Cut your energy bill in half
10 Easiest Ways
to Cut Your Energy Use in Half
1. Turn Off the Lights
Save 2%*
Be mindful about shutting lights off when you leave a room. If you have a forgetful family member or roommate, paste reminders on the switchplates or consider installing motion-detector switches.
ADVANCED: Replace your bulbs with CFLs or LEDs.
2. Install Ceiling Fans
Save 19%
Install Energy Star ceiling fans in the rooms you use most often. They’ll help keep you cool in the summer while your AC works less or not at all. In the winter, switch them to turn clockwise to circulate the warm air rising up to the ceiling back down into the room.
ADVANCED: Go with a white roof or install a greenroof, which will prevent heat loss through the roof in winter and cool your home down in the summer.
3. Show Your Fridge Some Love
Save 4%
The refrigerator is one of the biggest energy-users in your home, and if it was built before 1993, it’s a huge energy hog. Clean the coils on your fridge every six months to keep it running efficiently, and take up unused space with jugs of water, which will hold in the cold better. Eliminate a second refrigerator, if you have one.
4. Wash Clothes in Cold, Let Them Air Dry
Save 9%
Washing clothes in cold water gets them just as clean as hot, and cuts your washer’s energy use in half. Drying your clothes on an outdoor line or indoor rack can save around $100 in energy costs every year.
ADVANCED: Water and energy use are intertwined: producing energy uses water, and providing clean drinking water requires energy. Take steps to conserve water everywhere in your home.
5. Upgrade Appliances
Save 12+%
Appliances use 20 percent of the energy in the average US home. When it’s time to buy new appliances, look for the most efficient Energy Star model you can find. The biggest energy hogs in a home are usually the refrigerator (particularly if it was built before 1993) and clothes dryer.
6. Give Your Water Heater a Blanket
Save 1 - 3%
Adding an insulating cover to your water heater can reduce heat loss by 24-45 percent. Also, turn your water heater down by ten degrees, if possible. If half of US households did so, it would prevent 239 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
ADVANCED: Upgrade to a tankless or solar water heater, and save 14% off your energy bill.
7. Plug Air Leaks
Save 12%
Replacing windows is often the least cost-effective step you can take to save energy, so seal air leaks around doors and windows instead with caulk and weatherstripping. For tips on sealing and refurbishing old wood windows, see our article. Also, consider putting up insulating curtains, pasting low-e film to the window glass, and installing storm windows or plastic window films to further cut down on heat loss in winter.
ADVANCED: Get a RESNET or Home Performance with Energy Star audit to help pinpoint your biggest energy losses.
8. Use Your Programmable Thermostat
Save 10%
Nearly half of US homes already have a programmable thermostat. Dig out that owner’s manual and learn how to use yours to maximize the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems. Program your thermostat to turn itself down or off when you’re sleeping or are at work or school.
ADVANCED: Get a RESNET or Home Performance with Energy Star audit to help pinpoint your biggest energy losses.
9. Air Dry Dishes
Save 3%
Using your dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand can save water, but if you let the drying cycle run, you’re wasting energy and money. Skip the drying cycle and let your dishes air dry. Newer, more effective and efficient dishwashers allow you to skip the step of pre-rinsing your dishes before you load them in the dishwasher.
ADVANCED: Run your dishwasher (and your clothes washer, for that matter) at night, during off-peak hours. It’s our country’s peak demand that determines the expansion of dirty coal-fired power plants.
10. "Eliminate Phantom Load"
Save 5%
Many electronics still suck energy even when they’re turned off--such as powering that little clock on your microwave when it’s not in use. Unplug your electronics or plug them into a power strip and switch it off to save on this “phantom load.”
ADVANCED: Use a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the energy use of appliances and gadgets, even when they’re turned off. You can also keep track of your home’s entire energy use with a whole-house energy monitor.
Responsible shopper original post from greenamerica.org
ResponsibleShopper.org Rates More Than 150 Top Consumer Companies, Exposes Big-Brand Abuses and Enlists Consumers in Cleaning Up Corporations
Expanded Web Site for Concerned Consumers “Connects the Dots” Between America’s Biggest Companies, Their Abuses and How to Create Real Corporate Responsibility.
