30 Ways to Green Your Life

April 15, 2009

Excellent Tips From Expert Karen Chaparro of GreenMaids.org

1. Eco-Action Tip: Sun Power
Adjust your window blinds to reduce energy used for heating and cooling. In the summer, keep sunny-side blinds closed. In the winter, open up and let the sunshine in to help heat your home.

2. Eco-Action Tip: Get Involved
Join a local action group that promotes environmentally friendly practices, organize carpooling or petition your municipality to increase local energy conservation measures. One person really can make a difference-and inspire others to as well!

3. Eco Action Tip: Plant a Tree, Seriously
A single tree can absorb one ton (2,000 pounds) of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. One acre of tree cover in Brooklyn can compensate for automobile fuel use equivalent to driving a car between 7,200 and 8,700 miles. Here’s the American forest’s site.

4. Eco-Action Tip: Go “Green” When You Clean
Many household cleaning products contain various chemicals and toxins detrimental to the environment and to your health. Read the labels!

Popular Brands: Ecover Dishwashing and Seventh Generation cleaners.

5. Eco-Action Tip: Grow Your Own
Plant a garden or a few pots of veggies without pesticides and chemical fertilizers that can harm both human health and the environment. How delightful to step out the back door and pick a ripe, organic tomato!

6. Eco-Action Tip: Avoid Products with a Lot of Packaging
You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide a year if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

7. Eco-Action Tip: Drive Smart
Try walking, riding a bike or combining trips in your car to cut back on the miles that you drive each day. If you stopped driving just 20 extra miles per week for one year, you could save about 900 pounds of CO2 per year.

8. Eco-Action Tip: Office Overhaul
At home or on the job, switch to “green” office supplies, such as recycled paperclips, tree-free note pads and 100% recycled paper. Producing recycled paper requires about 60 percent of the energy used to make paper from virgin wood pulp.

9. Eco-Action Tip: Turn Out the Lights
Before leaving your home or office, make sure all of the lights are turned off. This simple task will save energy and save you money.

10. Eco-Action Tip: Buy Recycled Products
Buying new products made from recycled materials allows you to “close the loop,” creating a market for the recycled material items recycled curbside or in other recycling programs.

11. Eco-Action Tip: Switch to Organics
Organic agriculture protects the health of all the earth’s inhabitants by limiting input of toxic and persistent chemicals into the air, soil and water. Organic methods support natural ecosystems by using long-term farming solutions that help preserve the earth’s resources for future generations. Useful site Organic Consumers!

12. Eco-Action Tip: Start a Compost Pile in Your Yard
As landfill space becomes increasingly scarce and expensive, composting is an extremely valuable idea for reducing needless garbage. Composting requires little effort and, in time, will create an earthy, crumbly substance to help your plants flourish.

13. Eco-Action Tip: Buy in Bulk
Purchasing food in bulk allows you to choose just how much or how little of a certain product you want. This reduces both product waste and packaging waste.

14. Eco-Action Tip: Quench with Respect
80% of the 25 billion single-serving plastic water bottles Americans use each year end up in landfills. Recycle your bottles, or better yet, choose to reuse with a refillable water bottle made of a refill-safe material.

15. Eco-Action Tip: Reduce Hot Water Use
Wash your clothes in cold or warm water to save up to 500 pounds of CO2 per year. Rinse your dishes with cold water (they don’t need two hot baths), and wait to run the dishwasher until it is full.

16. Eco-Action Tip: Recycle More
You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

17. Eco-Action Tip: Support Eco-Smart Packaging
When shopping for packaged products, seek out companies that use minimal amounts of packaging and use recycled and/or recyclable materials.

18. Eco-Action Tip: Be Disposable Conscious
To decrease waste, purchase durable, long-lasting products that can be reused or refilled, such as rechargeable batteries and refillable razors. If you do use disposables, choose those made with eco-friendly materials from companies you can trust.

19. Eco-Action Tip: Choose Your Food Like it Matters
Choose products from companies and businesses that do something to support the health of the planet. And, eat as many whole foods as possible. Not only are they better for you, but they’re better for the Earth. The more whole the food is, the fewer the resources used to get it to your plate.

20. Eco-Action Tip: Reuse Your Bags
More than one billion single-use plastic bags are handed to consumers each day and it takes a 15-year-old tree to produce just 700 grocery bags. Paper or plastic is no longer the question. Reusing shopping bags significantly reduces both emissions and waste. All Whole Foods Market stores offer at least a nickel-per-bag refund to encourage you!

21. Eco-Action Tip: Change a Light
Twenty percent of the electricity consumed in the United States is for lighting. Replacing one regular bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

22. Eco-Action Tip: Tread Lightly
Walk, bike, carpool or take mass-transit more often. You’ll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don’t drive, reducing your carbon weight, and maybe some body weight, too!

23. Eco-Action Tip: Turn Off Electronics
Simply turning off your TV, DVD player, stereo and computer when you’re not using them will save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Some appliances even use electricity when turned off, so unplug those used infrequently. There are useful power strip like Smart strip.

