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Planet Green
Created by the same savvy folk who brought you the award-winning TreeHugger, Planet Green is your user's guide to living mindfully on this big blue marble we all call home. Their experts will help you navigate the oftentimes confusing sea of options available to help you detox your home, life, and planet—without the jargon or the guilt trips—so you can start being the change you wish to see in the world.
Passionate, positive, yet always practical, Planet Green is bursting with smart tips, easy-to-understand advice, and inspiring anecdotes to help you tread more lightly on the only Earth we've got. And before you know it, you'll be rolling your Rs—reduce, reuse, and recycle—like a seasoned pro. Nos casa, su casa.

Labels: green

I’ve found the best way to promote the virtue of a green lifestyle is to promote the value of a green lifestyle.
Not everybody cares about ‘saving the earth’ but nearly everyone cares about saving a buck.
It’s been a small triumph in my home that we’ve lowered our heating bill this winter – it’s been a challenge.
My home is an interesting mix. Two-thirds of the house was built in the 1950s and the other third is an addition that’s only a few years old. What results is a house that will be two-thirds freezing and one-third toasty…or vice-versa. Why the differing climates in one house? The newer part is insulated and sealed-up within an inch of airtight Tupperware and the older part of the house leaks like a sieve.
Lie on your belly in the living room, directly in front of the door, and you would be able to see my neighbor’s well-manicured lawn through the sliver of space between the front door and doorjamb.
It may seem like just a crack but during the coldest or hottest parts of the year, enough of those little gaps can cost you an arm and a leg.
It’s doing the earth no favor either when you compensate by jacking the heat or the AC up to counteract the leaks.
That gap…if it’s one-eighth of an inch wide the whole way round…is equivalent to having a six-inch square hole in the middle of you door.
Weather-stripping is by far one of the easiest ways to make your home more energy efficient — and one of the cheapest.
The cheapest of the cheap is to take a rolled up towel — or one of the knick-knacky rolls made for this very purpose — put it front of the gap that air is flowing through. Voilà! No more drafty door. (Or make your own like this blogger did.)
For something more permanent, but only a little more pricey, there pressure-sensitive adhesive-backed foam. It comes in rubber and plastic and in rolls of varying lengths and thicknesses. It’s not a forever fix but it’ll last around two years.
There are other types, too, and they run from cheap-o to high dollar. Whichever you chose, you’re making the right choice.
If you’re not sure where to start, the guys at Lowe’s were helpful with answering questions I had about weather-stripping (and I’m sure all home improvement stores around the area will be more than willing to educate about the advantages of weather-stripping). Local heating and air technicians can also give you a hand.
Check in next week to see which items are pulling double-duty in my house as we examine one of the three Rs of environmentalism “reuse”.

Labels: green

No doubt most of you have heard about “going green”. It’s a movement that has people exchanging their incandescent light bulbs for the squat and swirly CFL bulbs, carpooling with co-workers and looking at their thermostats with more critical eyes.

In my house, the “going green” trend was a passing notion until we took a look at just what was filling up our trash bin.

We’re addicted to Coca-Cola…and we’re always on the run. We’re not fans of two-liter bottles. They aren’t very portable and the tasty Coke tends to go flat. For us, aluminum cans are the only way to go — they chill down quick and fit right in your hand. We buy the 12- or 24- can packs with regularity. And we go through them at a breakneck pace that would cause any self-respecting kidney to shudder.

The empty cans were taking up precious space in the trashcans and, since aluminum is one of the materials that is touted as infinitely recyclable, it seemed a shame to waste so many.

To top it all off, the health department said recycling aluminum uses 95 percent less energy than producing aluminum products from raw materials.

So…

We took a cheap plastic tub container — one that came with a sticker warning I shouldn’t try storing any toddlers in it — slung it under one of our kitchen counters and started collecting.

I learned a few things rather quickly. Rinse the cans or risk the horror of congealed Coke at the bottom of your bin that, at least to me, appeared to have many similarities to the acidy spit from “Alien.”

Crush the cans. It’s easier said than done for me. I couldn’t possibly get by stomping them on our hardwood floor but I’m embarrassingly weak when it comes to crushing them with my hands. (I won’t even entertain crushing them on my forehead.) And, before you say it, we’ve yet to invest in one of the can crushers that would solve all of that.

I just rinse them out, leave them on the counter until someone masculine comes along and handles the crushing and throws them in. It’s a good system.

That bin of cans, it seems, was our first step toward taking a closer look at green living. Along the way, we’ve found our efforts not only make us feel like better residents of Earth but we’ve also saved a little money in the process.

From reducing, reusing and recycling we’ve found some things work and some things are a complete hassle. Check back next week to see how we fare with weather stripping to eliminate drafts, getting rid of other heat-stealers and, fingers crossed, lowering our heating bill.

Link of the week...
The Green Guide
Brought to you by our friends at National Geographic -- or NatGeo for you hipsters -- this site gives you good resources and practical tips. My favorite? The article by Emily Main about Greener Guitars.

Labels: green, power of the people, recycling, Think Green