Live Green Starting Now!
With Rachelle Carson-Begley
Just in case you’re not lucky enough to be married to a man who will beat you into submission every time you take a shower that lasts longer than a two-minute Navy shower, I want to give you a few green tips that will improve the quality of your life.
You… I mean YOU… can do small things everyday that will affect the well-being of our planet. I know that you may not think that you alone, can make a difference, but you can.
In my opinion, one of the most important things you can do is to cut down (or eliminate) your use of plastic.
Plastic does not biodegrade and will probably end up in a land fill for eternity; or worse yet, the North Pacific Gyre (a floating mass of plastic the size of Texas.)
What affects you personally is that most single-use plastic contains BPA (Bisphenol A); a chemical found in hard plastic that leaches into the food or liquid it holds. Examples are water and baby bottles.
BPA interferes with reproductive development in animals and is linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and breast cancer in humans.
The website to refer to for alternate uses is: www.waterbottlesreviewed.com
Ed always says to “pick the low hanging fruit.” Do what’s easiest. Whatever money and time will allow, find ways to go green. Sometimes, you will be surprised to find that using natural products can cost you less than chemical bases ones. Wherever you live, you can find ways to detox your life throughout your home.
IN YOUR KITCHEN
Switch over from chemical based cleaning products to natural products. Generally speaking, what’s good for your body is good for your kitchen.
Even if you can buy organic fruit and vegetables from a nearby orchard or farm, be sure to clean them with a natural vegetable wash.
The most expensive appliance in your home may be your refrigerator. It requires five times the consumption of the average television set.
Buy an Energy Star fridge with the freezer on top and do without the water dispenser and ice maker which uses a lot of energy. Place it somewhere in your kitchen away from the stove or dishwasher so it won’t use more energy competing with the heat. Keep your coils clean, which means pulling it out from the wall and cleaning it every year. Keep the temperature at 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit for the fridge and 5 degrees for the freezer.
The better environmental choice for a stove is generally gas over electric. And believe it or not, self-cleaning ovens, because they have more insulation, use less energy than regular ovens.
As in every other room of your home, your kitchen should be lit with compact fluorescent (CFL’s) instead of the incandescent that most of us grew up with. Only about 10% of the electricity used by incandescent is light. The rest is heat.
IN YOUR BATHROOM
Amazingly enough, you can waste so much water in your bathroom. Every toilet that was bought before 1994 uses from 3 to 5 gallons of water each time it’s flushed. If you get a new toilet, it will use only 1.6 gallons or less of water with each flush.
The EPA has given out information on how you can create a lower flush toilet by putting a plastic container, (such as a milk jug) filled with water inside the tank. Doing that would save over a gallon for each flush. Because a leaking toilet can waste over 750 gallons a month, you might check for leakage by putting a few drops of food coloring into the tank. In less than half an hour, check the toilet water to see if it’s leaking.
For your shower, you might exchange the shower head to a low-flow one, and add a filter to eliminate the chlorine which comes from the municipal water source. Because chlorine in tap water has been linked to an increase in some cancers, the less you are exposed to, the better.
The chlorine that comes through your bathtub faucet can be eliminated by getting a Bath Ball faucet filter.
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Connect with Rachelle at: http://rachellecarson.com
