This guide, entitled “Living the Green Life”, is meant for real people (with kids, budgets and mortgages) who want to do better by the environment. For the most part, it focuses on lifestyle changes—minor adjustments in daily behavior that may seem inconsequential when one ponders the big picture of global warming. But taken in aggregate, as a nation (when all of us do even one thing), these little lifestyle changes have a huge impact.
Photovoltaics on the roof. Geothermal heating under-ground. Spiffy dual-flush toilets all about. This Green guide won’t make any mention of such things!
This compilation consists of 50 of the best ideas for reducing household waste ever printed: tips from engineers, chemists, environmentalists, recycling experts, government agencies, medical professionals, appliance-makers, and gardeners. Everything from cleaning and pet products to microwave tips can be found here.
1. The Dishwasher: Use it. Contrary to popular eco-belief, it’s greener than hand washing—if you run it with full loads and scrape rather than rinse. The average dishwasher in American homes today uses 8.7 gallons of water a load. Washing by hand for ten minutes with water running can use twenty gallons. If you fill the sink, you still use about five gallons for washing, five for rinsing.
2. Drying Laundry: Do not over-dry laundry. An electric dryer operating an extra fifteen minutes a load can cost you up to $34 a year in wasted energy; a gas dryer, $21 a year. If your dryer has a moisture sensor that turns the machine off automatically when clothes are dry, use it.
3. Laundry: Wash only a Full Load. Wash only full loads of laundry and save (the average American home) as much as 3,400 gallons of water a year.
4. Water-saving Planting: Plan for wise watering. Group thirsty plants in one bed close to the house. Fill farther beds with drought-tolerant perennials that need little or no watering. For lawns, choose fescues, which tolerate dry spells better than bluegrass. Mulch around trees and plants to keep water from evaporating.
5. The Garbage Disposal: Use it. It’s greener to feed the disposal than it is to encapsulate food waste in a plastic garbage bag and send it to the landfill. Sent down the disposal and into the sewer line, organic waste gets treated by the sanitary district and turned into fertilizer.
6. Home Electronics: Power them off. A home office with a computer, printer, fax machine, computer speakers, scanner and cordless phone could consume as much power as two 75-watt light bulbs left on 24/7.
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