What are YOU doing for the environment?

Currently I cycle plastic, aluminum, paper and glass. I work full-time to pay for school so I don't have much extra money, but I have begun to buy 3-packs of energy efficient light bulbs, when I do my grocery shopping every two weeks, in a effort to cut the amount of electricity I use. I'd love to buy a new, more fuel-efficient car, but the money just isn't there right now for that. I do, however, take care of all scheduled maitainence for my current car.

I'd like to hear what you guys are doing and maybe get some ideas of other things that I can do myself. Thanks

- At my house we have twist-florescent lights in most of our lights
- We have a supplemental solar system (1000 watts or so with batteries and inverter)
- Recycle plastic
- Use rechargeable (NiMH) batteries for commonly used devices

I'm also looking at installing a LED-based light over my computer desk. That pulls even less power than a florescent light and never needs replacing.

Rechargable batteries.... that never even crossed my mind. I'll have to look into that. I also forgot to mention my electric mower and other yard tools. They work pretty well and the electrical cord is less of an issue than I thought it'd be.

cleanairgardening.com...



This is a better option then Electric. They have got these things to the point where it's actually less of a hassle to mow your lawn with one of these things then a big heavy electric/gas mower. I've been using one on my back yard for a decade now and I never even break a sweat. The clippings I just rake and put them in the compost. The smaller bits I just leave there.

As for energy, the best way I've seen to get your house off the grid is to invest a set amount of money per year into Solar panels, LED lighting, Inverters and Batteries. I'm going to be putting 2000 a year into the system with the goal that in the first year, I'll be able to take all the lights in the house off the grid. The year after that will be the Refrigerator. The year after that, the AC. By year 4 I want to have my house at the very least 2/3rds Off the grid. I'm not talking about Grid tied, I'm talking completely off the grid. If you decide to do it this way(for whatever investment you deem feasible for your budget), this system will pay for itself faster and will be able to take advantage of new technology as it comes out.

For Transportation, consider investing in a Hybrid Peddle-assisted bicycle. They cost roughly 2000 bucks, but with a 40 km range, it's perfect for the city. Use this in tandem with your car for great savings.

Start Composting. Increase Insulation. Make sure your house is nearly sealed up. You don't want to Completely seal the house up as that may cause Carbon Monoxide buildup if not that many people go in and out of the house.

Also, there is a much simpler way to reduce maintenance on your lawn. Replace the grass with indigenous wild flowers, grasses and shrubs and just let them grow wild. Avoid mono cultures and straight line plots. If you randomly place plants around in the garden and lawn it will be better for the biodiversity if you had placed it uniformly. I have no idea why this is, but it's true.

[edit on 26-11-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
... Avoid mono cultures and straight line plots. If you randomly place plants around in the garden and lawn it will be better for the biodiversity if you had placed it uniformly. I have no idea why this is, but it's true.

[edit on 26-11-2006 by sardion2000]

I had an agronomy/soils professor who had a strange tongue-in-cheek viewpoint on biodiversity. When asked about forest grasses who would just shrug and exclaim "Bah! Yellow pine forests are all the same." Yet during his lectures he would proclaim there is tremendous biodiversity in the most uniform looking manicured lawn. We would walk out to the quad at the expanse of well-tended green lawn and he would point out all the differences --one area got more water from the sprinklers, another got more sun, and still others were under different species of trees, etc. When we took plug samples from the lawn and took them back to the lab you could see the difference -- they all had different mixtures of fungi, nematodes, arthropods, etc depending on the unique microenvironment of the source location. Samples less then 1 meter apart would be totally different. I never looked at a 'uniform manicured lawn' the same way again.

Now the grass in my yard is shrinking. Every year the garden expands at the expense of the lawn. I don't want to completely eliminate the grass, though. There is just something about walking barefoot through the grass on a summer day, and the grandkids need someplace to play yard games.

[edit on 26-11-2006 by dave_54]

Originally posted by Toxic Fox
I'm also looking at installing a LED-based light over my computer desk. That pulls even less power than a florescent light and never needs replacing.

