Bathroom

Fill Your Toilet Cistern with Rocks to Reduce the Amount of Water you Flush Away.

Of all the water in all the oceans, lakes and streams, only 3% of the water on this planet is fresh. Of that 3% only 1/3 is suitable for human consumption. So why do we keep flushing that water down the drain?

Americans are literally flushing away 40% of the water used in our homes- that’s more than 48 billion gallons of water being flushed down our toilets every day. You and every other person is contributing an average of 9,000 gallons each year.

Each flush wastes 3-5 gallons of water. Add that number to the amount of times you use the restroom each day, then add all those unnecessary times when you used your toilet as a waste basket- flushing down a tissue or cigarette butt because you didn’t feel like throwing it away. Now multiply that by every member in your family and you’ve got a lot of good water going down the drain. In fact, the US government believes that we flush approximately 40% of our all household water down the drain. You can easily minimize that waste by putting rocks in your cistern.

It may seem like an odd water saving idea, but if you lift up the lid on the back of your toilet you will notice that it is filled with water. There is also a line that indicates the toilet is filled with the appropriate amount of water (3-5 gallons depending on the toilet). Each time you flush, all of the water empties out into the bowl to clean it, then flush back through the exit pipe. The point of the rocks (you can also use a sand filled sealed water bottle) is to displace some of that water so that the toilet thinks it is holding the requisite 3-5 gallons. Don’t worry, as long as you leave at least 2 gallons of water it should still function properly (and if it doesn’t, just take out a few rocks).

Kitchen

Use a Microwave to Cook your Meals (or at least to heat water for tea and coffee)

Approximately 5% of your energy bills go to cooking. Aside from cooking your food on a hot rock in the desert, microwaves are one of the most energy efficient, environmentally friendly ways to cook. Compared to a traditional electric oven, a microwave is between 3.5 and 4.8 times more energy efficient than your average electric oven. If you want to talk dollars and cents, you would spend approximately .10 cents each time you cook something in a microwave, compared to .48 cents to cook that same thing in a traditional oven.

Why is there such a drastic energy difference? In order to get an oven to its desired temperature you have to pre-heat it for about 10 minutes. That’s 10 minutes of wasted energy. Cooking time is exponentially more in an oven. Take a potato for example. Depending the type of oven and size of potato, it takes between 30 and 60 minutes at 375 degrees to bake one potato. That doesn’t include the pre-heating. Baking a potato in a microwave takes about 5 minutes.

Cooking facts to keep in mind:

Oven

• Baking with a Conventional Oven produces 1/3 more greenhouse gases than opting for a Convection Oven.
• Don’t unnecessarily preheat unless the recipe specifically calls for it. If you do preheat, make sure to turn on the oven only a few minutes before you being to cook. Turning on the oven to preheat before beginning a time-intensive prep is just wasting energy.
• Glass and ceramic cookware retain more heat than metal. If a recipe specifically calls for metal, save energy by opting for glass or ceramic then lower the cooking temperature 25 degrees.
• Each time you open the oven door to peek on your cooking progress you are lowering the temperature by as much as 25 degrees, therefore ultimately extending your cooking time. Use the oven light to check on the progress instead.

Stove Top

• Cooking on an Electric Stove top produces twice the emissions of cooking with a Microwave Oven.
• If you choose a stove top, the smaller the pan the better- they heat up more easily and quickly.
• Keep the lid on to keep the heat in. Covered pans and pots cook food more quickly while retaining moisture.
• Turn off the heat a few minutes before the cooking is complete. The food will use the heat already created to finish itself off.

Microwave

• Instead of heating a kettle of water for tea or French press coffee on the stove, microwave your mug of water.
• Steam vegetables and bake potatoes in the microwave for faster, sometimes even more vitamin-filled fresh food without the oil that is often necessary to cook with on pans.

