Quick Tips for the Day for Saving Water & Gas

Here are two quick tips that will help you save the earth and your wallet!

1. When you stop for lunch and are thinking about the drive-thru, think again. Instead of sitting in your car waiting to order while it's running, why don't you just park and run inside to order? You'll get a little exercise in the process, and you can save some gas as well (not to mention the carbon you will release while the car was running!).

2. Do you have a kitchen (or any room) faucet that takes forever to get warm water? There are some great solutions out there to get you hot water faster, but even easier why not save the water that you are running while waiting for it to warm up? Set a bowl or pat in the sink while you run the water. Once the water warms up take the bowl away and use it for your original goal. Then use the bowl of water to water your plants, rinse off dishes etc. Also think about keeping the bowl there if you are just washing your hands or something like that. The little bit of soap or debris that was on your hands won't bother your flowers at all. Then you won't have to run more water to take care of the plants!

The Laing Autocirc pumps are a great way to get hot water quickly to your taps without wasting water. They claim that for a average family of four, installing one of their pumps will save about 17,000 gallons a year! I put one in my house and love it. Instant hot water when ever you need it! When I have more time I'm going to do a blog post here with some pictures of the process of installing the pump and more of a review, so check back.

Stop spending money on bottled water, before it literally kills you!

Here's an interesting thought that I came across today. The bottles that your bottled water comes in actually contaminates the water you drink from them. There are all types of water bottles out there, none of which are truly safe to drink your water from (at least none that bottled water is sold in).

There are actually large municipalities and swanky restaurants that are banning the bottles!

Studies have shown that the water in the bottles is typically no better then what is coming out of your tap. Almost half of the time the water in the bottles started out as tap water anyway.

The major environmental problem with the bottles is the manufacturing process and the disposal process is using up oil, and clogging out landfills.

Additionally, bottled water costs thousands of times more then the water that is flowing out of your tap! Now is is really a solution that will save you some green!

All of these factors add up to one thing: Buy one good truly reusable water bottle and fill it with water from you tap. It'll be better for you and thousands of times cheaper!

The following is a link for a water bottle that good for you, and will actually keep track of you hydration level! Sportline HydraCoach Intelligent Water Bottle (SL705)

Want to know more of the details? Check out the following articles:

Tapped Out
Bottled Water
The Bottled Water Madness
Plastic Water Bottles: Really Bad for the Environment
KleenKanteen

Affordable Wind Power - DIY

This is what we've all been looking for, for quite some time. I'd like to put solar on my roof, and a turbine on my land, but I've yet to find something that is cost effective. Take a look at what I've come across here.

It's a wind turbine that is tall and skinny, that looks simple enough to install on my land myself, doesn't take up to much area because there are no blades, and costs less then $4,000!

It looks perfect. It produces 1KWH in an average 12 mph wind. It'll kick on at 8mph, and is rated for wind up to 100 mph. The maintenance takes about 30 mins a year, and you have to change the inverter every 10 years. Seems pretty "fool proof!"

So far everything I have seen simply is not cost effective. Or even if it was the project would be much to large a scale for the two acres I own, and then free time in my life.

If anyone out there has installed one of these before please comment on this post. I am seriously considering placing and order!

Normally it is my understanding that if you have solar or wind there is some electrical equipment that you need to install so that the power created will power your house when needed and additional power created will go back into the grid. The website mentioned something about a "plug n' produce" option which sounds like you can just plug it into your household outlet and power the house that way. Sounds interesting and much cheaper then installing all the other equipment. It does say you can also hardwire it as well.

Now 1KWH isn't going to supply all the power you will need, but it certainly will cut into your power bill. And it looks pretty scalable. In other words I am thinking about getting one to try it, and if it seems to work well then add a second one, and so on.

Finally a affordable personal renewable energy source that I an install myself for a nice weekend project!

Link: Affordable Wind Turbine

Wind Turbines in Bahrain World Trade Center

Here's and idea that I thought was a great one. This is an article about how the world trade center in Bahrain used some unused space to create some green energy.

They installed three wind turbines on an existing sky scraper. The article doesn't give much as far as info about the spec but it seems like a great idea. I'd be interested to see if they could supply all the power for that building.

As you'll see there are quite a few comments from readers all who seem to think they are smarter then the next. They can't really have any specific knowledge of the project so it's amazing that they know so much, but they do touch on all of the elements that I'm sure when into the decision of whether to install the turbines. Someone has to be the devil's advocate right?

Link: Bahrain World Trade Center Getting Its Turbines

Solar Oven - Saving the planet one muffin at a time!

Ok, have you heard of these? Remember when you were a kid and you were chasing ants around with a magnifying glass during you summer vacation? Well the concept is the same only now you are cooking dinner.

I've seen plans for them online and in magazines, but have not yet had the time to build one. The most basic plans I've seen called for a plywood box that was lines with sheet metal. The most sophisticated one that I've seen I read about in Business2.0, where a company was selling professionally made units that came on their own trailer. They were selling them to third world countries so that people could use them to cook instead of building a fire, thus reducing pollution.

