional tree-based paper, is being touted as an eco-friendly replacement. Epaper can be reused over and over again and works via microcapsules filled with particles that carry electric charges.
• Hydrogen power is perhaps one of the most sought-after forms of clean energy. If it can be harnessed safely and efficiently, hydrogen power has the potential to provide abundantly clean, infinitely renewable energy.
• Renewable energy comes in many forms, and scientists and engineers are working on better ways to turn the ocean’s waves into a source for clean energy. Wave energy has the potential to provide a significant portion of the world’s energy if it can be developed sustainably with little impact to ocean ecosystems.
• Another way to fight climate change is to remove heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide from the air. The process called carbon sequestration hopes to do just that by sinking carbon into the deep layers of the earth where it won’t contribute to the greenhouse effect.
• Some scientists hope to add to the renewable energy mix with ocean thermal energy conversion. The ocean absorbs enormous quantities of energy, so by taking advantage of the difference in temperature between the ocean’s surface and depths, they hope to produce electricity.
• The looming water crisis threatens to be even bigger than energy shortages, with the possibility of millions of people being negatively impacted by drought and serious lack of clean water. To combat this problem, many environmentalists and scientists are working on ways to remove salt from seawater, making it potable for the masses in a process called desalination.
• One more potentially positive source of renewable energy is algae. By employing algae to make biofuels, many hope we can generate energy using some of the smallest creatures on the planet.

What goes on outside your home is almost as important as what you’re doing to green your life indoors. Landscape and garden maintenance can make a big difference on your overall environmental impact depending on how you treat your soil, what you do with water, and whether you’re using your outdoor environment to cultivate spaces that are healthy for you and for local wildlife. But your gardening and landscaping habits also have an impact on your budget. Choosing green gardening and landscaping techniques will preserve your green thumb while also safe-guarding your green bank account.

• Plant just three trees strategically in your yard and you could save between $100 and $250 every year in energy bills. That’s because well-chosen and properly-placed trees will reduce summer air conditioning bills (by up to 50 percent) and cut winter heating bills (by up to 25 percent).
• Plant native species in your garden to cut irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide costs dramatically. Native plants are particularly well-suited to surviving in your local climate with no human intervention!
• Apply mulches in your vegetable garden, on your flower beds, and around trees and shrubs to prevent frost (and plant death), reduce irrigation costs, cut down on weeding requirements (and pesticides/herbicides), and more! Get low-cost mulching ideas at Less Lawn – Mulch for Less Moola.
• Install a rain barrel to collect rainwater and use it for irrigating your garden and lawn. Depending on how dry your climate is and how thirsty your plants are, you stand to easily pay for the barrel investment in no time at all.
• Choose a water-conserving irrigation system, like drip irrigation and soaker hoses, to reduce your water consumption outdoors by as much as 60 percent!
• If you’re charged by the weight or number of garbage bags you produce each week, consider using a mulching lawn mower. Rotting grass clippings—like other organic matter—adds to methane emissions (a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide), and to your waste disposal costs. Leaving the clippings on your lawn adds nutrients and prevent evaporation, too, which means you save on irrigation and fertilizer.
• Grow your own fruits and vegetables so that you can eat organic, locally-grown produce while in season. Growing your own takes a little time, but will save you money, especially when you consider that a single packet of tomato seeds can turn into over $40 worth of fresh, ripe tomatoes! Cut your gardening budget even more by saving your own seeds or participating in a seed exchange.
• Put your egg shells in your compost pile to add calcium and other minerals naturally to your garden.
• Think of the money you’ll save on medical bills by choosing organic gardening! Many of the common chemicals used as pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are poisonous to you, your family, and your pets. Save yourself the heartache and the cost of a trip to the emergency room by practicing organic gardening methods.
• The average gas-powered lawn mower adds 11 cars-worth of pollution to the atmosphere in just one hour! Riding mowers are worse, putting the equivalent of 34 cars-worth of pollution in the air in the same amount of time. In fact, they represent 5 percent of US air pollution! Get a push mower and you’ll no longer have to deal with gasoline or electric cords. They’re lightweight and easy to use, and will save you big-time in maintenance and operational costs.
• Cut down on the cost and hassle of messy trips to the gas station to get fuel for your gas-powered lawn mower by opting for an electric mower. These will cost you about $5/year in electricity and you can say goodbye to the stink and trial of spilled fuel. Many municipalities have rebates for exchanging gas-guzzlers for electric options.
• Get even more ideas for going green in your garden on a budget by checking out the No-cost gardening blog that challenges you to grow half of your food without a huge financial investment.

Demonstrating your commitment to living a greener lifestyle can be as simple as throwing on a pair of organic cotton jeans or a bamboo T-shirt. Even if people don’t readily notice your eco-friendly attire, you’ll know that you’ve made the choice to support sustainable clothing systems that limit the quantity of chemicals going into the environment for the sake of style.

• Looking for affordable, eco-friendly clothing made from organic cotton, bamboo, wool, and other green textiles can be a challenge. So if you’re looking for a deal, check out these sites for great green deals: Ecobunga.com and GoGreenDeals.com.
• Buy quality organic clothing rather than cheaply-made inexpensive clothing. Well-made clothing will last longer, stretching your investment in organic clothing much longer and driving your per-wear cost down, too.
• Want to get some stylish “new” clothing for free? Host a clothing exchange party for you and your friends! This is an especially great idea for kids clothes.
• When you can’t afford to purchase new organic clothes, go for secondhand sweaters, T-shirts, jeans, shoes, coats, and jackets. Buying at a thrift store, swap meet, or garage sale will save you money and will prevent perfectly good clothing from going to the landfill. Everyone wins!
• Dry cleaning your clothes is expensive, and it’s costly to the planet. The dry cleaning chemicalsused in the process have been linked to cancer as well as kidney, reproductive system, and liver damage and can cause nausea and dizziness. They will also pollute your indoor air. So save some cash by purchasing clothes that don’t require dry cleaning and/or choose to dry cleaning your clothes yourself using a safer at-home kit.
• Shop online. Even if your product is shipped via air transport, this can reduce the fuel expended to get the item to you by 40 percent.

Appliances

As Americans, we use a staggering amount of energy per capita. Although we make up only 5 percent of the population, we use 26 percent of the total energy consumed worldwide. A full 90 percent of that energy that we use in our homes goes to powering our appliances—dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, ovens, microwaves, and air conditioners, to name a few.

Air conditioners are the biggest energy hogs, claiming on average about 16 percent of residential electricity consumption. This is followed closely by heating appliances at 10 percent, refrigerators at 14 percent, and water heaters at 9 percent. Changes, both simple and complex, in how we use our appliances can have a significant impact on our energy consumption.

• Choose an ENERGY STAR washing machine the next time you need to replace your old one to save $145+ every year on utility bills. If your washer is 10+ years old, it’s time to replace.
• Look for the ENERGY STAR label on a new dehumidifier to save $20/year or $250 over the life of the unit.
• ENERGY STAR dishwashers cut energy costs by $30 over other models yearly.
• A front loading washing machine uses less energy for spinning than top-loaders and could save you up to $100 annually in electricity costs. Front-loaders also use less water and less detergent, saving you even more.
• Hang your laundry to dry instead of running the clothes dryer to save $135 in energy yearly.
• Choose a dryer with a temperature sensing control (rather than just a time-drying mechanism) to save 10 percent on drying costs. A moisture-sensing dryer will save 15 percent.
• Empty the lint screen on your dryer to save 30 percent or more on drying energy.
• Choose a gas dryer for your laundry; gas dryers cost between 15 and 20 cents per load, whereas an electric dryer costs between 30 and 40 cents per load.
• Choose the “air-dry” rather than the “heat-dry” setting on your dishwasher to save 15 to 50 percent off the energy used for a load of dishes. Save even more by just propping your dishwasher open to avoid drying altogether.
• Use your microwave to re-heat or cook food to save on cooking energy costs by 50 to 65 percent.
• Do small baking jobs in your toaster oven rather than an electric oven to cut your energy from 2.0 kWh to 0.9 kWh and save 50 percent in energy costs.
• A crockpot uses less than half the energy than an electric oven, and just over half of the energy of an electric convention oven.
• Install four faucet aerators and two low-flow showerheads to save $255 every year.
• Get a power monitor like the Wattson or the Kill-a-Watt to find out exactly how much energy your appliances and electronics are using and to estimate potential savings if they were shut off or upgraded to more efficient models.
• In many cases, only 5 percent of the energy used by your cell phone charger goes to charging your phone; the rest is wasted to heat. Plug your cell phone charger into a power strip and ensure it gets switched off when not in use to cut your cell phone energy consumption.
• A Smart Strip is a power strip that monitors power consumption and can sense when computers and other devices are on or off. When your devices are off, it shuts off the power to eliminate phantom power draws and will pay for itself in energy savings in as little as six weeks.
• Replacing a 20-year old refrigerator with an ENERGY STAR model could reduce that appliance’s energy costs by 60 percent.
• A refrigerator or freezer that was manufactured before 1993 could be costing you $140 every year in electricity. Fridges and freezers produced between 1993 and 2001 could be adding $60 to your early electric bill.
• The Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that on average, our appliances use 6,955 kWh of energy every year, which costs an average of $538 in energy. Many of these appliances use energy even when not operating.
• Use the energy-saving features on your appliances to save nearly $45 every year on electricity bills.
• Unplug your extra fridge to reap electricity savings valued at around $25 every year.
• Replace your old pool pump with a more efficient, and properly -sized model to reduce energy consumption by about $100.
• Run your pump for less than 3 hours per day (which will still maintain healthy water quality) to cut this energy consumption by up to 60 percent.