24. Eco-Action Tip: Think Before You Print
It takes 390 gallons of oil to produce a ton of paper. To reduce the amount of paper that gets thrown away or recycled, triple check documents before printing. When you print drafts, try printing on the other side of used paper…or at least try Green printing shop like greenerprinter or jakprints.

25. Eco-Action Tip: Keep Your Appliances Clean
Cleaning your refrigerator coils and heating vents regularly allows them to operate much more efficiently. When appliances aren’t forced to work as hard, you reduce your electric bill while reducing energy.

27. Eco-Action Tip: Cut Back on Water Use
In the United States, 27 percent of our water is used in bathing. Instead of taking a bath, take a quick shower and use a water-conserving showerhead, which can save 350 pounds of CO2 a year. Repair leaky faucets, too, as they could leak up to 100 gallons of water per day!

28. Eco-Action Tip: Stop the Junk Mail Overload
The public landfill is approximately 36% waste paper products. Unwanted junk mail contributes to that, while also wasting energy and trees. Sign up for a “mail preference service” that can decrease the amount of mail you receive by up to 75%. Catalog Choice or Greendimes are place that can help stop it.

29. Eco-Action Tip: Don’t Trash Clothing
Use worn out t-shirts, towels and bed linens as rags for cleaning around the house. Pass along unwanted clothes to friends, family or charitable organizations.

30. Eco-Action Tip: Adjust Your Thermostat
Moving your thermostat down just 2 degrees in the winter and up 2 degrees in the summer could save 2,000 pounds of CO2.

Spring Cleaning Tips: Allergy-Free Cleaning

April 1, 2009

www.QuickDFW.com Interviews Green Cleaning Expert Karen Chaparro of GreenMaids.org

Here’s the complete info from the interview of QuickDFW.com and GreenMaids.org expert Karen Chaparro on effective green cleaning tips!

Read it and share!

QUICK: 1. What are the tools that everyone should have that make cleaning a lot quicker, easier or more effective?
KAREN: *The dream cleaning tool is a steam cleaner. It uses “dry steam” to clean almost every type of surface, from showers to ovens, floors and even upholstery. It’s great since you’re not using chemicals but rather just water (boiling to at least 245 degrees fahrenheit) and sterilizes surfaces killing germs and dust mites (great for those with allergies and toddlers). Although they’re a bit pricy (average between $400 to $2600), they’re a powerful ‘green’ tool.

QUICK: 2. Are there different things you should keep in mind if you have allergies?
KAREN:*CHEMICALS CHEMICALS CHEMICALS! The real clean does not mean “chemical coctail” clean, but rather “fresh air” clean. Our skin is the body’s largest organ, absorbing pretty much everything we touch. If we are cleaning with chemicals (toxics) at some point we’ll have a “chemical reaction” or allergic reaction to those toxics.
*Also, most of our customers that have experienced allergies have pets, reason for which we use in our vacuums HEPA filters. These filters prevent particles and dust to recirculate in the air after being vacuumed. Even better when cleaning up pet hair.

QUICK: 3. What are you favorite cleaning products or homemade cleaning products everyone should have around their home and for what purposes?
KAREN:

• Vinegar: mixed with water and scents, for windows and great to remove greasy marks.
• Borax & Baking Soda: For scrubbing toilets, tubs, and sinks (especially on porous surfaces).

QUICK: 4. What is a good store bought or homemade cleaner for tub caulking?
KAREN: *You can also scrub with borax, or soak in vinegar or hydrogen peroxide. But when there’s mold underneath the caulking the best solution is to re-caulk the tub. Then you can keep up the shower or tub by using a squeegee or towel to ‘wipe’ down the walls and prevent moisture from harvesting the mold. Another simple method is to mix water and some vinegar in a spray bottle and spray the shower daily (being careful with tile or marble since vinegar can ‘eat’ up the stone if it’s not well coated and sealed-it’s better to try on a small spot first).

QUICK: 5. What are the best ways to get rid of mold spots? Spots on clothes?
KAREN: *See suggestions above and a Steam Cleaner.
*For spots on clothes…I’d try a decorative accent sown onto the cloth! Other than that a paste of water and baking soda or borax left overnight on the spot should loosen up the stain (a kind of prewash).

QUICK: 6. Anything else you recommend? Tricks most wouldn’t think of?
KAREN: *Cleaning a Microwave in 1 minute: Using the Vinegar and Water Mixture (50/50) in a spray bottle, spray generously inside the microwave surfaces, and heat up on high for 30 secs. It loosens up food residue making it easier and faster to clean.

Quick Actions to make a difference:

1. Get rid of household toxic products, visit health stores and get the 3 basic products (you do not need 30 different ones!) window cleaner vinegar based, Bon Ami (scrubbing powder), Liquid castile soap and Borax that’it!
2. Add HEPA filter to your vacuum and/or tell your maid to put one in their vacuum.