When site published, the content will be centered in the page
|
Vertical Divider
|
Vertical Divider
Issue 352
July 28, 2008 ARE YOU GREEN YET? CREATE AN ECO-FRIENDLY HOME! BREATH CLEAN AIR CLEAN IT GREEN The average U.S. household spends approximately $600 on 40 pounds of chemical cleaning supplies annually. The business of chemical cleaning supplies is an 18 billion dollar annual business. They not only threaten our health but also end up in our rivers, soil, air, and oceans. Many of the products we use to clean our homes are a source of poisonous chemicals-toxins that may cause cancer, asthma, or other medical problems. You can save $580 annually by making your own non-toxic household cleaning products. You can find recipes for making your own non-toxic cleaning products using everyday items like baking soda, vinegar, and soda water at www.greenpeace.org/usa. AIR PURIFIERS CO2 emissions are the largest contributor to global warming. You can reduce these emissions by purchasing Energy Star® qualified products. The average 1,500 square foot home collects 40 pounds of dust per year. Energy Star® qualified air purifiers will help you and your family breathe easier while saving you money and lowering CO2 emissions. Operating 35% more efficiently than standard models, an Energy Star® qualified purifier saves an average of 215 kWh per year, preventing 370.9 pounds of CO2 from entering the earth’s atmosphere. ELECTROSTATIC FILTERS The easiest way to filter the air in your home is to use the heating and air conditioning systems already installed. The most common type of filter is the inexpensive fiberglass filter that only traps enough of the larger particles to keep your heating and air conditioning equipment from clogging up. Electrostatic filters are 97% efficient at filtering all indoor air pollutants including dust, bacteria, pet dander and mold spores. VOC PAINT (No Volatile Organic Compounds) The average adult spends approximately 80% of their time indoors – that’s 19 hours out of the 24 hours in a day. Indoor air quality is very important to maintain good health. Indoor paints expose people to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the paint for up to six months after application. The Freshaire Choice paint (only from the Home Depot) is the first-ever and only tinted paint to contain no VOCs or harsh chemicals. Issue 353
August 4, 2008 ARE YOU GREEN YET? CREATE AN ECO-FRIENDLY HOME! WATER CONSERVATION Water is a vital resource to our planet and the living things that inhabit it. With booming populations and ongoing drought conditions, our water resources are becoming taxed. Protecting and preserving the nation’s water supply is critical to our economy, environment, and human health. Using water efficiently now will help ensure water supplies for future generations. INSIDE YOUR HOME: • WaterSense label products use about 20% less water. The bathroom is one of the biggest water-wasters in the home, so start your conservation efforts here. • Fix leaky faucets, toilets and plumbing joints. To make sure your toilet tank isn't leaking, place a drop of food coloring in the tank; if the color shows in the bowl without flushing, you have a leak. • Fully loading an automatic dishwasher takes just as much water as when it is only half full……so load it up! • Replace your washing machine with an Energy Star qualified model and save up to 7000 gallons of water annually. • Replace your toilet with a low flow model and use less than 1.3 gallon of water per flush. Your toilet actually uses the most water of anything in your home. A regular toilet can use up to 7 gallons of water every time you flush, depending how old it is. But the new, dual-flush models have separate buttons for big and small flushes, using just 1.6 and .9 gallons (instead of 7)! They cost about $230 to $400, compared to $175 for a standard model, but will save you 5,000 gallons of water a year. Also avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. • Take shorter showers and replace you showerhead with a low-flow version. • Add a “Low Flow” Aerator to your faucet/sink. Faucets account for approximately 15% of indoor water usage in the average household. That is more than 1 trillion gallons of water in the United States annually. Federal law requires that new faucets not exceed 2.2 gallons per minute (gpm) however, older faucets can flow at rates as high as 3 to 7 gpm. Water efficient faucets labeled by the EPA’s WaterSenseTM program will use no more than 1.5 gpm, reducing the standard flow by more than 30 percent without sacrificing performance. Faucet aerators mix air into the water to reduce the flow while keeping regular water pressure (ends up saving water and saving money on bill). By using aerators in your kitchens and bathrooms, your family can reduce water use by more than 200 gallons a month. A normal sink's faucet flow is 3 to 5 gallons of water per minute, this aerator reduces water flow to 1.5 gallons a minute • Don’t run the water while washing your face, shaving or brushing your teeth. OUTSIDE YOUR HOME: • When you water plants deeply you will need to water them less often. Most plants do best if the soil is allowed to dry out between waterings. • Set your lawn mower blade one notch higher. Longer grass has less evaporation, therefore it will need to be water less frequently. • Adjust your sprinkler heads so that you are watering just your lawn and not the driveway and sidewalks. • Water early in the morning or late in the evening when it’s cool. This saves on evaporation, prevents fungus and prevents plant and grass sunburn. • Layer mulch around plants to reduce evaporation. Issue 354
