Hippy Green

1 ) Buy CFL or LED light bulbs and replace the ones you have around your house. You can also just wait for each light to burn out and pickup a CFL or LED light bulb, this lowers the upfront or initial cost and spread it out over time. Seriously is a $2 light bulb going to bankrupt you? You will probably break even in a year with your electricity bill. () Enjoy! LEDs are a LOT more expensive, but they last so long and use hardly any power.

2 ) UNPLUG, Do you know how much electricity we waste just by having charges and/or TVs plugged in that are NOT ON. The simplest way to do this is to hook a lot of your electronics up to a power strip and flip that little button when you want it on or off. Yes this can be a hassle, but hey if everyone did it, imagine how much power we would save.

3 ) Stop buying bottled water. I know its cheap, but seriously we should look at cutting down on each of our carbon footprint by not only recycling but thinking about what we buy. Do we really need water from Fiji? Pickup a Nalgene bottle and a Brita filter and take that money your saving and put it in a Roth IRA or pay off your Credit Card Debt. Do you realize on the average each American carries over $8,000 in credit car debt! So lets think smart and not pickup that smart water and instead carry a clear nalgene bottle.

4 ) Change your cleaning products. I know most of us use the same cleaning products for the house and/or clothing. We probably have been using the same ones our parents have been using and just buy it without thinking, but seriously you can go green and smell good! I find that I am switching over to a lot of green products.

5 ) Cut down on waste. I know 1 sheet per flush is a bit much, but lets think the next time we use an entire roll of paper towels to clean up that mess. We should pickup the 10 pack of dish towels at Costco or target and just wash them in the laundry. This way we are not cutting down trees to clean up some spilled milk.

6 ) Go bamboo not plastic. Having plastic forks around for serving cake can cut down on washing the dishes, but why not look at a more “organic” type of silverware. They even sell corn based recycled silverware, or better yet, just use the dishwasher, thats why we created it. Since I have moved to Arizona I have taken full use of my dishwasher and plan to NEVER GO BACK!

7 ) Save water and money. Buy water-efficient showerheads or better yet, take showers together. Do you have a partner or friend who wants to save the world, tell them you want to cut down on your water consumption and want to shower together. I find this is not only a fun time, but you really do save time in the shower and with a water-efficient showerhead it can help even more.

8 ) Buy rechargeable batteries for all your toys. I find that most people just pickup a 20 pack of AA and use them until they run out. What a waste! We are in 2007 and they SELL rechargeable batteries, even ones that plug in to the USB port and can be used as AA. Think about the electronics in your house, the tv, dvd, cable, audio remote, and the Wii remotes, clocks, flashlights, etc. Just think USB Cell the next time you need some AA or AAA. You can plug them into your computer, laptop, and even some dvd players to recharge. (any USB port)

9 ) Adjust Fridge and Freezer Temps. This can save you on your electricity bill as well as keep your food cold, but not frozen. I am not talking about turning it completely off, just adjust it to 37 degrees F for the refrigerator and 0 degrees for the freezer.

10 ) Raise the Central Air or keep it around 75 degrees. You can always install a ceiling fan (also adds value to the house) to help cool down your place as well as circulate air.

Photo by khalid-almasoud

I am always blown away by how people say the “technology” has been the problem with GREEN. Didn’t you see that movie? with Al Gore?

Well for those not paying attention to their RSS feeds, ecogeek posted an interesting story about Porsche. Porsche the well know German car company built a car with in-wheel electric motors with an onboard gas engine to charge batteries more then 100 years ago! The in-wheel motor is pure genius and is something that I would like to see on more lightweight electric vehicles. Porsche is featuring this car in Los Angeles’s Auto Show and promoting their “going green”.

I just do NOT get it, why are car manufactures that DUMB! Seriously, wasn’t someone thinking about these types of cars in the 70’s and 80’s when gas was a problem. I also do NOT understand how these soccer moms complain about $4/gallon gas bills while driving their Hummer H2 to hold their “over weight” kids and hold their daily grande low fat upside-down caramel macchiato. UGH!

Well, I am ALWAYS interested in major companies going green and hopefully in the next couple of years we will see these types of technologies being implemented in future vehicles.

On a side note I will be restructuring Hippy Green a bit and focus on ebooks and articles on how to Go Green rather then report on Green articles. I find that I am just reposting the article with my views rather then “creating value”. I want to give my readership something worth reading and offer tips and tricks on how to go green, even on the cheap!

The email keep rolling in. The latest is from Raz Godelnik and who is the co-founder of Eco-Libris, a new green biz that lets book readers balance out the paper used for the books they read by planting trees.

So what Eco-Libris is all about?

About 20 Million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper used for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone. What we want to do is to raise awareness to the destructive environmental impacts of using paper for the production of books and provide people with an affordable and easy way to do something about it.

The process itself is fairly simple - upon entering our website, customers decide how m sooner then later, books will be made from recycled paper or other eco-friendly materials and logging for paper will stop. On that day Eco-Libris plans to move on to a new cause, but until then they think every book reader should take action. We also don’t forget the responsibility of the book publishing industry to the current situation and we intend to become a strong voice in a call for change towards printing books in an eco-friendly manner.

I love hearing about these types of companies who are thinking outside the box and taking action to fight for something they care about. I know I am tired of buying books and then just putting them on the shelve hardly ever reading them again. In the past year I have thought about buying a eBook reader (since I read a lot!, but just can not stand how BADLY designed they are. UGH! I just do not understand how SONY or any other company can screw it up so badly. I guess I will add my eBook Reader idea to my todo project list.

Thanks Raz for help creating this site and bringing it to my attention. Please keep me posted on your continue works with getting publishing companies to plan trees based on how many they use!

Until next time, plant a tree