If you use a portable spa that’s used once a week, decrease the temperature three degrees when not in use to save 5-10 percent in heating costs.

Heating & Cooling

Of the $1,900 the average household pays yearly for energy bills, heating and cooling can account for half of that total bill. Much of this energy is wasted because of old, inefficient equipment, poor maintenance practices, and gaps in a home’s exterior envelop (insulation, windows, doors, and so on) which allows heat transfer to occur. Additional energy is wasted by heating and cooling our homes when they’re not even occupied.

As such a huge contributor to our carbon footprints and our monthly costs, addressing heating and cooling is very important. There are numerous actions you can take to improve your heating and cooling systems so that they function more efficiently and save you money, which will also make your home more comfortable and healthier to live in.

• A furnace upgrade from 0.50 to 0.96 AFUE will save you more than $215 every year on heating costs.
• Adjusting the shades on your windows can help to reduce heat transfer. Keep the shades raised during daylight hours in winter months to allow the sun’s heat into your home, and lower the shades during the day in summer months to keep solar heat out. This could cut your heating and cooling bills between $10 and $100 annually depending on your local climate, efficiency of your windows and shades, and direction your home faces.
• Save upwards of $33 every year on heating/cooling costs by weatherizing your doors and windows.
• Seal air leaks around your windows and doors, recessed lighting fixtures, ducts, plumbing and utility access points, water and furnace flues, electrical outlets and switches, and chimney flashing with caulking, weather stripping, and other weatherizing products. Energy savings will vary, but can be estimated with the Home Energy Saver Calculator.
• Upgrade your air conditioning unit from a SEER rating of 9.0 to 12.0 and cut cooling costs by $27 annually.
• Install an ENERGY STAR programmable thermostat to save $180 in heating and cooling costs every month. These devices regulate your home’s temperature for you on a pre-set schedule.
• Replace old heating and cooling equipment with ENERGY STAR models to reduce your heating/cooling costs by $200 annually.
• Increase the insulation in your basement to achieve savings upwards of $60 every year.
• Install a geothermal heat pump to heat and cool your home and save $600 in heating/cooling costs over the 20-year life of the system.
• Purchase an ENERGY STAR ceiling fan to reduce your energy costs by 50 percent and save more than $15/year on each cooling unit.
• Save up to 50 percent on energy bills by upgrading your old air conditioner with a new, more efficient model.
• If your heating ducts travel through uninsulated or unheated spaces like an attic or crawlspace, you could be losing energy. Improve your home’s efficiency by as much as 60 percent by insulating these ducts.
• Install low-e window films to existing windows to save approximately $21 every year.
• Incorporate passive solar designs—large insulated windows on south-facing walls, thermal mass materials for absorbing heat, etc—and you could lower your heating costs by more than 50 percent.
• Increase your air conditioner’s thermostat by 3F to save approximately $19 annually.
• Install additional insulation in your attic and save more than $100 on heating and cooling costs each year.

According to The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Handbook, a $150 tune-up can save the average homeowner 12 percent in heating costs, and save on average $385 every year.

Hot Water

Heating our residential water supply requires a big chunk of our annual budgets. On average, Americans allocate between 15 and 25 percent of their energy bills to water heating, making it third to space heating/cooling and kitchen appliances. Finding ways to cut down on the energy you consume to heat your water will put money back into your pocket and reduce your climate impact, too.

• Use cold water for washing laundry to save up to $63 every year in energy costs.
• Install a solar pool water heater for between $2,000 and $4,000. You could receive a return on this investment (compared to a traditional fossil fuel heater) in as little as 1.5 years.
• Install a high-quality pool cover to reduce your pool heating costs by up to 90 percent, which will also cut your water loss to evaporation by 70 percent.
• Insulate your water heater to cut energy costs by $15 annually.
• Hot water used for showering adds to your monthly water heating bill, so using less water to shower will reduce that utility expense. A low-flow showerhead can cost between $8 and $50 and will save you around $200/year depending on your water and energy costs.
• Add an insulation wrap to your hot water tank for about $20. This investment will pay for itself in a couple of months, and will then continue to save you money for years to come.
• Install a tankless (also called on-demand) water heating to save between $160 and $200 annually.
• Taking a shorter shower will reduce the amount of hot water you consumer on a monthly basis. And since it takes energy to heat and store your hot water, a shower timer can reduce your family’s utility costs by $25 for every minute less each person takes to get clean.
• Water costs energy, and hand washing requires more water—using your dishwasher could cut your water use by 37 percent.
• When buying a new dishwasher, choose one that comes with a booster heater for warming the incoming water from 120F to 140F. This allows you to reduce your water heater’s temperature to 120F without compromising on your dishwasher’s cleaning ability, and could save 10 percent in dishwashing energy costs.
• Don’t use the “rinse hold” feature on your dishwasher as this uses 3 to 7 more gallons of hot water each cycle it runs.

Close to 90 percent of the energy used for washing laundry is for heating the water, so wash your laundry in cold water to reduce energy consumption for that load by 50 percent.

Lighting

Improving your residence is likely a never-ending project if you own your own home. From lighting to landscaping to the exterior of your home, there are many opportunities for improving your building’s energy efficiency. Some require a big investment of time and money, while others are quick and easy.

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So, whether you’re taking on a weekend landscaping project, installing new lighting, or upgrading bathroom fixtures, you have many eco-preferable choices that will cut your energy consumption and leave more money in your pocket for future projects! Next time you’re out looking for items to upgrade your home with, refer to this list of tips to get some quick ideas for combining beauty with functionality and efficiency.

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which use 65 to 80 percent less energy and last 8-10 times longer. CFLs are a bit more expensive up front, but by replacing the five most-used bulbs in your home with CFLs, you will save $60 yearly.
• Choose light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to cut lighting energy use in both outdoor and indoor fixtures by 75+ percent. These bulbs last 22+ years and because they use solid-state technology, they’re virtually indestructible.
• Obtain the ENERGY STAR Advanced Lighting Package (ALP) designation for lighting throughout your home and save $65/year or 75 percent in energy costs.
• Use ENERGY STAR qualified strings of light-emitting diode (LED) decorative lights for your holiday decorating. These strings cost more up-front, but will use 75 percent less energy than conventional strands and last 10 times longer (they’re unbreakable!).
• Install light timers or motion sensors in rooms like your bathrooms, closets, the garage, or even hallways to save on lighting energy costs by between 35 and 45 percent for those fixtures.
• Replace old windows with ENERGY STAR qualified, high-efficiency, double- or triple-pane windows to cut heating and cooling costs by $125 to $340 yearly.
• Replace household equipment with ENERGY STAR models to save $450 every year in energy costs.
• Add storm windows to your home to reduce heat loss during the winter by 25-50 percent.
• Buy a green-certified home to reduce your overall energy consumption from an average of 16,000 GJ to 6,400 GJ.
• Whiten your roof to reduce cooling costs and save approximately $26 yearly.
• Plant three trees in optimum shading locations around your home to save between $100 and $250 every year in heating and cooling costs.
• Install an ENERGY STAR skylight which will be 40 percent more efficient than a conventional model.
• Use daylighting features in your home to decrease lighting energy requirements between 30 and 80 percent.
• Choose a skylight with a low-e coating to improve its efficiency by up to 30 percent.
• If a home oriented to the southwest that receives a lot of afternoon sun were oriented 20 degrees to the east, cooling requirements could drop by as much as 30 percent.
• Phantom power loads from VCRs, RVs, small appliances, and other electronics can add $47 to your energy bill every year.