August 11, 2008 ARE YOU GREEN YET? CREATE AN ECO-FRIENDLY HOME! ECO-FRIENDLY BUILDING MATERIALS Here are some ideas which will Save You Money and Help Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions: FACTS In just one year, the average American consumes enough wood and paper to make a tree 100 feet tall and 16 inches in diameter. Home remodeling is the largest use of wood products. It takes over 64 trees to create the wood products used in an average home, EXCLUDING the lumber used for framing! Sustainable forest products are produced from resources such as wood harvested from responsibly managed forests or contain a high percentage of recycled materials. Look for products such as The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certify wood products that come from forests where environmental, social and economic interests and benefits are safeguarded. Purchasing FSC certified products help protect forests. Currently there are over 208 million acres of FSC Certified Forest providing habitats for nearly 6 million species that would otherwise be lost due to deforestation. Only plants, including trees, can produce enough new oxygen to support life on Earth. Rainforests alone generate 40% of the world’s oxygen. Protecting these forests and trees will ensure a healthy living environment for many years to come. Purchasing FSC Certified Wood Products aid in the protection of the world’s much needed forests. Forests supply us with much more than lumber and oxygen. One fourth of the medicines today and 70% of the plants found have anticancer properties originated within the rainforests, and many more continue to be discovered. Rainforests are rich with biodiversity containing millions of species of plants and microorganisms. Therefore, it is important to select wood that comes from forests managed in ways that will ensure their protection, as well as the protection of many other natural resources. DIMENSIONAL LUMBER “Dimensional lumber” is the term given to all of the standard cuts of lumber used in construction. Because most homes are constructed with wood using dimensional lumber, purchasing dimensional lumber that is certified as coming from sustainable forests will help ensure that we provide wood products for today’s generation without eliminating wood supplies for future generations to use. Trees affect our environment in many ways, including the amount of rainfall we receive as well as the quality of the water we drink and the air we breathe. Since trees naturally absorb Carbon Dioxide (CO2), one of the leading causes of the greenhouse gas emissions, trees naturally help clean the air. While trees and the wood we get from them are a renewable resource, in some countries the growing demand for wood is taxing its regenerative capabilities. Therefore, it is important to select wood that comes from forests managed in ways that will ensure wood as a resource is cultivated. DOORS Doors make up a large percentage of wood products used within a home. The average single family home has 19 interior doors totaling over 444 board feet of wood. That’s two trees worth of doors in your home. Purchasing doors made of certified wood instead of non-certified helps protect forests and ensure cleaner air. FLOORING Attractive and reasonably priced, bamboo flooring is an eco-friendly and durable alternative to traditional hardwood. Since it is a grass, bamboo is harvested for commercial use every three to five years, making it a sustainable, renewable resource. PUT UP ECO-FRIENDLY WALLPAPER Eco-friendly wallpaper is now incredibly stylish and costs the same as traditional wallpaper. This particular wallpaper is printed on recycled paper using low VOC vegetable inks & dyes. It is recyclable and biodegradable. The production of this wallpaper is less chemically intensive & emits less greenhouse gasses than the production of traditional wallpapers and because it is made of recycled paper, it also saves trees (which absorb carbon dioxide). USE ZERO "VOC" PAINT The first way to reduce your carbon footprint is with paint. Use paint with no volatile organic compounds (or VOC's as they're called) which are chemicals that evaporate at room temperature. It's what makes that bad "paint" smell. They are bad for your health and they pollute air indoors & outdoors. If you don't have the money for major decorating/renovating, paint can do a lot. A fresh coat of paint can give a room an instant face-lift. Zero VOC paint can be less than $20 per gallon, which makes “being environmental” also “being thrifty”! About 10% of the garbage that is depleting the ozone in the US comes from paints and other surface coatings w/ VOC's. Zero VOC paints have no harmful chemicals and can be even less expensive than some traditional paints. Now they come in wide variety of colors -- today you don't have to sacrifice style to be good to the planet. Once you start going green around the house, you’ll see how small changes can really add up. CALCULATE YOUR OWN CARBON FOOTPRINT Educate yourself so that you can take action and make small changes. You can use an online calculator to get an estimate of your (or your family's) personal greenhouse gas emissions. For more ways to reduce your carbon footprint and eco-friendly décor ideas, check out www.dominomag.com Note: Excerpts gleaned and edited from Home Depot and Lowes websites. |
Vertical Divider
|
