10 Things You Can Do In Your Home Today To Go Green
1. Decrease your shower by 2 minutes or better yet turn it off when you are washing your hair and body. Then turn it on to rinse off. Green Tip: This will save 10 gallons of water!
2. Turn your thermostat up 2 degrees in summer with air conditioning and 2 degrees lower in winter. Green Tip: This will save you about $200 a year!
3. Recycle and get your community to recycle all plastics not just 1 and 2. Green Tip: If everyone recycled and separated paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum products and put them in the recycling bin it would decrease the amount sent to landfills by 75%.
4. Compost. Green Tip: Composting will save you money as you will not have to buy fertilizer for your garden, plus an added bonus you can decrease your garbage output.
5. Run Full Loads in the Dishwasher and don't prerinse. Green Tip: Doing both will save 20 gallons of water per load and 7,300 gallons over a year.
6. Get a reusable Pail liner for your garbage cans and then use only reusable bags at the grocery store. Green Tip: Doing this will save you about $30 a year in buying garbage bags and with every ton of plastic bags not used we save 17 trees and eleven barrels of oil.
7. Flush your toilet less. Green Tip: 1 less flush a day saves 4.5 gallons of water.
8. Stop the junk mail. Green Tip: go to www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist It costs $1 but will limit your junk mail.
9. Close your curtains when it's sunny in the summer and cold in the winter. Green Tip: This could reduce your energy needs by 25%.
10. Clean your dryer. Green Tip: Empty the lint screen and don't overload and you could save 5% on your electricity bill or for even more savings use your clothesline or use wool dryer balls to decrease your dry time!
Here are some quick and easy recipes to clean your house and they work great too!
ALL PURPOSE CLEANER
*This cleaner works wonders. It cuts grease better than any other commercial product I ever used. Just be careful because the Borax is toxic. I have known people that just eliminate the Borax and use a little elbow grease to make it work.
Ingredients:
Liquid soap or detergent (I use Dr. Bronners)
White Distilled water
Borax
Purified water (though I use tap water)
Essential Oils for Fragrance (optional)
Additional Items:
A 16oz spray bottle
* Mix 2 tablespoons vinegar with 1 teaspoon borax.
* Fill the bottle with hot water.
* Add 1/4 cup liquid soap or 1/8 cup liquid detergent last
* Scent with 10-15 drops of essential oil
TUB AND TILE CLEANER
*This cleaner is amazing on soap scum. I had used commercial products to try and get the soap scum off that we get because of hot water and NONE worked as well as this cleaner.
Ingredients:
Baking Soda
Liquid Soap (I use Dr. Bronners)
White Distilled Vinegar
Water
Additional Items:
A 16 oz squeeze bottle or I like to use a pint size wide mouth ball jar. You can use the quart size but it is difficult to get to the bottom if you have bigger hands.
* Mix 1 2/3 cups baking soda with 1/2 cup liquid soap
* Dilute with 1/2 cup water
* Add 2 tablespoons Vinegar last (it will foam and is fun for kids to watch)
* Mix until lumps are gone and if it does not run easily into your container add more water
*I generally make a double batch of this. Also if it dries out you can just add water and it works great.
What other kinds of cleaners would you like to know about and I will gladly post more?
Friday, July 30, 2010
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