Washington, DC -- Worried that your consumer dollars are rewarding bad corporations with problem practices? Concerned about greenwashing? Wish there was an easy way to get the dirt on America’s biggest companies before you buy something? Looking for a way to pressure consumer companies you patronize to get responsible and clean up their acts? For concerned consumers, the answer to those questions is the newly expanded ResponsibleShopper.org Web site (http://www.Responsibleshopper.org) operated by Co-op America. The expanded Responsible Shopper site relaunched at 1:30 p.m. EDT today (July 30, 2008).
ResponsibleShopper.org informs concerned consumers about problem corporate practices, action campaigns and ways to live greener in relation to more than 150 major consumer companies. In a major enhancement of the Web site, ResponsibleShopper.org now ranks companies in 27 industry categories from best to worst based on research focusing on such key issues as human rights, social justice, environmental sustainability and more.
In addition, to attention getting companies like WalMart and Exxon, major consumer companies ranked by the new ResponsibleShopper.org site include such brand-name corporations as McDonalds, Toyota, Coca Cola, Disney, Hanes, and General Electric. Companies are listed and ranked on ResponsibleShopper.org in the following categories: agribusiness; appliances; athletic wear; automobile; banking/financial; beauty and body care; beverage/water; big box retailer; booksellers; chemicals; cleaning products; clothing; coffee; computer/electronics; department stores; electric utilities; electronics; fast food; food; gas/oil; home improvement/building; Internet; mass media (TV, radio, film); supermarkets; tires; tobacco; and toys/games.
Co-op America Responsible Shopper Coordinator Victoria Kreha, said: “This is a major step forward for empowering concerned consumers who want plain facts and action-oriented solutions, not hyped-up advertising and glitzy greenwashing. Visitors to the revamped ResponsibleShopper.org site will be given considerably more information about how to use their economic clout to demand greater corporate responsibility and tips on how they can shift their spending to more responsible choices."
Co-op America Corporate Responsibility Programs Director Todd Larsen, said: “The Number 1 goal in expanding Co-op America’s ResponsibleShopper.org was to create the Web’s most powerful one-stop information resource for concerned consumers. The result is that ResponsibleShopper.org now provides you with the real story about abuses by well-known companies, gives you actions to promote corporate responsibility, and helps you green your life and world.”
The site is divided up into three sections by company and industry: “Learn” (get information); “Act” (join in campaigns to clean up corporate abuses); and “Live”/Go Green (shift spending to greener/fair-trade practices and companies).
Each company-specific profile in ResponsibleShopper.org contains a listing for consumer, investor, and community campaigns to end corporate abuse of workers, communities and the environment. The complete list of actions (sorted by industry and company) is available at: /programs/responsibleshopper/act_hub.cfm.
Examples of ResponsibleShopper.org corporate profiles include the following:
McDonald’s: It is well-known that McDonald’s food is unhealthy but there are many other problems associated with the fast food giant. A Chinese group found that McDonald’s violated Chinese labor laws by paying their part-time workers almost half of what the government mandated minimum wage is. In other Chinese factories workers have protested long work hours, denial of paid leave and overtime pay, and failure to provide adequate medical insurance. McDonald’s scored only a 22 out of 100 in a Climate Counts Scorecard which rates companies on their commitment to reversing climate change. McDonald’s was part of a lawsuit against fast food companies by the state of California for not warning customers that their french fries contain a carcinogenic chemical.
Toyota: This automaker enjoys a reputation as the greenest company in an industry that has had a huge impact on the environment. But Toyota is not as green as it would like you to think. A recent report by the National Labor Committee linked Toyota to human trafficking and sweatshop labor as well as finding ties to the brutal military regime in Burma. One-third of the more than 10,000 workers toiling in factories to produce the popular and fastest selling hybrid in the world, the Prius, are part-time temps who earn less than 60 percent of what full-time workers earn and few, if any, benefits. Additionally, Toyota has lobbied against heightened fuel efficiency standards and was sued by the EPA for Clean Air Act violations.
Coca-Cola: Coke’s food and beverages are enjoyed by millions of people around the world. But the beverage giant has had adverse effects on millions more. In India, Coke was found to have pumped hazardous waste into farms fields and a local canal that flows into the Ganges. A study by an Indian organization found high levels of pesticides in all of the Coke products that it tested, 27 times higher than what is allowed under Indian regulations. Elsewhere, Coke has been accused of human rights violations in several countries, discrimination against women and minorities in its US bottling plants, union busting, and underwent an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly committing $2 billion in accounting fraud.
