Tips on Saving the Environment

For the Holidays

• Wrapping paper can double or triple the average family's trash for the week of Christmas. Use gift bags instead and save them to use again next year.
• Many presents come in cardboard boxes. Make sure to recyle them.
• Christmas light displays can use a lot of electricity. Limit the amount of lights that you put out. Also, turn them off at bedtime rather than leaving them on all night long.
• Christmas time has become very commercialized. Consider how many presents you really need to buy for each member of your family. Many people get things they will never use and sometimes don't even remove them from the package. It makes more sense to buy fewer presents and to be sure that they are things that the other person will actually want or need. This generates less waste and keeps closets and garages cleaner.
• Consider limiting the amount of presents your family exchanges and choose to give money or food items to charity instead. After all, that's what Christmas is really about.
• When preparing holiday meals, make sure you have a pretty accurate head count beforehand. No use in wasting a lot of surplus food, not to mention the trash created by the packaging (cans, boxes, etc).
• Don't buy gift cards. If you are giving someone the present of spending money, you might as well give them cash. They can spend it anywhere they choose and it doesn't require the creating of another plastic card to go in the landfills. Incidentally, approximately 50% of the total amount spent on gift cards actually gets used by the recipient. What a waste of money! If you give someone cash, they are much more likely to actually spend it.

At home

Reducing Waste

• Unsubscribe from magazines that don't actually get read. Also, call and get yourself off junk mail lists when possible. This will reduce the amount of paper waste that is generated.
• When you get junk mail, recycle it!
• Avoid picking up leaflets or pamphlets that you don't really need. The fewer that are taken the longer it will take before more will be printed. Pick up and skim a pamphlet to see if you really need it before taking it home. If you have collected pamphlets that aren't being used, recycle them!
• Rather than buying books that get read once and sit on a shelf after that, just borrow books from your public library.
• When getting rid of old books, give them to a friend or donate them to the library. If you are throwing away a book because it is in bad condition, recycle it instead.
• Some libraries have a good stock of CDs and DVDs. Check your library catalog before buying new CDs or DVDs.
• If you have CDs or DVDs that you want to get rid of, donate them to a library or trade them in for store credit at a place that takes used media, such as Vintage Stock.
• Instead of buying new furniture, consider buying something second-hand at a garage sale or thrift store. The fewer pieces of new furniture that are bought, the fewer trees have to be cut down.
• If you are getting rid of furniture, try to find someone that needs it, donate it to a thrift store, or recycle it.
• Unplug appliances that you do not regularly use, since appliances draw a tiny amount of electricity even when they are not turned on.

Recycling

• Make sure recycle bins are clearly labeled. City recycling programs may take several tons of recyclable materials to the landfill if there is too much contamination in the recycle bins.
• If your city does not have a recycling program, see if there any independant companies in your area that accept recyclables.

Heating and Cooling

• Use fans instead of AC whenever you can and save a huge amount of electricity.
• Set AC to the highest possible comfortable temperature or the heater to the lowest possible comfortable temperature. Wearing a sweater around the house in winter time may allow you to set the heat a bit lower.
• Periodically clean or replace the filter in your AC so that it will work to its fullest capacity.
• Keep doors and windows shut to keep cooling and heating costs down
• On cool summer days, you can open the windows to help cool the house for free.
• Make sure that the space around windows and doors are well-sealed so that air can't escape. This can hurt your heating and cooling costs.

Lighting

• Replace regular bulbs with energy-saving compact flourescent bulbs.
• Replace high-wattage bulbs with low-wattage bulbs when high-wattage bulbs are unnecessary.
• Install dimmer switches and set your lighting as low as necessary for general usage and safety.

Kitchen

• Only run the dishwasher when you have a full load.
• Use the shorter wash cycle unless you absolutely need the longer cycle.
• Use the energy-saver mode on your dishwasher rather than using the heated drying option, if available.
• Wash your hands with cold water.
• If heating something small use a toaster oven rather than the regular oven.
• Buy food in larger packages rather than smaller individual packages to reduce the amount of trash that you create.
• Do not leave the refrigerator open for long periods of time. Close the door as much as possible.
• Save your leftovers in sealable containers that you can keep in the fridge. Keep a list of leftovers on the front of the fridge so that you don't forget to eat them!
• Keep your bread loaf in the fridge. Unused bread will eventually grow mold, but it takes a lot longer for this to happen if you keep the bread refrigerated.
• When making a recipe that involves thawing frozen food, thaw it in the refrigerator over night. The frozen food will help cool the other food in the refrigerator, so it will use less electricity. This is also better than thawing it on the counter, since bacteria grows much better at room temperature.
• Fix dripping faucets as quickly as possible.

Bathroom

• Take a shower instead of a bath to save water.
• Take shorter showers.
• Use a low-flow shower head to save water.
• Don't let the water run the entire time you are brushing your teeth, but run the water in spurts as needed.
• Wash your hands with cold water.
• Use as little hot water as possible.
• Turn down the heat on your water heater to the lowest acceptable setting.
• Fix dripping faucets as quickly as possible.

Living Room

• Consider watching less television to save electricity.
• Turn off electronic equipment rather than leaving in standby mode.
• Watch t.v. and listen to stereos at lower volume levels. Your neighbors will appreciate it, too ;)

Laundry Room

• If the clothes that you have worn during the day are not dirty, then you might be able to hang them up to air out over night and wear them again later in the week. This will decrease the number of laundry loads that you will have to do.
• Only use the washer and dryer when you have a full load.
• Hang your laundry out to dry instead of using the dryer.

Closets

• Keep closet doors closed in order to save the cost of heating and cooling these spaces.
• Clean out old papers and magazines that may accumulate in your closet and recycle them.
• Sell or give away old clothes or other unwanted items in your closets.
• Use very low wattage lightblubs in most closets. Bright lights are usually not necessary in closets.
• Make sure to turn off closet lights. If you leave them on when you shut the door, it may be left on for a very long time unnecessarily.

In Your Yard

• Plant trees to help turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.
• Trees can also help shade your house and keep cooling costs down.
• Keep a compost pile of leaves and other biodegradable materials in a small fenced area in the corner of your yard and use it as lawn fertilizer when it has decomposed.

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