The best way to do that would be to setup a sub-system to make it so the LED's aren't on the grid at all. It would be a bit of a hassle to do, but it'll pay off in the longrun with quicker payback periods.

What am I doing for the environment?

- recycle (all types - glass, paper, plastic, aluminum, oils)
- florescent lighting
- low flush consumption toiletry
- water filtration/softening
- carpool when available
- walk when I can
- drought resistant grass
- sprinkler timers
- high efficiency heating/cooling
- any type of home improvements to lower heating/cooling bills (insulate)
- fireplace (kinda redundant, but it lowers the gas consumption)
- lower the thermostat during winter time
- raise the thermostat during summer time
- using sunlight during the day instead of lights (open those damn blinds!)
- rechargeable batteries
- regular tuneups on vehicles




[edit on 11/26/2006 by Infoholic]

Recycling is mandatory here so thats nothing to worry about.
I stopped driving completely for personal use and only drive if absolutely needed for work, I do as much of my travel by train or bus.

I also collect old computers and computer parts from everyone I know and put them up for sale on e-bay, I do the same with pritty much all electronics and electrical appliances like fridges, dryers, washing machines etc, anything I can't sell on e-bay I bring to the local recycling and refurbishing centres, if the machine is unrepairable, I disassemble it and put the seperate types of parts up for recycling. I generaly do this because I just love taking things apart and look how they tick :p

Other then that, we have energy efficient lighting all trough the house, we only heat per zone and only if we are really cold, most people in my family prefer to put on a sweater to get warmer then to turn up the heat.

We also have a rather large garden in which we grow 85% of all vegitables we eat in a year and 120% of the potato's we eat. (the resting 20% goes to other family members)

The eggs we eat are from freerange chickens my neighbour keeps, hes got about 30 chickens and they lay 1 egg a day each.

Theres plenty more little things we do that would be considered environmentaly friendly, but most of the things I we do, including the ones I mentioned above we didn't do with the purpouse of being environmentaly friendly at all.

I stopped driving a car for personal use because I like riding my bike.
The old computer and electronics stuff is because I like having my hands on as much computer hardware I can get. With the other machinery, I already said why I do it (I love tinkering with everything :p)

The lighting is mainly because energy efficient lights tend to last longer and when we use normal bulbs, we end up replacing every bulb 1ce a month.
The heating thing is mentality related, like i said, when cold we sooner think about putting on a sweater then turning up the heat.

The garden is also not because we want fresh or biological vegitables, but because my father is retired and maintains the garden to pass his time.

The eggs is for 1 reason and 1 reason only, these fresh freerange eggs taste much better!

Infoholic, Have you ever tried Car-sharing?

www.zipcar.com...

[edit on 26-11-2006 by sardion2000]

what am i doing to protect the evironment? polluting the air as much as possible....big gas guzzling SUV, flying RC planes and full size gas guzzling planes, using spray paints, smoking, and burning leaves.

know why? we're way overdue for the next iceage, and global warming is the only thing holding it off.

Methane gyrations last 2,000 years show human influence on atmosphere
We are in an unusually long interglacial period right now, and another interesting but unresolved question is whether humans, without forethought, have inadvertently kept Earth out of the next ice age by altering its energy budget.

Or we have tipped the balance scales by overheating the Earth, causing freshwater melt to gush into the Oceans, changing the salinity, current and thermal characteristics. The result? Reduced Atlantic Current. Result of that? Less heat being transferred to Europe equals cooler temperatures. Will the resulting chilling of European Climate be significant enough to alter the albedo of the Earth causing a gradual(though much faster then last time due to our influence) creeping growth of new Glaciers? Hopefully not.

BTW Methane in the atmosphere has leveled off.

i agree that your scenario is a definite possibility. the problem i have, however, is that global warming activists have this tendency to take less than two centuries of accurate data and base all of their theories on said data. this is the current accepted theory, so we must all believe it as fact. kind of goes against the whole concept of a "theory."

