Going Green

Sustainable Materials
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100% daily dose of happy feet: wool, cork, and bamboo flooring
110% charm:Doors salvages from 150 year-old barn
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Water Efficiency
100% free irrigation: Rainwater collection system
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Energy Efficiency
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Big dose of Vitamin D: Beautiful windows and skylights
55% off your electric bills: Solar photovoltaics
65% more off yourheating bill: EnergyStar® roofing geothermal heating
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Indoor Environmental Quality
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Healthy family: Low toxic paints and stains
Comfy rooms: Radiant floor heating with no drafts
Cozy beds: Organic cotton fabric
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Design Innovation
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70% less stuff for landfill: Carefully seperated and recycled construction waste
100% cool to talk about at parties: Certified Green Home

*Green Living Tip: Organic ketchup contains 83% more cancer-fighting lycopene than conventional ketchup. Experts say organic tomato sauce should offer the same boost.

The United Postal Service is known best for their “brown” trucks with the “yellow” UPS lettering on the side. We have all seen them and some might have even gotten a package or two from them at one time. The benefit of getting a package sent through UPS or even the United States Postal Service, snailmail as some call it, is not only easy but now it also helps the environment in a BIG way!

UPS has gone green in more ways then one. The company is now operating 50 hybrid electric trucks that will reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 452 metric tons annually. They are also testing a hydraulic hybrid estimated to have 70 percent better fuel economy. Phoenix, as well as California, have already seen the truck-change and more cities and states will follow in the future.

The U.S. Postal Service, which operates the largest alternative-fuel fleet in the nation, recently unveiled a new delivery truck that conserves fuel by 30 to 50 percent.

Anymore most people send mail and correspondence through email or text-messaging, with the new trucks and their earth-friendly changes, more and more of the public may just change to sending mail the good ole’ fashion way. Because, quite frankly, it is difficult to send a birthday card with $20 dollars in it through texting.;)

*Going Green Tip: Lotions and cremes that are out on the market today not only leave a baby’s skin feeling unsatisified, they are also chalked-full of harsh chemicals and ingredients that are horrible for your child’s body. If your child have sensitive skin like mine does, there is three products that score an A+ on my mommy scale. They are great, long-lasting products. And they don’t have harsh ingredients that dry out my son’s skin. Little Twig Bodymilk with lavender , lemon, and tea tree ($15) ; Avalon Organics Baby Gentle Tear-Free Shampoo and Body Wash ($10) ; Welda Baby Calendual Cream ($10) . It is a great practice to get into, teaching children at a young age, what products are better for the environment and their body’s and what products we could all do without.

A typical incandescent bulb burns for about 1,000 hours, using anywhere from 60 to 100 watts of electricity per hour. But only about 10 percent of the electricity emits lighting. The rest is lost as heat from the light bulb.

With Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs_ they last up to 10 times or longer and use 1/4 the energy while still producing the same lighting by being just as bright.

How to buy a CFL:

1. Choose the right wattage. You only need one-fourth the wattage of your old incandescent bulbs, If you normally use 60 watt, try using a 15 W CFL.

2. Keep it light. A bulb that is light for its size is made with an elctric igniter, which prevents buzzing and flickering.

3. Check the label first. CFLs with the Energy Star seal meet strict efficiency requirements, and encure the best quality color and brightness. For more information on CFLs click here.

*Conserve Money And Energy With CFLs.*

*Green Living Tip: Look past the minicookie and bags of honey-roasted peanuts, major airlines now cater to health-conscious passengers. American Airlines being one. They have added more salads to its menu and United Airlines being another by adding Right Bite snack box that contains organic raisins. British Airlines has also made some changes. Offering their first class passengers menus such as roasted salmon with green papaya salad. If you are a health conscious passenger, try flying with one of these airlines. Or the airline you fly frequently ask if their is an alternative to the fat ladden choices. With more and more health conscious flyers, I am sure in time a lot more airlines will follow suit.

Some Earth happy quotes to live by:

“What we are living with is the result of human choices and it can be changed by making better, wiser choices.”
– Robert Redford

I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.
– Mother Teresa

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
– New England proverb

“75% of colleges and universities have a recycling program.”
–Colorado State University Recycling Program

We are not to throw away those things which can benefit our neighbor. Goods are called good because they can be used for good: they are instruments for good, in the hands of those who use them properly.
– Clement of Alexandria (150?-220?)

“Solid wastes” are the discarded leftovers of our advanced consumer society. This growing mountain of garbage and trash represents not only an attitude of indifference toward valuable natural resources, but also a serious economic and public health problem.
– Jimmy Carter

There appears to be a deeply embedded uneasiness in our culture about throwing away junk that can be reused. Perhaps, in part, it is guilt about consumption. Perhaps it also feels unnatural. Mother Nature doesn’t throw stuff away. Dead trees, birds, beetles and elephants are pretty quickly recycled by the system.
–William Booth

Much of our waste problem is to be accounted for by the intentional flimsiness and unrepairability of the labor-savers and gadgets that we have become addicted to. — Wendell Berry

When I visited coffee farms in Ethiopia, the farmers could not believe we spend a week’s wages in their country on a cup of coffee in ours, because they see so little of the profits. Oxfam’s fair trade campaign helps right this wrong.
– Colin Firth

*Going Green Tip: Make positive changes today in your lifestyle and ways, that will ultimately last forever. When taught the right way of living, it will stay with you and in turn you will show others the right way to live. Do it for you, your children, and your children’s children and most of all, do it for the Earth.