Installing efficient showerheads throughout your home can cut water heating costs by as much as $21 every year.

Whole Home

Whether you know it or not, you consume energy with nearly everything you do in an average day. From the shower you take in the morning to the food you eat for breakfast to the mail the comes to your box every day to the consumer goods you purchase. It all has an impact on your carbon footprint, and to your wallet.

You can make a big difference for the planet by becoming more aware of how little habits and actions contribute to your overall energy consumption and then choosing to adjust your daily life accordingly. In the end, you’ll be preventing carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, and as is true with most green actions, you’ll be saving money, too.

• Take books out from your local library rather than buying new books. You’ll pay $20 every year in taxes to support your library and could easily see a return on that investment by borrowing one or two books instead of buying brand new.
• Instead of buying take-out food for lunch, bag your own lunch in reusable containers and save between $5 and $6 daily.
• The average American receives 41 pounds of unsolicited mail every year—on paper that requires the removal of trees and the use of energy to produce. Disposing of this unwanted mail costs our country $320 million every year. Cut your aggravation and paper-related energy use by contacting the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) to have your name added to the “do not mail” list.
• Buying and trashing thousands of diapers per child adds a significant energy burden to the environment. The average baby will go through $2,000-$3,000 worth of disposable diapers, whereas a three-year supply of cloth diapers will cost anywhere between $300 and $800.
• It takes 60-70 percent less energy to make recycled paper compared to paper made from virgin pulp, so purchase the highest possible post-consumer waste content paper possible.
• Installing a green roof can help you save energy and money in three ways: green roofs protect existing roof materials, protecting them from damage for many years longer than normal. They also cut down on heating and cooling costs in your home and can be a space where you grow your own fruits and vegetables.
• Make your own green cleaning products to cut down on cleaning costs. Eco-friendly cleaning products made at home will be non-toxic and easy to make.
• Compost your organic waste to save money every year in your garden. By making your own compost, you’ll save the cost of buying new soil amendments every spring, plus you’ll cut down on the energy it takes to haul away your waste.

Pushing the boundaries of existing technologies to find ways to produce energy, reduce the effects of climate change, and make our lives greener, healthier, and more productive is the task of the great thinkers of the world. Here are some of the projects they’ve been working on.

• Not necessarily new, but definitely significant in the fight against climate change, green roofs are super environmental. They help to mitigate stormwater runoff, provide habitat for wildlife and green spaces for humans, are a source of food, filter the air, and reduce the urban heat island effect.
• Electronic paper, which acts much like traditional tree-based paper, is being touted as an eco-friendly replacement. Epaper can be reused over and over again and works via microcapsules filled with particles that carry electric charges.
• Hydrogen power is perhaps one of the most sought-after forms of clean energy. If it can be harnessed safely and efficiently, hydrogen power has the potential to provide abundantly clean, infinitely renewable energy.
• Renewable energy comes in many forms, and scientists and engineers are working on better ways to turn the ocean’s waves into a source for clean energy. Wave energy has the potential to provide a significant portion of the world’s energy if it can be developed sustainably with little impact to ocean ecosystems.
• Another way to fight climate change is to remove heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide from the air. The process called carbon sequestration hopes to do just that by sinking carbon into the deep layers of the earth where it won’t contribute to the greenhouse effect.
• Some scientists hope to add to the renewable energy mix with ocean thermal energy conversion. The ocean absorbs enormous quantities of energy, so by taking advantage of the difference in temperature between the ocean’s surface and depths, they hope to produce electricity.
• The looming water crisis threatens to be even bigger than energy shortages, with the possibility of millions of people being negatively impacted by drought and serious lack of clean water. To combat this problem, many environmentalists and scientists are working on ways to remove salt from seawater, making it potable for the masses in a process called desalination.
• One more potentially positive source of renewable energy is algae. By employing algae to make biofuels, many hope we can generate energy using some of the smallest creatures on the planet.

Whether you know it or not, you consume energy with nearly everything you do in an average day. From the shower you take in the morning to the food you eat for breakfast to the mail the comes to your box every day to the consumer goods you purchase. It all has an impact on your carbon footprint, and to your wallet.

You can make a big difference for the planet by becoming more aware of how little habits and actions contribute to your overall energy consumption and then choosing to adjust your daily life accordingly. In the end, you’ll be preventing carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, and as is true with most green actions, you’ll be saving money, too.

• Take books out from your local library rather than buying new books. You’ll pay $20 every year in taxes to support your library and could easily see a return on that investment by borrowing one or two books instead of buying brand new.
• Instead of buying take-out food for lunch, bag your own lunch in reusable containers and save between $5 and $6 daily.
• The average American receives 41 pounds of unsolicited mail every year—on paper that requires the removal of trees and the use of energy to produce. Disposing of this unwanted mail costs our country $320 million every year. Cut your aggravation and paper-related energy use by contacting the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) to have your name added to the “do not mail” list.
• Buying and trashing thousands of diapers per child adds a significant energy burden to the environment. The average baby will go through $2,000-$3,000 worth of disposable diapers, whereas a three-year supply of cloth diapers will cost anywhere between $300 and $800.
• It takes 60-70 percent less energy to make recycled paper compared to paper made from virgin pulp, so purchase the highest possible post-consumer waste content paper possible.
• Installing a green roof can help you save energy and money in three ways: green roofs protect existing roof materials, protecting them from damage for many years longer than normal. They also cut down on heating and cooling costs in your home and can be a space where you grow your own fruits and vegetables.
• Make your own green cleaning products to cut down on cleaning costs. Eco-friendly cleaning products made at home will be non-toxic and easy to make.
• Compost your organic waste to save money every year in your garden. By making your own compost, you’ll save the cost of buying new soil amendments every spring, plus you’ll cut down on the energy it takes to haul away your waste.

They say you are what you eat. Likewise, the earth is what we eat, too! The more we pour conventional agricultural chemicals into our landscapes, the more polluted the planet becomes, harming us and our non-human friends as well. Choosing organic food is a great way to reduce your impact on the planet and promote good health in the process. And we know that when we’re healthier, we’re more productive and less prone to requiring trips to the doctor. So eating healthier means saving money, too!

• Buy food in season! These fruits and vegetables will have traveled a shorter distance and therefore be fresher (and healthier!). And because they’re in season, they’ll also be cheaper.
• Cut prepared foods out of your diet. Pre-packaged foods are usually more expensive than cooking at home and they’re higher in preservatives, fat, salt, white flour, and other unhealthy ingredients, making them pricier for your wallet and pricier in terms of your health.
• Get your produce from a local CSA (Community Support Agriculture) organization to get inexpensive, often organic fruits and veggies delivered to your door! You’ll save money on gas for trips to the grocer, too. Find a CSA via LocalHarvest.
• Farmer’s Markets are great places to find locally-grown, often organic food options of all types that usually cost less than what you’d find at the grocery store. They’re also a lot of fun and support your local economy. Find a market with FarmersMarket.com.
• Eat at home rather than at a restaurant. Doing so will reduce your gasoline bills and save you at the till, too, since most restaurant meals are costlier than home-cooked options. Plus, they’re usually healthier, which means smaller medical bills in the long-run, too.
• Choose store-brand organic foods to save money of Certified Organic options. These are usually good quality but more affordable than name-brand items.
• Ruminating animals (cows, sheep, goats, etc) add significantly to climate change by emitting a powerful greenhouse gas: methane. Eat one less pound of beef weekly to save $109 yearly in food costs.
• Whether you buy your food at the local farmer’s market, the grocery store, or grow it in your own backyard, canning, dehydrating, and otherwise preserving food is a great way to enjoy season foods year-round—at a fraction of the cost. Check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation for ideas and tips.