Food

Be a Vegetarian For One Day a Week

Behind energy, agriculture is responsible for the highest amount of greenhouse gases produced. Cows, sheep, poultry and other livestock are responsible for mass amounts of freshwater use; soil degradation from trampling vegetation and compacting the land with their hooves; waste creation (a total of 1.4 billion tons of manure a year from US farm animals) that seeps into the soil and pollutes surrounding water.

On average, each American eats 200 pounds of meat and poultry each year. Raising animals for human consumption is extremely environmentally damaging, especially in factory-style environments where overcrowding, the excessive use of antibiotics, and inhumane treatment are not out of the ordinary. The reason for the environmental impact is heavily placed on the amount of water used and waste created.

How does meat compare to other food options?

• Potatoes- 132 gallons of water used to produce 1 pound of potatoes
• Rice- 505 gallons of water used to produce 1 pound of rice
• Grain-fed Beef- 2,500 gallons of water plus 5 pounds of grain are used to produce 1 pound of grain-fed meat

Protein is an essential component to a healthy diet. But there are other ways to get it than through meat. Try to eat a full vegetarian diet at least one day a week to reduce the waste.

Garden

Use Fake Grass or at least Go Native

The average lawn in the summer consumes 10,000 pounds of water. To keep that lawn looking sharp, power lawn tools contribute 5% of our nation’s air pollution. Each time you let your sprinkler run for an hour can you use as much as 264 gallons of water. Instead of contributing to water waste and air pollution, consider replacing your thirsty grass with fake grass. This is by no means Astroturf. The latest and greatest fake grass options look absolutely real with color and shape variations to match most real lawns. Another benefit of going fake is that the grass is always clean, dry and never dies. Thanks to little holes in the bottom, rain soaks right through, naturally returning itself into the earth without causing a muddy mess.

If fake is a little too far, at least go native.

Native plants have learned to accommodate for their environment and climate in order to survive with little if any human assistance. On average they require half the water that other outdoor plants need to survive. In California native poppies grow wild in bright orange fields with only the small amount of water that Mother Nature drizzles on them each year. In Hawaii orchids love the humid temperatures and tropical rains. Camellia trees, native to the Georgia lowlands, have fragrant blooms that look like white magnolia flowers in autumn. Liatris love prairies and they will bloom after the worst winter, even without freeze protection. Rocky Mountain wildflowers like Gentians have a short but beautiful growing season that even nurseries have a tough time capturing- but the wild is their playground. Another benefit of growing local is that the locals tend to get along with other locals like hummingbirds and butterflies, and they know how to naturally make pesky bugs and rodents bug off without the need for chemical repellents.

Office

Decrease your Margin

The average office employee goes through 10,000 sheets of paper a year- the same amount of paper that one tree produces. If you have an office of 200 employees, there’s a good chance your company kills 200 trees a year. Save virgin paper by choosing recycled stock, them implement these printing procedures:

• Decrease your margins. You don’t need an empty inch and a half on either side of a document. For multiple page documents, decreasing your margins will reduce your page count and save paper.
• Forget the cover page. Instead of always including a cover page on faxes, instead us a sticky note on document itself, or, if possible, skip the fax description all together.
• Print on both sides of the paper. It is easy to set your photocopier to print double-sided documents. This will cut your paper use in half.
• Do you even need to print it at all? Print invoices, receipts, and other documents to a digital PDF printer and save a copy on your computer.

Quick Kits We Like to Help You Green Your Life

The Earth Aid Kit™

The Earth Aid Kit™ is a fully customizable collection of products that any American can easily install into their home to immediately increase their energy efficiency and GreenIQ. The options include efficient light bulbs, oxygenating showerheads, aerating faucets, tire pressure gauges, and a slew of other modern products to help save energy and stop global warming.

Eco-Me

Eco-Me kits are easy do-it-yourself ways to start to green your life. Eco-Me starter kits include Home, Body, Baby, Dog, Cat. Their Eco-Me Body Kit contains a natural loofah, towel, and essential oil mix, plus labeled empty bottles for a scrub, body oil, talc, and tonic, then easy recipes to make your own all natural beauty products. All you need is vinegar, water, olive oil & aluminum-free baking soda.