The following are some links of sites that either sell solar cookers or offer plans to build your own:

Solar Cookers International
How to Build a Solar Cooker
The Solar Oven Society
How to Make a Pizza Box Oven

Of course any solar oven is going to save you either electricity, propane, or whatever you use to run your current oven. Even if you don't use it every day, every little bit will help. Just think of all the CO2 you'll keep out of the atmosphere, while you enjoy your favorite recipe with your family!

10 Things you can do at work to save the planet

Ok here at Saving Green we always try to save the planet in a way that also saves you money. This time we'll still save the planet, but your company is going to save the money. Hey, maybe you'll start a trend and can ask for a raise right?

Below are ten suggestions to save the planet while your at work:

1. My office building has handicap accessible doors leading into the building. I think this a great, IF, you are handicapped. If not, save the electricity and just pull that door open yourself. It's really not that heavy, I promise!

2. Also along the same line, we are all guilty of riding the elevator when we could just go up 2 flights of stairs to the office. Have you ever caught yourself waiting 5 mins for the elevator, when you could have been in your office in 1 min if you just walked up the stairs? Well, at the same time you are saving the electricity to run the elevator. The exercise you'll get is just a nice bonus!

3. Do you have a personal light or lamp at your desk? Do you really need it on when you are just using your computer? Also, always make sure that you turn it off when you leave for lunch and go home for the night.

4. Is it too hot or too cold in your office? I've seen people with space heaters under their desk that they run all day because they are cold. Even if your company thinks they are saving money by turning down the heat in the winter, if they allow everyone to run space heaters they are definitely losing. Call HR, or your building supervisor, or your boss, and talk to them about adjusting the heat.

5. Is all of your office equipment set to go into sleep mode when not in use? Make sure that your photocopier sleeps after a set amount of time that makes sense for your office usage. Especially when you go home for the night. Or even better it might make sense to turn the machines totally off when you go home for the night. Even in sleep mode they are still drawing some power.

6. Can you ride your bike or walk to work? This one will save you gas money, and reduce emissions at the same time. You'll also get some more of that exercise! Even if you can't bike or walk, maybe you could carpool and cut your cost and emissions in half.

7. Use your misprints. Did you print two copies when you really only needed one? Or was there a typo that you changed and reprinted? Save the misprints and use the back for notes and scrap paper. Ok, it really great that the sticky notes are that fun color and they'll stick to your monitor, but is that really that important. All you really need is a note on your chair to make sure to print those TPS reports right? (note: make sure your not using the back of a printout containing confidential data!)

8. Ask for a recycle paper bin if you don't all ready have one. We've all seen them, the big blue bin that you put your scrap paper in (this is of course once you have all ready used the back to remind yourself to print your TPS reports). It will then get recycled and save a tree!

9. Did you ever notice anything that wasn't working properly at work that you know was wasteful. For instance the toilet is running constantly and won't shut off. Or the refrigerator door is broken and won't close properly. It only takes a minute to send a quick email to whomever is in charge of taking care of those types of things for your building. Save the water, electricity, etc.

10. Screen savers. Yeah they are fun. Once you've not been using your computer for 10 mins a great white shark starts swimming around in your monitor, or the man starts cleaning the window from the inside, etc. They are cool to see, and once upon a time they actually did serve a function. If they same thing appeared on your monitor in the same spot a long time old monitor would burn that image in. So even when you had a different screen up, your could still see the shadow of that popular image. But the technology of monitors today is such that they will no longer burn and image no matter how long you have it on there. So once 10 mins goes by just have your screen go to black. It actually takes a little more energy to run a screen saver then to just let the screen go black. Not a lot, but if we all do it, it'll add up!

Which has more Mercury, CFL's or incandescents

Mercury. It's the last reason that people haven't changed over to CFL's. Mercury is bad for the environment and bad for humans as well. Sounds horrible right?

Actually Mercury is bad, the problem is people don't realize the amount of Mercury that is released into the environment to run a regular incandescent bulb. Most of the electricity that is produced in the US comes from coal fired power plants. When you burn this coal, Mercury is released into the environment.

The amount of Mercury in a CFL is very small and getting smaller all the time as R&D improves technology all the time.

Now, you are using the same electricity from coal plants when you are running your CFL's, but of course you are using 1/3 to 1/4 the power you would when using an incandescent bulb. The amount of Mercury actually contained in the bulb is tiny compared to what is released into the environment from the coal power plants. Also, the Mercury from the power plants is released into the environment. The Mercury in the bulbs is trapped in the bulbs and would only be released if the bulb is broken. Most CFL's will last 5-15 years and end their life when they finally burn out. They can then be recycled thereby releasing no Mercury from the bulb itself.

Of course the CFL's are much better for your wallet as well. The electric bill savings over the life of the bulb far outweigh the additional cost for the purchase of the bulb.

The moral of the story is this: There is no good reason not to change all your bulbs to CFL's! They will save you money, save the CO2, and reduce the Mercury in the environment as well. Additionally, they don't burn as hot so when you are running the AC in your house they will release less heat and therefor save you money cooling your house.

Buy your CFL's!