If you can’t afford to buy all of your food organically, go for those options that would otherwise be the most laced with pesticides. Check out this Dirty Dozen list for those fruits and veggies that should be at the top of your “organic foods to buy” list.

Heating our residential water supply requires a big chunk of our annual budgets. On average, Americans allocate between 15 and 25 percent of their energy bills to water heating, making it third to space heating/cooling and kitchen appliances. Finding ways to cut down on the energy you consume to heat your water will put money back into your pocket and reduce your climate impact, too.

• Use cold water for washing laundry to save up to $63 every year in energy costs.
• Install a solar pool water heater for between $2,000 and $4,000. You could receive a return on this investment (compared to a traditional fossil fuel heater) in as little as 1.5 years.
• Install a high-quality pool cover to reduce your pool heating costs by up to 90 percent, which will also cut your water loss to evaporation by 70 percent.
• Insulate your water heater to cut energy costs by $15 annually.
• Hot water used for showering adds to your monthly water heating bill, so using less water to shower will reduce that utility expense. A low-flow showerhead can cost between $8 and $50 and will save you around $200/year depending on your water and energy costs.
• Add an insulation wrap to your hot water tank for about $20. This investment will pay for itself in a couple of months, and will then continue to save you money for years to come.
• Install a tankless (also called on-demand) water heating to save between $160 and $200 annually.
• Taking a shorter shower will reduce the amount of hot water you consumer on a monthly basis. And since it takes energy to heat and store your hot water, a shower timer can reduce your family’s utility costs by $25 for every minute less each person takes to get clean.
• Water costs energy, and hand washing requires more water—using your dishwasher could cut your water use by 37 percent.
• When buying a new dishwasher, choose one that comes with a booster heater for warming the incoming water from 120F to 140F. This allows you to reduce your water heater’s temperature to 120F without compromising on your dishwasher’s cleaning ability, and could save 10 percent in dishwashing energy costs.
• Don’t use the “rinse hold” feature on your dishwasher as this uses 3 to 7 more gallons of hot water each cycle it runs.

Close to 90 percent of the energy used for washing laundry is for heating the water, so wash your laundry in cold water to reduce energy consumption for that load by 50 percent.

Improving your residence is likely a never-ending project if you own your own home. From lighting to landscaping to the exterior of your home, there are many opportunities for improving your building’s energy efficiency. Some require a big investment of time and money, while others are quick and easy.

So, whether you’re taking on a weekend landscaping project, installing new lighting, or upgrading bathroom fixtures, you have many eco-preferable choices that will cut your energy consumption and leave more money in your pocket for future projects! Next time you’re out looking for items to upgrade your home with, refer to this list of tips to get some quick ideas for combining beauty with functionality and efficiency.

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which use 65 to 80 percent less energy and last 8-10 times longer. CFLs are a bit more expensive up front, but by replacing the five most-used bulbs in your home with CFLs, you will save $60 yearly.
• Choose light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to cut lighting energy use in both outdoor and indoor fixtures by 75+ percent. These bulbs last 22+ years and because they use solid-state technology, they’re virtually indestructible.
• Obtain the ENERGY STAR Advanced Lighting Package (ALP) designation for lighting throughout your home and save $65/year or 75 percent in energy costs.
• Use ENERGY STAR qualified strings of light-emitting diode (LED) decorative lights for your holiday decorating. These strings cost more up-front, but will use 75 percent less energy than conventional strands and last 10 times longer (they’re unbreakable!).
• Install light timers or motion sensors in rooms like your bathrooms, closets, the garage, or even hallways to save on lighting energy costs by between 35 and 45 percent for those fixtures.
• Replace old windows with ENERGY STAR qualified, high-efficiency, double- or triple-pane windows to cut heating and cooling costs by $125 to $340 yearly.
• Replace household equipment with ENERGY STAR models to save $450 every year in energy costs.
• Add storm windows to your home to reduce heat loss during the winter by 25-50 percent.
• Buy a green-certified home to reduce your overall energy consumption from an average of 16,000 GJ to 6,400 GJ.
• Whiten your roof to reduce cooling costs and save approximately $26 yearly.
• Plant three trees in optimum shading locations around your home to save between $100 and $250 every year in heating and cooling costs.
• Install an ENERGY STAR skylight which will be 40 percent more efficient than a conventional model.
• Use daylighting features in your home to decrease lighting energy requirements between 30 and 80 percent.
• Choose a skylight with a low-e coating to improve its efficiency by up to 30 percent.
• If a home oriented to the southwest that receives a lot of afternoon sun were oriented 20 degrees to the east, cooling requirements could drop by as much as 30 percent.
• Phantom power loads from VCRs, RVs, small appliances, and other electronics can add $47 to your energy bill every year.

Installing efficient showerheads throughout your home can cut water heating costs by as much as $21 every year.

Concerns over climate change and rising fuel costs have more people turning to biofuels than every before. Whether you’re interested in burning a biodiesel blend in your current vehicle or converting an old car to run on straight vegetable oil, you may be able to reduce your fuel costs, save money, and help the environment by looking into alternative fuel sources for your driving needs. To get an idea of what’s involved in using bio fuels in your vehicle, check out these basic instructions for choosing biodiesel or bio fuel.

Maintenance

Besides driving more efficiently, you can also save money and improve your vehicles fuel efficiency by keeping it in good working order. Proper maintenance and care are essential for anyone wishing to reduce their monthly and yearly auto bills.

• Driving on underinflated tires will subtract 0.4 percent from your overall vehicle fuel efficiency. Doing a monthly check of your tires can save you 7 cents/gallon.
• Maintain your vehicle by having it tuned-up regularly to improve fuel economy by 4 percent, which will save you $0.10/gallon.
• During your next oil change, make sure you get the recommended grade of motor oil to improve fuel efficiency by 1-2 percent.
• If you’ve got an older car, replacing clogged or dirty air filters will help to prevent debris from getting into your engine, thus making it more fuel efficient.
• Regularly replace the oil filter in your vehicle to help your car running efficiently.
• Make sure that your tires are aligned properly. Misaligned tires will cause engine drag, which will further degrease your fuel efficiency.
• Regular oil changes will help to increase fuel efficiency, since smooth-flowing oil will reduce friction in the moving parts of your engine. This will also extend the useful life of your engine.

Converting your vehicle to run on biodiesel

Running your diesel vehicle on biodiesel is a great way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You can choose to run your vehicle on commercially-available biodiesel blends which generally don’t go higher than 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petrodiesel, commonly known as B20. If, however, you want run your vehicle on 100 percent biodiesel, or B100, it will require some vehicle modifications if you intend to use a blend that contains more than 20 percent biodiesel.

1. Up-front vehicle changes

• a. Biodiesel is an excellent solvent, so your vehicle will go through an intense time of transition. Petrodiesel leaves waxy, grimy deposits in your fuel tank and hoses. Over the course of several weeks when first using biodiesel, the biodiesel will slowly dissolve sediment deposits in your vehicle’s engine, requiring frequent filter changes.
• b. If your engine uses rubber components in any of its systems, these will need to be replaced with rot-resistant parts. Viton is the preferred material.

2. Ongoing maintenance requirements

• a. Running a vehicle on biodiesel will require more frequent filter changes ongoing as well due to the solvent nature of the fuel.
• b. Diesel vehicles don’t have electronic fuel injection systems like gasoline vehicles, and as such, the injector pump (IP) will need to be primed. This is done by pumping the diesel fuel into the IP from the tank.

Compared to running your vehicle on biofuels, the vehicle modifications in this system are quite a bit less involved. However, if you choose to make your own biodiesel, either from virgin or waste vegetable oil, it will require a significant ongoing time commitment to process the vegetable oil into biodiesel in a relatively dangerous chemical process.

Nevertheless, it can cost less to run your vehicle on biodiesel. The initial cost to convert your vehicle is very little (the price of some filters and rubber component replacements) and if you make your biodiesel, it can cost between $300 and $13,000 to get a processor up and running. Making your own biodiesel after these initial costs are accounted for can range from $0.40/gallon to $3/gallon, depending on where you source your oil.