*I don't drive. I don't even own a car and haven't for years now.
*My home is completely lit using compact fluorescent light bulb.
*I don't have news paper subscriptions so I don't have to worry about recycling newspaper. I do recycle my bottles and cans. Well, technically I don’t recycle them. I give them to the guy who collects bottles to get the deposit refund.
*I rarely water my lawn in the summer.
*I cover my windows with plastic in the winter.
*When I pee at home I don’t flush the toilet. The amount of clean drinking water to wash away urine is insane. One day I hope I can get one of those 6 litre toilets

I reuse as much as possible, recycle and use public transport. I try to keep electricity use to a minimum, keeping everything unplugged and lights off unless there being used. I think this is just common sense though, people who consume alot more than neccessary are just wasting things people less fortunate could be using.

The reason why I think global warming is such a 'hotly' contested area is that if we do, as a world, make the effort needed to prevent it happening, then how will it fell like we've achieved anything?

Originally posted by snafu7700
what am i doing to protect the evironment? polluting the air as much as possible....big gas guzzling SUV, flying RC planes and full size gas guzzling planes, using spray paints, smoking, and burning leaves.

know why? we're way overdue for the next iceage, and global warming is the only thing holding it off.

I hate posting and not being able to back it up, but here goes. Did you see Aubrey Mannings programme about the history of the worlds climate. Can anyone tell me if I'm right in remembering him saying that the Earth's climate had reached a stable condition for at least 10,000 years until we started causing it to heat up. IFF this is true then I don't see how we're holding off anything.

Is anyone using the water from their washing machine to water their lawn. I've been thinking about doing this for a while but haven't gotten around to seeing exactly how to go about it. Also, can I use the water from the dishwasher for the same thing?

What I do to protect the environment.

-I recycle all my recyclable materials.
-I drive less than 100 miles a year.
-I use energy efficient appliances.
-I use energy efficient flourescent lightbulbs.
-I advocate alternative clean energy technology.
-I rarely use the heater, and when I do I regulate it.


What I will be doing in the future.

-Buying a Hybrid that gets atleast 50mpg.
-Installing solar panels.
-Using more rechargeable batteries.

Same as most above i I recycle all my recyclable things, Here in London you have to, We get fined if we don't lol

you get 3 green boxes for plastics, glass, tins and paper,

then a black bin (trash can) that is for house hold waste,

then a big green wheelie bin (large trash can with wheels,) That's for garden and kitchen waste, + cartons and cardboard,

I use energy bulbs through the whole house,

-I don't own a car

-I switched to (supposedly) green electricity

-Compact flourescent lighting. ooh, on the point of L.E.D lighting, I recently bought an l.e.d car reverse light for $19(Aus). It has nineteen l.e.d's, runs on 12VDC, is very bright (and can be dimmed using a transformer with switchable voltage). I got it at Dick Smith's in Aust. Probably available at Radio Shack etc. Hardest part was finding a fitting for it and that was only because the guy at the car parts store was, well, STOOOPID, as he said they didn't have anything to fit it, only for me to find that they had the exact thing I needed in the window. I plan to get some PV panels and more of these globes to replace my house lighting.

-If I want to read a newspaper, I go to a cafe and read their copy.

-recycling (via the council supplied wheely bin)

-I try to shop local

-front loading washing machines use less water, so, I recently switched laundromats

-cogitate and agitate on a.t.s

-subversive rebranding

Has anyone here used a tankless water heater?
There are a few comapnies that make them..SOme even qualify for tax credits.
But they are more expensive than the standard 30-50 gallon tank heaters.

I'm curious to know a little more about them from someone with experience.

This is a good thread.
Even if you have a problem with the global warming theories, how could anyone have trouble with saving money? Money is a good motivator too!

Our central heating system heats water and pumps it into the 50 liter vat when its not heating the house.

I guess depending on where you live in the US, people have hybrid heating/airco systems over just a heating system.

Because theres only about a month a year here that the temperatures are above what you'd call confortable, airconditioning is almost only present in office buildings where extra heat and air polution is generated because of the amount of people in there.