Ten Ways to Go Green

11/30/2009

Glenmeadow strives to be a socially accountable organization. In doing so, we touch the lives of hundreds of people and help to make our area a better place to live. Reflecting our commitment to environmental stewardship, we established a green committee, consisting of both residents and staff, which meets regularly to identify ways Glenmeadow can reduce its environmental impact. For example, during the past year, Glenmeadow began food composting; now, all food scraps are put in a dumpster that is taken to make compost.

1. Turn off the lights when you leave the room. Lighting is responsible for about 11 percent of a home's energy bills. Replace old incandescents with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs use about 75 percent less electricity than an incandescent bulb.
2. Skip the bottled water. It is expensive and generates large amounts of container waste. Instead, carry a reusable water bottle.
3. Set your thermostat a few degrees lower in the winter and a few degrees higher in the summer. Most households shell out 50 percent to 70 percent of their energy budgets on heating and cooling, reports the Department of Energy. Yet, for every degree you lower the thermostat, you'll save between 1 and 3 percent of your heating bill.
4. Fix leaky faucets. According to the drip accumulator calculator on the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Web site, a single slow leaky faucet dripping thirty drops per minute wastes three gallons per day, or the equivalent of twenty-seven baths per year.
5. Bring home "superhero" plants. According to Good Housekeeping.com, certain greens can help remove indoor air pollutants such as formaldehyde and benzene. Don't have the gardening gene? Golden pothos, English ivy, and peace lilies are all easy-to-grow toxin fighters.
6. Instead of deciding between paper and plastic at the grocery store, choose neither. According to "Little Green Habits" from Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, plastic takes 1,000 years to decompose and paper bags use 14 million trees a year. Instead, use cloth grocery bags.
7. Get off junk mail lists. Register with the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service (dmachoice.org) and you'll see a significant reduction in mail after a few months.
8. When running errands, park your car and go inside instead of using the drive-thru. According to the EPA, for every minute the average car engine idles, it emits six to seven grams of pollutants into the atmosphere. That means that if one million drivers turned off their cars, rather than idled unnecessarily, for just two minutes per week for an entire year, these harmful emissions would be reduced by more than 750 tons.
9. Stop rinsing your plates before putting them into the dishwasher. According to the Consumer Energy Center, on average, you will save fifteen gallons of water per load.
10. Recycle smartly. From furniture to electronics, one person's trash is another's treasure. So when you want to dispose of an old item, don't make the dump your first stop. Two Web sites with alternatives are freecycle.org and earth911.org.