Additionally, biodiesel burns more cleanly than petrodiesel. In fact, even a 20:80 blend of biodiesel and petrodiesel means a 15 percent reduction in carbon dioxide (CO₂), and also cuts down on particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), and sulphur dioxide (SO₂). Pure biodiesel can result in a 90 percent decline in air toxins. Biodiesel also produces about 95 percent less toxic waste than petrodiesel, although it also creates about twice as much nontoxic solid waste (in the form of unprocessed plant material).

Converting your vehicle to run on biofuel

Using straight (SVO) or waste vegetable oil (WVO) as a fuel requires modifications to be made to your diesel vehicle engine rather than modifications to the fuel itself (although the oil is filtered).

1. One- or two-tank conversion? The basic premise is to add either a one- or two-tank system that will be used to heat the vegetable oil. Veggie oil is very viscose and so must be heated to run in your vehicle properly in order to prevent coking, liquid fuel leakage past unsealed rings, and contamination of lubricating oil. Here are the two options:

• a. One-tank system: With this option, you fundamentally alter the stock fuel system to run the vehicle on 100 percent vegetable oil, but can only be used on vehicles run in warmer climates that never go below -40F. Many one-tank system users either blend their vegetable oil with petroleum diesel or add a solvent such as turpentine, paint stripper, kerosene, or naphthalene.
• b. Two-tank system: Here the stock fuel system is left untouched and an entirely new, secondary fuel system is added (the second tank). The stock fuel system runs on petrodiesel for start-up and shut-down, and then switches to the second tank to run on vegetable oil. The secondary tank heats the oil to 160F or higher. This method results in fewer engine problems, does not reduce the life of the vehicle, is an easy conversion, and much safer to operate.

2. Parts needed: The parts required for using biofuels include:

• a. Heated fuel tank: To warm the vegetable oil.
• b. Heated fuel lines: To keep the heated oil warm as it travels through the engine.
• c. Heated vegetable oil filter: Generally heated, these provide filtration to at least the same micron level as the stock fuel filter.
• d. Final fuel heater: To raise the fuel temperature to minimum injection levels.
• e. Valves: To correctly direct the fuel as needed, with automatic or manual controls.
• f. Indicators: Used by the driver to monitor the system

3. Oil collection: To run a vehicle on WVO, oil will have to be collected. Many restaurants will give away their oil for free to avoid paying disposal costs, but you must negotiate an agreement with them.

4. Oil filtration: Once the oil is collected, it should be filtered to remove any large debris.

5. Oil storage: Vegetable oil can degrade over time if left exposed to air, sunlight, and moisture. It therefore should be stored in a cool, dry location in sealed drums.

6. Legal implications: It should be noted that using vegetable oil as fuel is illegal and therefore should be done with due consideration.

Although many biofuel advocates suggest that you save as much as 75 percent on your fuel bills by using vegetable oil as fuel, how much you save by running your vehicle on biofuel will depend on many factors, including:

• Type of oil: If brand new pure or straight vegetable oil is used, the cost for using this fuel can be quite prohibitive, especially as costs for certain crops, such as corn, continue to rise. Waste vegetable is generally the most cost effective as it is often free.
• Cost of time: You will have to put some time in to collecting and filtering your oil, as well as time to modify your vehicle and maintain it on a regular basis.
• Vehicle conversion: There are some up-front costs to converting your vehicle, which fall somewhere between $300 and several thousand dollars.
• Original vehicle efficiency: The fuel efficiency of your vehicle won’t change much when using veggie oil, so this will have to be taken into consideration.

The greatest environmental benefit to running a vehicle on SVO or WVO is the reduction in pollutants. Compared to petrodiesel, vegetable oil is 75 percent cleaner, and results in fewer carbon dioxide, sulphur oxide, carbon monoxide, air toxics, unburned hydrocarbons, and particulate emissions.

Resources for Biofuel and Biodiesel Users

Today, there are more and more cooperative organizations allowing individuals to organize around various interests. Those wishing to use either straight vegetable oil or biodiesel have been enthusiastic about getting together for the purposes of supporting each other’s efforts. Here are a few of those types of organizations:

• The Biodiesel Collective Conference (http://www.collectivebiodiesel.org/coops/index.php): This is their site for bodiesel coops located through North America, listed by state/province.
• Fusel (http://www.fusel.com/vegoil_sites.html): Has a good list of vegetable oil-related communities throughout the country.
• Vegoil Yahoo! Groups (http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/vegoil-diesel/): Join this group for all kinds of resources for vegetable oil enthusiasts.

The WVO community has developed largely out of necessity. The messy nature of filtering and using WVO as a fuel has keep many people from really investing in this work, resulting in small groups of people banding together to find solutions and develop systems to make the job easier.

Online communities are popping up everywhere to meet the need, many of which have good listings of potential sources for used cooking oil in your area. Cooperatives are essentially a collection of people who pool their efforts to benefit one another: build or buy a filtration system, collect a communal supply of WVO, or just swap ideas.

Check out these options to see if they’ve got listings suitable for your requirements:

• Fillup4Free (http://fillup4free.com/): Use their interactive map to add yourself to the community and then find people who have WVO to give away or sell.
• Good grease (http://www.goodgrease.com/search/node/wvo+for+sale): Has an ongoing list of vendors with WVO for sale or for free!). Use their search tool with keywords like “WVO for sale Dallas” to find what you’re looking for.
• Lovecraft Bio-Fuels (http://www.lovecraftbiofuels.com/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=40&func=showcat&catid=7): Provides a place for vendors to post WVO for sale.
• Community Partner (http://www.commoditypartner.com/): This side has a nice search feature that lets you filter results by region, quantity minimums and maximums, and frequency.
• Biodiesel Now (http://www.biodieselnow.com/forums/118.aspx): Like Good Grease, Biodiesel Now has a community board where suppliers post listings of WVO for sale.

Craigslist (http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites): Like many other general-purpose sites, Craigslist may be a source for finding used vegetable oil. Just look for your city’s local Craigslist site, then search for WVO or SVO or some other keyword. You never know what you might find!

As Americans, we use a staggering amount of energy per capita. Although we make up only 5 percent of the population, we use 26 percent of the total energy consumed worldwide. A full 90 percent of that energy that we use in our homes goes to powering our appliances—dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, ovens, microwaves, and air conditioners, to name a few.

Air conditioners are the biggest energy hogs, claiming on average about 16 percent of residential electricity consumption. This is followed closely by heating appliances at 10 percent, refrigerators at 14 percent, and water heaters at 9 percent. Changes, both simple and complex, in how we use our appliances can have a significant impact on our energy consumption.

• Choose an ENERGY STAR washing machine the next time you need to replace your old one to save $145+ every year on utility bills. If your washer is 10+ years old, it’s time to replace.
• Look for the ENERGY STAR label on a new dehumidifier to save $20/year or $250 over the life of the unit.
• ENERGY STAR dishwashers cut energy costs by $30 over other models yearly.
• A front loading washing machine uses less energy for spinning than top-loaders and could save you up to $100 annually in electricity costs. Front-loaders also use less water and less detergent, saving you even more.
• Hang your laundry to dry instead of running the clothes dryer to save $135 in energy yearly.
• Choose a dryer with a temperature sensing control (rather than just a time-drying mechanism) tosave 10 percent on drying costs. A moisture-sensing dryer will save 15 percent.
• Empty the lint screen on your dryer to save 30 percent or more on drying energy.
• Choose a gas dryer for your laundry; gas dryers cost between 15 and 20 cents per load, whereas an electric dryer costs between 30 and 40 cents per load.
• Choose the “air-dry” rather than the “heat-dry” setting on your dishwasher to save 15 to 50 percent off the energy used for a load of dishes. Save even more by just propping your dishwasher open to avoid drying altogether.
• Use your microwave to re-heat or cook food to save on cooking energy costs by 50 to 65 percent.
• Do small baking jobs in your toaster oven rather than an electric oven to cut your energy from 2.0 kWh to 0.9 kWh and save 50 percent in energy costs.
• A crockpot uses less than half the energy than an electric oven, and just over half of the energy of an electric convention oven.
• Install four faucet aerators and two low-flow showerheads to save $255 every year.
• Get a power monitor like the Wattson or the Kill-a-Watt to find out exactly how much energy your appliances and electronics are using and to estimate potential savings if they were shut off or upgraded to more efficient models.
• In many cases, only 5 percent of the energy used by your cell phone charger goes to charging your phone; the rest is wasted to heat. Plug your cell phone charger into a power strip and ensure it gets switched off when not in use to cut your cell phone energy consumption.
• A Smart Strip is a power strip that monitors power consumption and can sense when computers and other devices are on or off. When your devices are off, it shuts off the power to eliminate phantom power draws and will pay for itself in energy savings in as little as six weeks.
• Replacing a 20-year old refrigerator with an ENERGY STAR model could reduce that appliance’s energy costs by 60 percent.
• A refrigerator or freezer that was manufactured before 1993 could be costing you $140 every year in electricity. Fridges and freezers produced between 1993 and 2001 could be adding $60 to your early electric bill.
• The Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that on average, our appliances use 6,955 kWh of energy every year, which costs an average of $538 in energy. Many of these appliances use energy even when not operating.
• Use the energy-saving features on your appliances to save nearly $45 every year on electricity bills.
• Unplug your extra fridge to reap electricity savings valued at around $25 every year.
• Replace your old pool pump with a more efficient, and properly -sized model to reduce energy consumption by about $100.
• Run your pump for less than 3 hours per day (which will still maintain healthy water quality) to cut this energy consumption by up to 60 percent.

