Being Green 101
Going green is easy. Start with these five easy steps.
- Stop Using Plastic Bags and Bring Cloth/Reusable Bags to the Stores
- Plastic bags are typically made from oil, a non-renewable resource
- The oil must be heated to 750 degrees F, which requires a lot of electricity
- Less than 1% of bags are recycled, and it’s costly to recycle
- Plastic bags account for 10% of debris that washes up on our shores
- Plastic bags have a devastating affect on wildlife, which get entangled in or ingest it
- Over time, bags break down into toxic polymers, which enter the food chain
- Paper bags are not a good substitute --it takes trees and a lot of energy to produce them
- Switching to cloth will save an average of 288 bags a year, or 22,000 in an average lifetime
- Don’t Buy Bottled Water; Use Non-Leaching Reusable Bottles
- Americans purchased nearly 31 billion bottles of water in 2006
- Americans spend $11 billion on bottled water every year
- Bottled water costs about 1,000 times more than tap water
- Bottled water is less regulated than tap water; some bottled water comes right from the tap
- Making the bottle uses twice as much water as the bottle holds
- It takes 15 million barrels of oil annually to make plastic water bottles, or enough oil to run 100,000 cars for a year
- Only 10% of plastic water bottles are recycled & 40% of recycled plastic is shipped to China
- Roughly 750,000 plastic water bottles go into US landfills every day
- If you don’t like the taste of your tap water, install a filter
- Replace Your Light Bulbs with Energy Star Compact Fluorescent Blubs (CFL’s)
- Lighting uses 20-25% of a home’s electricity
- CFL’s use up to 75% less energy and last 10x longer
- A CFL bulb will save you about $30 in electricity costs over the life of the bulb
- If every US home replaced one bulb, it would reduce greenhouse gases = to the emissions of 800,000 cars/year
- If everyone in the U.S. used CFL lighting, we could retire 90 average size power plants
- Saving electricity reduces CO2 emissions, sulfur oxide and high-level nuclear waste
- Home Depot just announced a recycling program for CFL’s
- Look for the Energy Star rating
- Green Your Cleaning
- The average US home has 63 synthetic chemical products, or roughly 10 gallons of harmful chemicals
- Worst offenders: corrosive drain cleaners, oven cleaners, acidic toilet-bowl cleaners, chlorine and ammonia
- Look for cleaners that state “non-toxic,” “no phosphates,” and “biodegradable”
- Chose laundry and dishwasher detergents with no phosphates
- Many eco-terms are not regulated, so chose a well known green brand
- Use a Green dry cleaner (Dry Cleaning Station, Stratford Road)
- Support PEA and/or other Organizations that Support Environmental Sustainability
- Join PEA on-line for only $25/year