Disney: Through its theme parks, movies and merchandise, Disney prides itself on being able to create a magical, fairytale world for children. But human rights violations in China, lead in children’s toys, and packaging advertising to look like news (Disney owns the ABC television network), make this conglomerate more of an ogre than a fairy godmother. A Hong-Kong based nongovernmental organization found at least nine sweatshops in China producing items for Disney. In one such factory, workers went on strike after not having been paid for 45 days. They were also protesting unsafe working conditions and long hours. In June of this year, a US-based advocacy group found unsafe concentrations of lead in children’s charm bracelets produced by Disney. These bracelets had coatings containing between three and seven times the amount of lead allowed by the federal government. Hanes: This company was part of Sara Lee until 2006, but its labor practices are anything but sweet. Hanes owns a factory in the Dominican Republic that has been accused of serious workers’ rights violations including firing workers who unionized, verbal harassment, and unpaid overtime. The National Labor Committee (NLC) discovered child labor at the Harvest Rich factory in Bangladesh, which contracted to Hanes. The NLC found reports of children being beaten and forced to work such long hours that they often collapsed from exhaustion. Hanes claimed their own investigations turned up no evidence of child labor, but they also admitted that their factory monitoring efforts have failed for many years.
General Electric (GE): Although GE has its “Ecomagination” marketing campaign to paint GE as a company that cares about the environment, the facts tell a different story. The Political Economy Research institute out of the University of Massachusetts rated GE the 4th worst polluter in the country for 2006. GE has been linked to 116 Superfund sites, sites deemed so toxic by the EPA that they are hazardous to human health, and the company dumped 1.3 million pounds of the toxic chemicals, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBS), into the Hudson River. GE has numerous transgressions in a variety of other areas. Between 2001 and 2003, GE not only paid zero taxes but received $9.5 million in tax breaks. During that two year period, GE reported nearly $37 billion in profit. GE also received $2.2 billion worth of military contracts in 2005, according to CorpWatch’s War Profiteers Campaign.
ABOUT CO-OP AMERICA
Co-op America (http://www.greenamerica.org) is the leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Co-op America provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today's social and environmental problems. Co-op America’s green economy programs encourage corporate responsibility, tackle climate change, build fair trading systems, advance healthy, local communities, and provide green purchasing and investing information for families and businesses. To receive Co-op America’s popular publications, including Real Money and the National Green Pages, participate in Co-op America’s Green Business Conferences or Green Festivals, or to get its free e-newsletter, providing the latest green news, green discounts and opportunities to take action for a green economy, visit www.greenamerica.org, email info@greenamerica.org, or call at 800-58-GREEN.
CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com
Saving gas saves you Green
Saving gas saves you green
Small changes in the way you drive can have a big impact in reducing fuel use and CO2 emissions
Avoid rapid starts and stops. Gentle acceleration and braking can save you money
Keep on rolling. Stop and Go can waste energy because it takes more gas to accelerate from a full stop. Anticipate stops ahead and try to cost whenever possible. Slow and go beats Stop and go.
Use air-conditioning at higher speeds. Air conditioning can reduce mileage as much as 20%, but driving with the windows down can reduce fuel economy through aerodymanic drag. So, when driving at slower speeds, (less than 40mph) open those windows . Also use the "recycle inside air" option, instead of drawing hot air from outside to be cooled completely.
Avoid idling even if you will be waiting at the curb for a short period.
Maintain optimum speed. Driving over 60mph guzzles more fuel. Observing the speed limit can improve mileage by as much as 23%. use cruise control on flat terrain.
Plan trips to take the shortest route
Use the highest gear possible Your car starts in the lowest possible gear, for optimum power, which uses more fuel.use the overdrive when possible.
See the Fuel Efficiency Adviser at Florida Eco Products - FloridaEcoProducts.com
When you follow real time Smart Driving information from your Fuel Efficiency Adviser combined with minimum maintenance recommendations, you can reduce your fuel consumption as much as 33% and eliminate the excess pounds of CO2 your vehicle is currently releasing into the atmosphere. Fuel Efficiency Adviser
Sat Cool!