If you use a portable spa that’s used once a week, decrease the temperature three degrees when not in use tosave 5-10 percent in heating costs.

Of the $1,900 the average household pays yearly for energy bills, heating and cooling can account for half of that total bill. Much of this energy is wasted because of old, inefficient equipment, poor maintenance practices, and gaps in a home’s exterior envelop (insulation, windows, doors, and so on) which allows heat transfer to occur. Additional energy is wasted by heating and cooling our homes when they’re not even occupied.

As such a huge contributor to our carbon footprints and our monthly costs, addressing heating and cooling is very important. There are numerous actions you can take to improve your heating and cooling systems so that they function more efficiently and save you money, which will also make your home more comfortable and healthier to live in.

• A furnace upgrade from 0.50 to 0.96 AFUE will save you more than $215 every year on heating costs.
• Adjusting the shades on your windows can help to reduce heat transfer. Keep the shades raised during daylight hours in winter months to allow the sun’s heat into your home, and lower the shades during the day in summer months to keep solar heat out. This could cut your heating and cooling bills between $10 and $100 annually depending on your local climate, efficiency of your windows and shades, and direction your home faces.
• Save upwards of $33 every year on heating/cooling costs by weatherizing your doors and windows.
• Seal air leaks around your windows and doors, recessed lighting fixtures, ducts, plumbing and utility access points, water and furnace flues, electrical outlets and switches, and chimney flashing with caulking, weather stripping, and other weatherizing products. Energy savings will vary, but can be estimated with the Home Energy Saver Calculator.
• Upgrade your air conditioning unit from a SEER rating of 9.0 to 12.0 and cut cooling costs by $27 annually.
• Install an ENERGY STAR programmable thermostat to save $180 in heating and cooling costsevery month. These devices regulate your home’s temperature for you on a pre-set schedule.
• Replace old heating and cooling equipment with ENERGY STAR models to reduce your heating/cooling costs by $200 annually.
• Increase the insulation in your basement to achieve savings upwards of $60 every year.
• Install a geothermal heat pump to heat and cool your home and save $600 in heating/cooling costs over the 20-year life of the system.
• Purchase an ENERGY STAR ceiling fan to reduce your energy costs by 50 percent and save more than $15/year on each cooling unit.
• Save up to 50 percent on energy bills by upgrading your old air conditioner with a new, more efficient model.
• If your heating ducts travel through uninsulated or unheated spaces like an attic or crawlspace, you could be losing energy. Improve your home’s efficiency by as much as 60 percent by insulating these ducts.
• Install low-e window films to existing windows to save approximately $21 every year.
• Incorporate passive solar designs—large insulated windows on south-facing walls, thermal mass materials for absorbing heat, etc—and you could lower your heating costs by more than 50 percent.
• Increase your air conditioner’s thermostat by 3F to save approximately $19 annually.
• Install additional insulation in your attic and save more than $100 on heating and cooling costs each year.

According to The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Handbook, a $150 tune-up can save the average homeowner 12 percent in heating costs, and save on average $385 every year.

Powering our vehicles with renewable energy—like wind and solar—is a highly effective way to reduce our personal carbon footprints. The rise in fuel prices combined with renewed concern over climate change has significantly increased the interest the auto industry is paying to alternative energy when it comes to how they develop new vehicles. Here are the latest developments.

• Nissan released the Leaf electric car on August 3, 2009, hoping to provide the first mass-market zero-emissions vehicle. The battery, which charges overnight, is said to have a 100-mile range. You’ll even be able to check in on your car through your iPhone.
• REVA is an under $20,000 electric car that reaches speeds of 50 mph and comes out of India.
• The all-electric E6 vehicle by China’s BYD could be available in the US by 2010 (ahead of its 2011 schedule). The battery’s range is suggested to reach about 186 miles (300 km) per charge.
• The $100,000 Tesla Roadster electric vehicle goes from zero to 60 in four seconds or less and packs a battery with a 200-mile range.
• The Chevy Volt electric car is supposed to get 230 miles per gallon city driving according to closed circuit tests. Real-world tests will confirm whether this will actually be the vehicle’s average city driving mileage rate.
• Daimler is set to begin rolling Smart ForTwo electric cars off the production line in November 2009 in France. It will have a Tesla Motors lithium-ion battery pack that gets about 71 miles before needing a charge.
• The BMW Vision EfficientDynamics car was unveiled in early September 2009. It is anticipated to reach top speeds of 155 mph. The battery charges in about 2.5 hours and will go about 31 miles in electric mode-only.
• UCFlorida has purchased the Zenn car, a plug-in electric vehicle with 3 solar panels attached to the roof to make it 100 percent solar powered. The vehicle can only go about 15 miles, but it that works for this vehicle that travels only around campus.
• MIT students have developed a 90 mph solar-powered car that will race for 7 days in the World Solar Challenge in October2009.
• The Prius 10 by Toyota has an optional solar-powered ventilation system that cools the interior of the vehicle while it’s parked.
• The BlueCar EV by Pininfaria and Bolloré is equipped with a lithium-ion battery with supercapacitors, and has roof- and hood-mounted solar cells. It will go into production in 2011 in France and Canada.

Enermotion is a company that converts the Prius by installing photovoltaics and a back-up battery supply. This will provide additional electric charge to the motor and will extend the driving range while the factory battery pack recharges itself.

Every year, we drive our vehicles millions of miles combined as a nation—together, we burn about 113.1 billion gasoline-equivalent gallons of fuel per passenger annually. Every mile represents more carbon dioxide and other air pollutants, more energy for maintaining roadways, and more energy for repairing and manufacturing our vehicles. It’s a pretty big toll on the environment.

Even if it’s not in the budget right now to purchase a new, more fuel efficient vehicle, there are many simple and inexpensive things you can do to improve the efficiency of your car, truck, or SUV. From removing excess weight in your trunk to maintaining your vehicle on a regular schedule—it all adds up to a more efficient ride, and of course cash savings, as well.

• Remove weighty items from your trunk to improve your mileage by 1-2 percent for every 100 pounds removed.
• For every 5 miles per hour you slow down on the highway, you’ll improve fuel consumption by 7 -23 percent and cut fuel costs by $0.17-$0.56/gallon.
• Stop idling your car and save $0.01/gallon for every two minutes your car is shut off.
• Drive less aggressively (foot lightly on the pedals) and you’ll raise your gas mileage by as much as 33 percent, saving you between $0.12 and $0.81 per gallon.
• Reduce the total number of miles you drive each month by combining trips or choosing alternative forms of transportation (walking or public transit, for instance). Reduce the total miles by 5 percent to save up to $65 yearly on gas costs.
• Remove your unused roof rack or carrier to improve fuel economy by 5 percent.
• Your car’s a/c unit will use the most energy when on the maximum setting. Turn it down to improve fuel efficiency by 5-25 percent.

Use a GPS navigation system to avoid traffic congestion and find the most efficient route to your destination to avoid waste fuel.

No doubt, you can save a lot of money every year by purchasing a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Although some may take a little longer to pay off, overall, the eco-investment in a fuel-sipping vehicle will result in financial benefits, as well.

