Now that my radar is tuned into everything green and frugal, I’m amazed at how many more terrific resources and tips I find on the web. For the longest time, the most frequent green, money-saving tips you heard revolved around changing out your regular lightbulbs for the compact fluorescent kind and turning off the lights when you left a room. But with folks becoming more aware of the importance of green, I’m finding that there are a ton more terrific tips out there these days.
Here are a few more nifty suggestions I’ve picked up lately:
* Give laundry the cold shoulder
Washing your clothes in cold water is the best way to save energy, resources and money–even if it you have a water-guzzling, top-loading washing machine, so writes Eileen Smith in her recent Courier Post money column. (Smith also has a fun blog about shopping called Shop ‘Til You Drop.) So is making sure that your spin cycle really whips out the extra moisture in your clothes so that they’ll need less time in the dryer. Another wash cycle suggestion: let your clothes soak for an hour or two, then restart the washing machine on the light cycle. You’ll need less time to wash them because of the soaking, meaning you’ll use less energy in the process.
* Have a dryer dry spell
If at all possible don’t use the dryer as much, and you’ll save energy. In our house, clothing spends five to 10 minutes in the dryer, then I pull items out and hang them up on a drying line in the laundry room. (I can’t dry clothes outside due to pollen and my allergies.) Another benefit to this drying method: my clothes last longer, which is a money saver in and of itself, so says the Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org website.
* Ditch the answering machine
I don’t believe that any of my friends and family members still have answering machines (all have moved on to the modern equivalent, voice mail), but it seems that a lot of Americans still have these now-relics around–18 million Americans according to The Daily Green website– and these machines are using up lot of energy. If everyone just switched over to voice mail, you would save in energy and emissions the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road. That’s a lot of kilowatts!
* Eat and grocery shop locally
I remember reading about fruits and vegetables that have to travel thousands of miles to make it to my local grocery store–and how often times this produce was forced chemically to ripen so that it looked more palatable to shoppers like myself. In the end this was bad for the produce, bad for me (chemicals), and bad for the environment. These days the best way to save the world is to eat locally, as I discovered in a recent Portland Press Herald article that my mother in Maine sent to me. This article talked about the amount of energy consumed in transporting fruits and vegetables some 4,000 miles. (This mileage stat doesn’t surprise me, given that I recently saw New Zealand Gala apples in my Pennsylvania supermarket. In my mind apples should come from Washington, New York, or Maine, where my grandfather was an apple farmer.) This notion of eating locally to save resources, find fresher fare and support local businesses fits right in with the 100-mile diet challenge that some folks follow, whereby they try to have everything in their diet come from within a 100-mile radius of their home. I’m sure that isn’t easy but probably an eye-opener and well worth the effort.
* Check the baking aisle for creative cleaners
I can remember my mother teaching me to use vinegar as a way to clean out the gunk in my coffee machine without poisoning myself in the process. (It sure did speed up brewing time but it took many, many pots of hot water to clean out the awful smell.) I can also remember her showing me how baking soda and vinegar can clear a clogged pipe better than a chemical cleaner, and the same combination works great to clean a toilet and a bathtub. It seems that these days, cleaning is baking soda and vinegar chic. I’ve recently seen a number of articles touting baking soda’s benefits–from keeping HEPA filters in vacuum cleaners clean to degreasing your hair–and would you believe it? There are books out on baking soda and vinegar. They are Baking Soda: Over 500 Fabulous, Fun, and Frugal Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of and Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of, both by Vicky Lansky and both with pretty impressive Amazon rankings. I’m going to have to see if my local library has either or both books!
What other “out of the recycling bin” green, money-saving steps have you picked up on lately?
READ LEAH ON HOME GOES STRONG
I’m with you on so many of these. I went to the grocery store for my daughter at her college apartment. I bought the Wisconsin apples instead of those from Washington in an effort to buy closer to home. Wisconsin red potatoes make the best potato salad, too.
Lately, I have been line drying my laundry and hand washing my dishes. On the days the dishes really pile up, I’ll run the dishwaher at night (when the energy demand is not as high) and air dry it…I learned to ignore the water spots!
Coincidentally, my local paper just listed all of the local apple orchards in our county and the kinds of apples they grow and sell–and which ones are in season now. I plan to take my kids to the nearest ones to pick up our fall favorite, Honeycrisp. Until the orchards shut down for the season, we will try to buy our apples locally from them–assuming the prices aren’t too crazy. Right now Gala apples are about $.99 a pound in the supermarket.
I, too, will let my dishes in the dishwasher air dry by opening up the dishwasher after the wash and rinse cycles have ended. My mother taught me that, especially in winter, this is a great way to introduce extra humidity into already too-dry winter air and save money/energy at the same time.
My husband thinks I am crazy, but I do believe it makes a difference, I not only turn things off when not in use but unplug them too. I have heard over and over that energy is drained even when certain things are not in use. So, unplug the coffee maker after that last cup in the morning.
We do this too! Also, I use castille soap (gallon of Dr. Bronner’s) and baking soda to make a soft scrub type cleaner that works when nothing else does on the bathtub. We can usually clean most of the tub with just baking soda, but certain smudges and the tub ring (if we wait too long between cleanings, lol!) require this soft scrub.