10 Tips to Stay Cool This Summer
- Raise your Thermostat to 78 This is the number one way to conserve energy- also see the Cool-N-Save an a/c pre-cooling system which creates a cool zone around your a/c unit so it pulls in cooler air. This means the a/c works less and so more efficiently. Save up-to 30% on your a/c energy costs.
- When you are away from home for more than 8 hrs, raise the thermostat setting and you can expect to see a 1% savings for each degree of setback. Invest in a Programmable Thermostat
- Keep shades closed when the air conditioning is on. Sunny windows account for 40% of unwanted heat and can make your air conditioner work 2 to 3 times harder.
- Check and clean filters Cleaning and replacing air conditioning filters monthly allows the system to run more efficiently.
- Install ceiling fans. Don't underestimate the importance of ceiling fans. Moving air over the body provides a cooling effect. The use of ceiling fans can mean savings of around 25% on cooling costs and can make the temperature seem 10 degrees cooler.
- Make sure ceiling fans are blowing down. Most fans have a switch to change the fan direction. Make sure ceiling fans are rotating in a counter clockwise direction to send air past your body.
- Run appliances with large energy use late in the evening. Use the dishwasher and washing machine late in the evening. When used in the day these appliances produce additional heat, causing you air conditioner to work harder. The Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor will asses how efficient products really are.
- Use cold water to wash dishes and clothes. This will save on water heating costs. A Hot Water Gauge thermometer card will tell you if your hot water heater is set too high.
- Unplug equipment not in use. Electric chargers, televisions and audio/video equipment use electricity and produce heat even when they are not in use. Running an older refrigerator can use up to 3 times the electricity of a modern energy star approved one. Unplug any appliance when it's not in use or use a Belkin Conserve 8 which conveniently minimizes the standby power by enabling you to turn off multiple devices with just one click of the remote switch.
- Turn off lights Turn lights off when exiting a room. Replace incandescent bulbs with EcoBulb Plus energy efficient CFL's, and remember to recycle CFL's whenever possible
Greenwashing
Greenwashing
I came across an interesting term today - Greenwash (a portmanteau of green and whitewash) a term used to describe the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources. It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. The term green sheen has similarly been used to describe organizations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.
The above definition is from wikipedia and was coined by NY environmentalist Jay Westerveld to address the fake Green of hotel companies which requested guests reuse their towels to "save the environment" whilst reducing the hotel costs and increasing profits.
It is important to us all to champion the green lifestyle and promote changes that will help save our environment but we need to make sure that those who changes are real and will make a measurable difference not only in the immediate action but also in the thought behind the action.
Lets ask questions from companies who are using the advertising style and make sure the actions match the talk.
Thank you, Paul
Water Conservation
Save Water Indoors
Watch the monthly savings add up when you use these easy tips ( saving estimates based on a family of three)
gpm - gallons per month
175 gpm - Run your washing machine and dishwasher only when full
250 gpm - Rinse fruit and vegetables in a bowl of water instead of under running water
675 gpm - Turn off the water whilst brushing your teeth and shaving
690 gpm - Install water efficient showerheads and limit showers to 5 mins Showertimer Showerhead
870 gpm - replace older toilets with new low-flow models.
1000 gpm- Install a Chilipepper instant hot water pump and prevent running cold water down the drain whilst you wait for the hot water to arrive Chilipepper CP 6000
See our water conservation products at Florida Eco Products, including the Chilipepper, showertimer and low flow showerhead.
CFL light bulbs - see the way ahead
Compact Florescents
Facts:
75% less energy is used with an Energy-Star labeled compact flourescent lightbulb (CFL) compared to a standard incandescent bulb.
Energy Star was introduced by the EPA as a voluntary labeling program designed to help identify energy-efficient products
CFLs last up to 10 times longer and save $30 over the life of the bulb
CFLs produce less than 100 degrees of heat compared to haolgen bulbs at 1'000 degrees
Replacing one bulb prevents the release of 300 pounds of carbon dioxide in just one year
Switching just one bulb off in every houshold would reduce carbon dioxide by 90 billion pounds per year
If each home replaced five frequently used lightbulbs with CFLs, close to $8 billion a year in energy costs could be saved.
see our website for Feit Ecobulb low mercury CFLs
Facts from article by Mathew Emerzian and Kelly Bozza / McClatchy-Tribune Newspapaers
Tampa Bay customers can visit www.tampaelectric.com for FREE CFL bulbs for completing an on-line Home Energy Audit
