Happy St Patrick's Day

In honor of this green day I thought it was the perfect time to send you a quick little note and remind us all there are easy ways to go green! So here is a little list of 10 simple ways to go green.
1) Switch to a CFL bulb instead of a regular light bulb.

2) Watch your home energy. Monitor your thermostat, if it's in your budget for about $70 purchase a pre-set thermostat where you can set the temperature for the week, month season or however long you would like.

3) Unplug things you are not using. Get rid of phantom power. It can take up up to 20% of your utility bill.

4) Recycle. Most cities offer curb side recycling if you city does not there are many community areas to take your recycling. I have a link here on my blog to www.earth911.org and they have a list of community recycling areas. Check all boxes and bottles when you are cooking you would be surprised what can be recycled.

5) Recycle electronics. One person's trash is another person's treasure...remember that. There are many places that will take your old broken printer, cell phone, monitor. Whatever it may be and give you credit towards a new one. You can also visit http://www.electronicsrecycling.org for more information.

6) Stop using plastic bags!! Switch to whatever type of reusable plastic bags. There are cute ones now, practical ones, heck cheap ones. Here are my favorite Click Here because it's my favorite company of course and because of the size and I shop for a family of 4 so I would rather carry 6 bags vs 20 cute little ones.

7) Reduce-- cut down packaging by buying food in larger containers vs small 1 serving containers. That is less that needs to be put in the trash....which sometimes we forget leads to a landfill.

8) Stop buying water bottles!! Most of them end up in landfills and even if you recycle there is no reason you can't use a water bottle to refill. We all know that tap water is safer than bottled water anyway. So there isn't a health factor there.

9) Shop smart at the grocery store (source: Green Daily). One way to do this is to look for the USDA Organic label, which certifies food hasn’t been exposed to things such as pesticides or synthetic fertilizers or growth hormones and that the soil where they were grown is free of these, as well. They may be more expensive but they are much healthier. So you have to decide what is more important.

10) Use less water. Shorten showers if possible. Even if it's one a week every little bit helps. A lot of people have started collecting rain water also for use in their lawns throughout the summer.

Now these may all seem overwhelming but don't get discouraged! Take them a little bit at a time. Maybe switch one bulb at a time, or pick one things you know you can do full time and most of these actually save you money. And in these tough economic times, who can't use that.

Happy St Patty's Day,
Karen
www.KarenPore.com