Here’s a summary of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Vehicle picks. Their SmartWayratings give you an impartial comparison of vehicle fuel efficiency. You may also want to refer to Edmunds, a site that also frequently lists their Top 10 Green Car choices as well.

Fuel Efficient Vehicles

No doubt, you can save a lot of money every year by purchasing a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Although some may take a little longer to pay off, overall, the eco-investment in a fuel-sipping vehicle will result in financial benefits, as well.

Here’s a summary of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Vehicle picks. Their SmartWay ratings give you an impartial comparison of vehicle fuel efficiency. You may also want to refer toEdmunds, a site that also frequently lists their Top 10 Green Car choices as well.

Improving Gas Mileage

Every year, we drive our vehicles millions of miles combined as a nation—together, we burn about 113.1 billion gasoline-equivalent gallons of fuel per passenger annually. Every mile represents more carbon dioxide and other air pollutants, more energy for maintaining roadways, and more energy for repairing and manufacturing our vehicles. It’s a pretty big toll on the environment.

Even if it’s not in the budget right now to purchase a new, more fuel efficient vehicle, there are many simple and inexpensive things you can do to improve the efficiency of your car, truck, or SUV. From removing excess weight in your trunk to maintaining your vehicle on a regular schedule—it all adds up to a more efficient ride, and of course cash savings, as well.

• Remove weighty items from your trunk to improve your mileage by 1-2 percent for every 100 pounds removed.
• For every 5 miles per hour you slow down on the highway, you’ll improve fuel consumption by 7 -23 percent and cut fuel costs by $0.17-$0.56/gallon.
• Stop idling your car and save $0.01/gallon for every two minutes your car is shut off.
• Drive less aggressively (foot lightly on the pedals) and you’ll raise your gas mileage by as much as 33 percent, saving you between $0.12 and $0.81 per gallon.
• Reduce the total number of miles you drive each month by combining trips or choosing alternative forms of transportation (walking or public transit, for instance). Reduce the total miles by 5 percent to save up to $65 yearly on gas costs.
• Remove your unused roof rack or carrier to improve fuel economy by 5 percent.
• Your car’s a/c unit will use the most energy when on the maximum setting. Turn it down to improve fuel efficiency by 5-25 percent.

Use a GPS navigation system to avoid traffic congestion and find the most efficient route to your destination to avoid waste fuel.

Concerns over climate change and rising fuel costs have more people turning to biofuels than every before. Whether you’re interested in burning a biodiesel blend in your current vehicle or converting an old car to run on straight vegetable oil, you may be able to reduce your fuel costs, save money, and help the environment by looking into alternative fuel sources for your driving needs. To get an idea of what’s involved in using bio fuels in your vehicle, check out these basic instructions for choosing biodiesel or bio fuel.

Maintenance

Besides driving more efficiently, you can also save money and improve your vehicles fuel efficiency by keeping it in good working order. Proper maintenance and care are essential for anyone wishing to reduce their monthly and yearly auto bills.

• Driving on underinflated tires will subtract 0.4 percent from your overall vehicle fuel efficiency. Doing a monthly check of your tires can save you 7 cents/gallon.
• Maintain your vehicle by having it tuned-up regularly to improve fuel economy by 4 percent, which will save you $0.10/gallon.
• During your next oil change, make sure you get the recommended grade of motor oil to improve fuel efficiency by 1-2 percent.
• If you’ve got an older car, replacing clogged or dirty air filters will help to prevent debris from getting into your engine, thus making it more fuel efficient.
• Regularly replace the oil filter in your vehicle to help your car running efficiently.
• Make sure that your tires are aligned properly. Misaligned tires will cause engine drag, which will further degrease your fuel efficiency.
• Regular oil changes will help to increase fuel efficiency, since smooth-flowing oil will reduce friction in the moving parts of your engine. This will also extend the useful life of your engine.

Converting your vehicle to run on biodiesel

Running your diesel vehicle on biodiesel is a great way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You can choose to run your vehicle on commercially-available biodiesel blends which generally don’t go higher than 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petrodiesel, commonly known as B20. If, however, you want run your vehicle on 100 percent biodiesel, or B100, it will require some vehicle modifications if you intend to use a blend that contains more than 20 percent biodiesel.

1. Up-front vehicle changes

• a. Biodiesel is an excellent solvent, so your vehicle will go through an intense time of transition. Petrodiesel leaves waxy, grimy deposits in your fuel tank and hoses. Over the course of several weeks when first using biodiesel, the biodiesel will slowly dissolve sediment deposits in your vehicle’s engine, requiring frequent filter changes.
• b. If your engine uses rubber components in any of its systems, these will need to be replaced with rot-resistant parts. Viton is the preferred material.

2. Ongoing maintenance requirements

• a. Running a vehicle on biodiesel will require more frequent filter changes ongoing as well due to the solvent nature of the fuel.
• b. Diesel vehicles don’t have electronic fuel injection systems like gasoline vehicles, and as such, the injector pump (IP) will need to be primed. This is done by pumping the diesel fuel into the IP from the tank.

Compared to running your vehicle on biofuels, the vehicle modifications in this system are quite a bit less involved. However, if you choose to make your own biodiesel, either from virgin or waste vegetable oil, it will require a significant ongoing time commitment to process the vegetable oil into biodiesel in a relatively dangerous chemical process.

Nevertheless, it can cost less to run your vehicle on biodiesel. The initial cost to convert your vehicle is very little (the price of some filters and rubber component replacements) and if you make your biodiesel, it can cost between $300 and $13,000 to get a processor up and running. Making your own biodiesel after these initial costs are accounted for can range from $0.40/gallon to $3/gallon, depending on where you source your oil.

Additionally, biodiesel burns more cleanly than petrodiesel. In fact, even a 20:80 blend of biodiesel and petrodiesel means a 15 percent reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2), and also cuts down on particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), and sulphur dioxide (SO2). Pure biodiesel can result in a 90 percent decline in air toxins. Biodiesel also produces about 95 percent less toxic waste than petrodiesel, although it also creates about twice as much nontoxic solid waste (in the form of unprocessed plant material).

Converting your vehicle to run on biofuel

Using straight (SVO) or waste vegetable oil (WVO) as a fuel requires modifications to be made to your diesel vehicle engine rather than modifications to the fuel itself (although the oil is filtered).

1. One- or two-tank conversion? The basic premise is to add either a one- or two-tank system that will be used to heat the vegetable oil. Veggie oil is very viscose and so must be heated to run in your vehicle properly in order to prevent coking, liquid fuel leakage past unsealed rings, and contamination of lubricating oil. Here are the two options:

• a. One-tank system: With this option, you fundamentally alter the stock fuel system to run the vehicle on 100 percent vegetable oil, but can only be used on vehicles run in warmer climates that never go below -40F. Many one-tank system users either blend their vegetable oil with petroleum diesel or add a solvent such as turpentine, paint stripper, kerosene, or naphthalene.
• b. Two-tank system: Here the stock fuel system is left untouched and an entirely new, secondary fuel system is added (the second tank). The stock fuel system runs on petrodiesel for start-up and shut-down, and then switches to the second tank to run on vegetable oil. The secondary tank heats the oil to 160F or higher. This method results in fewer engine problems, does not reduce the life of the vehicle, is an easy conversion, and much safer to operate.

2. Parts needed: The parts required for using biofuels include:

• a. Heated fuel tank: To warm the vegetable oil.
• b. Heated fuel lines: To keep the heated oil warm as it travels through the engine.
• c. Heated vegetable oil filter: Generally heated, these provide filtration to at least the same micron level as the stock fuel filter.
• d. Final fuel heater: To raise the fuel temperature to minimum injection levels.
• e. Valves: To correctly direct the fuel as needed, with automatic or manual controls.
• f. Indicators: Used by the driver to monitor the system

3. Oil collection: To run a vehicle on WVO, oil will have to be collected. Many restaurants will give away their oil for free to avoid paying disposal costs, but you must negotiate an agreement with them.

4. Oil filtration: Once the oil is collected, it should be filtered to remove any large debris.

5. Oil storage: Vegetable oil can degrade over time if left exposed to air, sunlight, and moisture. It therefore should be stored in a cool, dry location in sealed drums.

6. Legal implications: It should be noted that using vegetable oil as fuel is illegal and therefore should be done with due consideration.

