Energy audits

This past weekend I went to a seminar at my town hall that was about ways to save energy in the home. The focus for the seminar was energy auditing. An energy audit is when a specialist from Mass Save (for Massachusetts) comes and evaluates your home's energy efficiency free of charge. The audit is free of charge because you already pay a little in each bill towards programs like this. Most people are not aware that they are paying for this, so they are less inclined to get the audit! In my town less than 3% of residents have had their free audit done. That is a crazy small number!

They evaluate parts of your home including insulation, heating systems, water systems, lighting, thermostats, and windows. Their goal is to "tighten up" your home and make it as efficient as possible. This benefits the energy company because less demand on their generators means less chance that they will have to activate their inefficient back-up generators in order to supply the excess power. This benefits you because you save money on your energy bill. Plus, it benefits the environment because fewer power generators are needed, and since your home is using less energy it is also producing fewer greenhouse gases etc.

The day of your audit you are essentially guaranteed to receive up to hundreds of dollars worth of free items. These items include CFL light bulbs of all shapes and sizes, electronic thermostats, and rebates on things such as water heaters. C'mon, who doesn't love free stuff? 

Reduce, Reduce, Reduce

Recycling, Recycling, Recycling...yes it is a good thing and I have advocated for it in the past, but its not all good. It still uses energy, produces CO2, and involves plastic. 

I did a round of school recycling with my environmental buddy, and we were discouraged by what we found. The recycling bin quickly filled up, and probably 85% of the haul was water bottles. This means that if each person used a reusable water bottle instead of the plastic ones, we would have 85% fewer things that need to be recycled. Water bottles are simply used too much! 

We need to remember that recycling is not a end all solution. We still need to focus on reducing, reducing, reducing. The recycling bin is not a magic portal to a greener land. Someone has to deal with all of that waste, and so does the environment.

PS. When you do recycle please either finish your beverage or rinse out the bottle. It was amazing how many half filled bottles and cans that we found. If you aren't going to finish your soda, then don't buy it. Not only is this wasteful, but it is also just disgusting to deal with and inconsiderate to those that have to. Thanks :]

Give Paper a Second Chance

School and work take a lot of printing. So, we've taken steps to turn the printer off when we aren't using it, use online resources when we can, and try out recycled paper. Here's one more thing! You can reuse old paper and use it for something new. For example, my mom found a lot of waste paper (stuff that got printed for no reason and that nobody wanted) at work and stuck it back into our printer so that we could print on the other side. I know when I print things off of the web sometimes the last page that gets printed will have just one sentence or a dumb ad on it. I also get a lot of assignment sheets from school that I need for a week then get rid of. All of these things can be reused! Stick them back into the printer, NOT the recycling bin, and give them a new and more purposeful life! It is a second chance! Print something good on their other side!

Don't Can It!!!

I know that we all go to Dunkin Donuts a lot, seeing how America runs on it, so many of use have probably gotten a bagel in this white bag that's also in this brown bag. Both are made out of paper. Yes, including the funny inside bag that they put the bagel in. It feels kind of plastic-y, so it wouldn't be obvious that it is recyclable. I am sure that most of us crinkle the bags up and throw them in the trash like we're shooting hoops in basketball...and then miss the can. However, look in the corner! It actually says "please RECYCLE this bag!!!" Whoa. Look at that. Crazy stuff! So, don't be a skeptic and just do what the bag tells you to do!

Biodegradable Planter Pots

Plastics account for 25% of landfills. That's not cool. Plastics are a huge issue, so eliminating them from our lives whenever possible is great. Here is a new and interesting way: biodegradable planter pots! Instead of those crummy plastic pots, these ones are made of rice husks and bamboo scraps - i.e. other wise plant trash. These plants use the leftover odds and ends of already highly renewable resources. Double Green! Unfortunately this planter pot is clearly made in China which means lots of shipping and what not, but hey, no plastic.

Baby Tomatoes

This picture is so pretty. Not just because of the colors, but because homegrown food is such a wonderful thing! Obviously operating a farm is no small feat, but homegrown food is probably easier than many think. Things like herbs and tomatoes are good examples. These plants might not be perfect, but they are awesome. Homegrown food eliminates transportation - no driving is necessary to get the food from a farm to your house. No transportation means no CO2 put into the atmosphere. Also, small scale gardens are typically not treated with any harsh chemicals etc. So try it out! Start with something simple, like basil, which you can even grow inside. Maybe one day you'll make homegrown, no carbon footprint spaghetti sauce...

Plant Smoothie

Plant bottles are not usually 100% plants, but often a significant amount of plant material is used (around a third) and therefore replaces a significant amount of petroleum based plastic material. And even though there is plant material in them, they are still totally recyclable! These bottles reduce CO2 output by the tons! Plastic is our worst enemy so anything that uses less plastic is great. Stonyfield yogurt is pretty great and delicious too.

Bag the Box

Americans eat a lot of cereal, and for every box of cereal that we buy, we also buy a lot of packaging. Bag the Box is a organization looking to reduce the amount of packaging for cereal. Their theory is that the box is unnecessary, since there is a bag inside the box. This double packaging system is too wasteful. Therefore, all of their cereals come in simply a bag. This uses 75% less material, and saves energy, money and pollution along the way. Check them out at www.bagthebox.com and be sure to watch the video that is right on the homepage. It is really cool and works as a great summarizer. And after that, feel free to browse their website! And after that, look for these types of bags at the grocery store! Bon appetit!

A Whole New Whirl

I got very excited when I was visiting a public restroom and discovered that the toilet gave me two flushing options: flush up for less water or flush down for more water. This is awesome because you don't always need to whole tank to flush in order to get the job done. A very simple concept that saves a lot of water! I was smiling from ear to ear, but never thought that I could have that technology in my own home. So when my friend told me that she had bought one and installed it in her toilet by herself, you can imagine my excitement. Flushing scary bugs might have never been so green! It is just a little kit that you stick in the top of your toilet and a flusher to replace your old one. No tools, no sweat, and it should fit any style toilet. $18-25 at you local hardware store and you are ready to go! So are you ready to start saving?

Unexpected Art

This is not a picture of a heartfelt card, this is a picture of a hall pass. I was confused when my teacher started writing on what I thought were student art projects. It turns out that this teacher's husband designed these cards, and this one came from a box that got wet so he couldn't sell the set anymore. She had a whole folder of them waiting to become passes or notes. I am pretty sure that this lady had no idea what she was doing for the environment. She just saw a whole lot of her husbands valuable paper get destroyed and wanted to make them useful for something. I am not expected you all to start writing hall passes on cards, (although it does make for a nice touch), but just to think about things in a different way. Her box of ruined cards was not trash, but new note, pretty note paper. I was pleasantly surprised to find innovation in such an expected place, and it was so refreshing I just had to write about it.