Living Green and Cheaply in Minneapolis
If you’re like me, this whole “living green” business is really expensive. I know it’s worth it in the demolish, preserving the Earth for future generations, but I’m not made of money, and have very dinky to spare. Here are some ideas to lessen your guilt factor about not being able to afford a solar powered house and an electric car:
1. Take the bus. Seriously, it’s cheaper than gas, insurance, and car payments. Minneapolis has one of the better public transportation systems. You can purchase a reloadable bus pass online for as little as $10 that is also good for the light rail system (gargantuan for trips to the airport or the Mall of America) as well as multiple fares. Take advantage of the public transportation methods your taxes are paying for. Another budget-friendly option for suburbanites working in the city is www.erideshare.com. It’s basically a Park-and-Ride system for carpoolers, which can reduce down on gas emissions immensely.
2. Use cloth grocery bags. Or at least use paper ones and recycle them as your trash bags at home. You’ll be surprised how grand plastic you don’t need. When shopping and buying just a few items, re-use shopping bags or go without. Some figures note that most plastic shopping bags take between 400 and 1000 years to biodegrade, and are the cause of some 100,000 marine animal deaths per year. (www.natural-environment.com)
3. Exercise Tupperware instead of Ziploc bags. Make your motto re-use before recycle.
4. Use cloth napkins, not paper ones. Relatively inexpensive, a set of cloth napkins will last you and your family years. Getting rid of one-time-use paper napkins is an easy way to shorten your eco footprint.
5. Don’t buy “cleaning wipes.” This disinfecting throw-away wipes are easily replaced with a sponge and a sink full of anti-bacterial cleaning solution. Personally, I find these wipes just dull lazy.
6. Utilize energy efficient light bulbs. They last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs and are about 4 times more efficient, and if you get them on sale are the same price as the old ones.
7. Recycle- everything. Places are now taking batteries, obsolete appliances, tvs, clothes, rubber, pretty much anything you’d throw on the curb. Impartial a speedy google and bus ride to make sure odd items and appliances are re-used and recycled properly. A fantastic website has sprung into popularity called www.freecycle.com, a place where you list everything you don’t need anymore for others to pick up and re-use. It’s free, and has everything from old plastic bottles to household furniture. It’s like Craigslist, but free.
8. Ban water bottles. Not only is bottled water manufactured with lower regulations than tap water, but the effect on the environment is catastrophic. Nearly 90 percent of water bottles are never recycled, ending up in landfills for hundreds of years before biodegrading. (www.treehugger.com) Tap water is often safer to drink and it’s free. For those of you who just can’t handle the taste, water filtration systems like BRITA are fairly inexpensive to buy.
9. Use newspaper to clean glass around the home. This is a trick I learned from a window-cleaner. Windex and newspaper leaves windows streak-free and bright, lessening your paper towel usage.
10. Use less water. Take shorter showers, turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth, and wash dishes by hand instead of using a dishwasher.
While these things may seem like not a big deal, doing them every day can make a positive impact on our environment. If everybody in the world make a conscious effort to change small habits in their lives, just imagine what a greener world it would be.
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Filed under Whole House Water Filter Cartridges by on Sep 21st, 2010. 