Although many biofuel advocates suggest that you save as much as 75 percent on your fuel bills by using vegetable oil as fuel, how much you save by running your vehicle on biofuel will depend on many factors, including:

• Type of oil: If brand new pure or straight vegetable oil is used, the cost for using this fuel can be quite prohibitive, especially as costs for certain crops, such as corn, continue to rise. Waste vegetable is generally the most cost effective as it is often free.
• Cost of time: You will have to put some time in to collecting and filtering your oil, as well as time to modify your vehicle and maintain it on a regular basis.
• Vehicle conversion: There are some up-front costs to converting your vehicle, which fall somewhere between $300 and several thousand dollars.
• Original vehicle efficiency: The fuel efficiency of your vehicle won’t change much when using veggie oil, so this will have to be taken into consideration.

The greatest environmental benefit to running a vehicle on SVO or WVO is the reduction in pollutants. Compared to petrodiesel, vegetable oil is 75 percent cleaner, and results in fewer carbon dioxide, sulphur oxide, carbon monoxide, air toxics, unburned hydrocarbons, and particulate emissions.

Resources for Biofuel and Biodiesel Users

Today, there are more and more cooperative organizations allowing individuals to organize around various interests. Those wishing to use either straight vegetable oil or biodiesel have been enthusiastic about getting together for the purposes of supporting each other’s efforts. Here are a few of those types of organizations:

• The Biodiesel Collective Conference (http://www.collectivebiodiesel.org/coops/index.php): This is their site for bodiesel coops located through North America, listed by state/province.
• Fusel (http://www.fusel.com/vegoil_sites.html): Has a good list of vegetable oil-related communities throughout the country.
• Vegoil Yahoo! Groups (http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/vegoil-diesel/): Join this group for all kinds of resources for vegetable oil enthusiasts.

The WVO community has developed largely out of necessity. The messy nature of filtering and using WVO as a fuel has keep many people from really investing in this work, resulting in small groups of people banding together to find solutions and develop systems to make the job easier.

Online communities are popping up everywhere to meet the need, many of which have good listings of potential sources for used cooking oil in your area. Cooperatives are essentially a collection of people who pool their efforts to benefit one another: build or buy a filtration system, collect a communal supply of WVO, or just swap ideas.

Check out these options to see if they’ve got listings suitable for your requirements:

• Fillup4Free (http://fillup4free.com/): Use their interactive map to add yourself to the community and then find people who have WVO to give away or sell.
• Good grease (http://www.goodgrease.com/search/node/wvo+for+sale): Has an ongoing list of vendors with WVO for sale or for free!). Use their search tool with keywords like “WVO for sale Dallas” to find what you’re looking for.
• Lovecraft Bio-Fuels (http://www.lovecraftbiofuels.com/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=40&func=showcat&catid=7): Provides a place for vendors to post WVO for sale.
• Community Partner (http://www.commoditypartner.com/): This side has a nice search feature that lets you filter results by region, quantity minimums and maximums, and frequency.
• Biodiesel Now (http://www.biodieselnow.com/forums/118.aspx): Like Good Grease, Biodiesel Now has a community board where suppliers post listings of WVO for sale.

Craigslist (http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites): Like many other general-purpose sites, Craigslist may be a source for finding used vegetable oil. Just look for your city’s local Craigslist site, then search for WVO or SVO or some other keyword. You never know what you might find!

Solar/Electric

Powering our vehicles with renewable energy—like wind and solar—is a highly effective way to reduce our personal carbon footprints. The rise in fuel prices combined with renewed concern over climate change has significantly increased the interest the auto industry is paying to alternative energy when it comes to how they develop new vehicles. Here are the latest developments.

• Nissan released the Leaf electric car on August 3, 2009, hoping to provide the first mass-market zero-emissions vehicle. The battery, which charges overnight, is said to have a 100-mile range. You’ll even be able to check in on your car through your iPhone.
• REVA is an under $20,000 electric car that reaches speeds of 50 mph and comes out of India.
• The all-electric E6 vehicle by China’s BYD could be available in the US by 2010 (ahead of its 2011 schedule). The battery’s range is suggested to reach about 186 miles (300 km) per charge.
• The $100,000 Tesla Roadster electric vehicle goes from zero to 60 in four seconds or less and packs a battery with a 200-mile range.
• The Chevy Volt electric car is supposed to get 230 miles per gallon city driving according to closed circuit tests. Real-world tests will confirm whether this will actually be the vehicle’s average city driving mileage rate.
• Daimler is set to begin rolling Smart ForTwo electric cars off the production line in November 2009 in France. It will have a Tesla Motors lithium-ion battery pack that gets about 71 miles before needing a charge.
• The BMW Vision EfficientDynamics car was unveiled in early September 2009. It is anticipated to reach top speeds of 155 mph. The battery charges in about 2.5 hours and will go about 31 miles in electric mode-only.
• UCFlorida has purchased the Zenn car, a plug-in electric vehicle with 3 solar panels attached to the roof to make it 100 percent solar powered. The vehicle can only go about 15 miles, but it that works for this vehicle that travels only around campus.
• MIT students have developed a 90 mph solar-powered car that will race for 7 days in the World Solar Challenge in October2009.
• The Prius 10 by Toyota has an optional solar-powered ventilation system that cools the interior of the vehicle while it’s parked.
• The BlueCar EV by Pininfaria and Bolloré is equipped with a lithium-ion battery with supercapacitors, and has roof- and hood-mounted solar cells. It will go into production in 2011 in France and Canada.

Enermotion is a company that converts the Prius by installing photovoltaics and a back-up battery supply. This will provide additional electric charge to the motor and will extend the driving range while the factory battery pack recharges itself.

Purchasing A Fuel Efficient Vehicle

Americans love their cars. Yet they’re one of the biggest contributors to our individual carbon footprints. The average US household owns two medium-sized sedans, each emitting 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually. And these add significantly to our yearly energy bills, especially if your vehicles have poor fuel efficiency.

Compare, for instance, a 50 mpg car that will require about $552 of fuel annually to a much less efficient vehicle that gets 10 mpg, costing you $2,760. That’s nearly four times the cost! Choosing a more fuel efficient vehicle is not only important for the planet, it’s important for your yearly financial statements. Vehicles with better fuel economy are now widely available, making the choice more simple than ever.

• When looking for a new vehicle, purchase the most fuel-efficient in the class you’re interested in to save $300-$700 every year in fuel costs.
• Choose a more efficient vehicle that gets 30 mpg rather than 20 mpg to cut fuel costs by $3,050 in five years!
• Choose a vehicle that comes with a deactivation system for your engine’s cylinders. This could improve fuel economy by 20 percent.
• Buy a vehicle with a lean engine (2.2 liter for instance) and transmission system (manual is best) to get better average mileage.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (known commonly as the Recovery Act) is pumping billions of dollars into our economy. If you’re a small business looking for funding to start-up or shore-up your operations, you may just be able to find some funding from the government to get you through these tough economic times.
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Times are good for businesses looking to improve the energy efficiency of their operations. Today, there are more incentives and tax breaks available for energy improvements and renewable energy projects through local, state, and federal government programs than ever before. Knowing where to find these financial assistance programs will help you get the help you need to turn your business into a green business.

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Both car and air travel are heavy polluting activities for getting to meetings and conferences. Choose to teleconference and you could cut your air travel significantly. Vodafone now requires that all employees justify their travel, a move that has saved the company 20 percent in just one year.

Green roofs absorb stormwater, provide natural habitat for wildlife and recreational space for employees, and can reduce heat gain by up to 95 percent, which reduces cooling costs dramatically.

Recycling aluminum is 95 percent more efficient than mining new; recycling plastics uses 70 percent less energy than making new plastic products; making paper from post-consumer waste requires 40 percent less energy. So save energy throughout your building by starting a build-wide recycling program.

If you’re installing a new HVAC system for your business, you’ll definitely want to explore ENERGY STAR light commercial equipment, which use 7-10 percent less energy. These could save a 12,000 square foot building between $36,000 and $48,000 over the life of the equipment.

An ENERGY STAR commercial dishwasher will save your food service department 25 percent in energy and 25 in water costs every year. On average, that saves companies $850 and $200 for electricity and water respectively per unit.

ENERGY STAR copiers are 25 percent more efficient than standard models and could save American businesses $3 billion in energy costs over the next five years. That’s similar to taking 4 million cars off the road.