Living Green, the Fast and Cheap Way!

By now, everyone knows that the environment is in trouble. Rainforests are vanishing, the oceans are ailing, air and water quality are declining by the hour, and what about that hole in the ozone layer? Eighty percent of Americans say that they'd like to do more to live green, but we don't all have the money or space to install expensive solar panels on our roofs and grow all our own food. Here are some ways that you can do more to reduce your environmental impact without wiping out your life savings--or your weekend.

One of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to move toward renewable sources of energy. Many electricity providers across the country still use polluting fossil fuels such as coal and oil to produce the electricity that powers the computer you're using right now. Can't afford solar panels? You're not alone--one estimate puts the cost of installing enough solar panels to completely meet the power needs of a family of four at $9,000 to $15,000! So what can you do? Contact your electric company and find out if they participate in a renewable energy choice program. My electric company in San Antonio, CPS, offers customers the chance to choose to receive their electricity from clean wind energy rather than polluting power plants. For my family of three, this results in a price change of less than $.34 a day--about $10 every month. That's certainly affordable.

Another way to save energy (and money!) is to adjust your thermostat. We're a bit crazy with that at my apartment--in the summer, we keep the air conditioning set at 80 degrees. With the ceiling fan on high, I promise it's quite comfortable! If you're not as heat-tolerant as we are, try setting yours to 74 instead of the average US temperature of 72. In the winter, put on an extra sweater and set your heat to 66 instead of 68. Using my household as an example again, setting our electric central heater's thermostat at 64 in winter saves us $297 each winter and stops over 5300 pounds of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. Now that we use wind energy, this savings will more than pay for the cost difference, and we release no CO2 from electricity.

Now, what about food? "Food miles" have been big in the media--the number of miles that your food travels from farm to plate. For instance, the average number of miles that beef travels from ranch to slaughterhouse to distribution to your plate is well over 9,200! Obviously if you're an apartment dweller like me, you can't grow all your own food. You can, however, look for a local farmer's market for your produce. Simply googling for "farmer's market [your town]" will give you all the information you need. At my local farmer's market which runs every Wednesday morning during the growing season, I talked with the vendors and found that the average distance their food traveled was 80 miles. Quite a difference! And you can't beat the flavor of fresh produce. Some farmer's markets even sell fresh chicken and fish. The cost? I don't pay any more than I would for non-organic, wax-coated, flavorless produce at the grocery store, although I usually buy and eat more fresh fruits and vegetables than I would at the supermarket.

Can't afford a new hybrid vehicle? You're not alone. And even if you can afford one, they're nearly impossible to find right now because of high demand and tight supply of the special batteries that make them work. So what do you do to reduce your vehicle's carbon output? Here's another one that'll actually save you money--keep your vehicle in good working order. Get the oil changed regularly, keep your tires inflated to the proper pressure, and have your air filter changed every 12,000 miles. By doing these three simple things (which you really should be doing anyway!) you'll save about 4% on your gas mileage. At current prices of $4/gallon (ouch!), that'll save you $.16/gal, or $1.92 per fill-up of a 12 gallon tank. Doesn't sound like much, does it? But consider average usage of two tanks of gas per week and you're saving nearly $200 per year.

Finally, recycling. Call your local waste management company and request recycling bins. There's no added cost for this service, and depending on how much you're able to recycle, you might find that you can move to a smaller size garbage bin and save money that way, too. Some families are able to recycle almost everything. Unfortunately for apartment dwellers like me, many apartment complexes don't offer recycling pickup services. Bother your apartment manager until they get the waste management company to drop off large commercial-sized recycling bins. Our complex hasn't done this yet, but we're lucky enough to have an elementary school right next door that does have the large recycling bins. We're able to walk our newspaper and plastic bottles over there when we take our German Shepherds for a walk.

You can also recycle plastic shopping bags at the grocery store--or better yet, don't use them at all! Reusable shopping bags are a great option. They're usually $1 or less each, and they're made from recycled materials. We keep them in the trunk of our car so we're never without them, and some grocery stores actually offer a $.05 to $.10 per bag discount on grocery purchases for using them. Some cities and states are discussing a per-bag charge for those thin plastic bags, so now's a good time to make a small investment in reusable bags to avoid that fee. Plus, they're stronger, hold more, and I've never had a "bag blow-out" with a reusable bag like I've had more times than I want to remember with the thin plastic ones.

Also, plastic shopping bags are made from oil, and reducing their use can add up to real oil savings. For example, Ireland passed a law in 2001 that added a $.15 tax, paid by consumers at checkout, for each plastic shopping bag used. This tax has reduced Ireland's use of plastic bags by 90%! This reduction has not only cut down on litter, it's saved more than 18 million barrels of oil since the tax was instated.

So you see, simple, quick changes--switching from polluting energy to renewable sources, changing your thermostat settings, finding a farmer's market, maintaining your vehicle, recycling, and using reusable shopping bags--can make a big difference in the environment. Not only are these things fast and easy to do, many of them will even save you money in the long run. And what could be better than helping the environment and your bank balance at the same time?