Green Tips

Use Your Microwave

The kind of stove you use just doesn't make much difference over the long haul. It certainly does not make enough difference to offset the energy cost of replacing a stove. On the other hand, using a crockpot or your microwave can be significant. This chart compares the cost of cooking a dish inside your oven or in one of the less traditional ways.

	Temperature (degrees F)	Time	Energy Used	Cost
Electric oven	350	1 hr.	2.0 kWh	$0.20
Gas oven, electric ignition	350	1 hr.	0.112 therm +0.35 kWh	$0.18
Gas oven, pilot	350	1 hr.	0.112 therm	$0.15
Electric oven, convection	325	45 min.	1.39 kWh	$0.14
Toaster oven	425	50 min.	0.95 kWh	$0.10
Crockpot	200	7 hours	0.70 kWh	$0.07
Microwave oven	High	15 minutes	0.36 kWh	$0.04

From Citizens Campaign for the Environment
Assumes $0.10/kWh for electricity and $1.30/therm for gas

Insulate Your Water Heater

It would be great if we could all afford tankless water heaters that heat our water on demand, but that's a bit of an investment. In the meantime, you can insulate the water heater you have. It has to keep the water hot, whether it's being used or not. Help it out by buyiing a water heater insulation kit at your hardware store for about $20. If you insulate the heater and any accessible hot water pipes, you can reduce standby heat losses by 25-45 %. And that, according to the U. S. Department of Energy, could save up to 9 % in water heating costs.

Some newer water heaters are already insulated sufficiently. To find out whether yours is, touch it. If it's hot, it needs insulation.

For more information, see the U.S. Department of Energy's Consumer Guide to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy .

 

Five Ways to Cut Down on Dangerous BPA Exposure

1. Buy tomato sauce in glass jars, not in cans. The high acidity of tomatoes causes Bisphenol A to leach from the can lining. This goes for anything that's swimming in tomato sauce, too, like Spaghetti-Os.

2. Eat frozen or fresh fruits and vegetables instead of canned. No BPAs is just one more reason to eat foods with actual nutrients instead of salt-soaked grey peas. At least one organic food company, Eden Foods, does puts beans in BPA-free cans.

3. Buy your pop in bottles instead of cans if you drink a lot of the stuff. Otherwise, you're probably just fine with cans, and they're much more recyclable than plastic bottles.

4. Use powdered formula for your baby instead of liquid.

5. Look for the seven. Plastic bottles that contain BPAs have a number 7 in the recycling triangle.

 

Eight cleaners that won't make you (or the planet) sick

Hydrogen Peroxide. Put the 3% solution you get at the drugstore into a spray bottle and use it instead of your usual kitchen and bath cleaner. It cleans, disinfects, and bleaches.

Baking soda. It's the grit. When you're scrubbing, you sometimes need to be like Mike--mildly abrasive, but in a good way. Baking soda also fizzes when you mix it with water, vinegar or lemon, and that can speed up cleaning.

Borax. Even without the twenty mules, this helpful cleaner disinfects, bleaches and deodorizes.

Lemons Lemon juice is a good grease cutter. Bottled works almost as well as fresh squeezed.

Olive oil It's a furniture polish. No need to use extra virgin.

Distilled white vinegar. This natural disinfectant also breaks up dirt. Apple cider and red vinegars work, too, but they can stain. All three do windows.

Vegetable based (liquid castile) soap This is a non-petroleum cleaner you can use for all kinds of jobs.

Washing soda It removes stains and helps unblock pipes, but it is caustic. You need to use care and gloves.


Eat by the season

Raspberries in December may be heavenly, but they cost the earth . . . in more ways than one. Fruits and vegetables that are out of season in your area have to be shipped over long distances. That means a lot of the planet's resources are being used to bring you your little treat. Try to think of produce the way your grandmother did. Apples and squash were fall foods. You enjoyed melons in the summer. And tomatoes in the winter were canned or dried. Just like snow and daffodils, this approach will bring you back in touch with the earth and its changes.

Hot water coming r-r-i-i-i-g-g-h-h-t-t-t  u-u-p-p-p . . .

How much water comes out of your faucet in the morning before it gets hot? Enough to water your schefflera? Maybe your peace lily, too? Keep a few plastic milk jugs near the sinks and tubs in your house and put them under the faucet when you first turn it on. When the water gets hot, put the jug in a corner somewhere and let the chlorine evaporate. You'll have good water for your plants and you will have done the earth a favor.

Five bathroom water savers . . . absolutely free.

1. Turn off the water while you're brushing your teeth.

2. Use an egg timer to let you know how long you've been in that mesmerizing shower.

3. Turn off the water while you're shaving.

4. If your toilet and/or faucet starts to leak, fix it now, not next Memorial Day.

5. Don't put trash in your toilet and flush it away.

 

Use the Earth911 Recycling Search

If you're not sure where to take your recycling or you have something that your municipal recycling won't accept, you can go to http://earth911.org/. In their search engine, enter wha tyou want to recycle and your zip code and you'll get a location. For example, I entered Styrofoam and my zipcode and found that lots of suburbs accept styrofoam in their curbside recycling, but only for their residents, of course. However, there's a 24-hour drop-off site at FP International in Thornton, Illinois.