Mindzle

Posts Tagged ‘tips for living’

Go Green Easily:  Recycle

 Go green easily and start recycling.  Recycling is more than rinsing the garbage out and putting it in bins on the curb or going to a center.  Recycling is also done by reusing grocery bags for future shopping or poop-scooping.  New uses for old items is recycling, as is composting.  Searching out post-consumer recycled packaging of your favorite products is also supporting the effort.  Reducing our contribution to loading up garbage barges and landfills is becoming more and more important.  The less garbage we have, the less fuel is needed to transport it, the less land is swallowed in trash and the more empowered you feel doing your part for your planet.

 Go green easily by recycling and get some change.  Recycling in some areas is rewarded with cash and who can’t use a little extra green for going green?  Many towns, county dumps and grocery stores have a cash back policy for aluminum, tin, plastic bottles, cardboard and other paper products so it’s worth checking out before tossing something to the curb.  Call your local trash company, look on line  or try asking at the library for information about your local programs.  Most phonebooks have a section for newcomers that gives out this information so your resources are out there.

 According to the EPA, over 260 million pounds of recyclable items hit the landfills every year in addition to 2 billion water bottles and 16 million gallons of recycle oil.  That’s an awful lot of energy wasted making new containers that didn’t need creating.  There are still far too many towns that make recycling feel like a major hassle instead of a needed task.  Several areas in Washington state, as an example, charge you for home pick up of recyclables.  Seattle, among a growing number of other cities and towns, has patrons just dump all their non-plant matter recycling into one bin and yard/garden waste into another.  This creates jobs for the sorters and patrons feel encouraged to do their part.

 Go green easily: recycle in as many ways as you can.  Donate items to charities, use consignment stores, reuse jars and other containers in a new and useful way or destress and tap into your creative side.  By turning rags into rugs, chipped mugs into folksy vases or wine bottles into candle holders you have lowered your stress with artistic and responsible flair.  You can utilize your trash service, turn it into art or get some cash, the choices are there.  We have gotten too used to tossing things out before rethinking their alternate uses.  This is costly to your hard-earned paycheck and your planet. 

For more interesting articles and free advice on living green tips and eco green living  visit us at
http://livinggree ntips.info

Go Green Easily:  Got Friends, Buy Bulk

 Go green easily and buy in bulk with friends at a grocery warehouse.  You save time, money and fuel just for starters.  Most grocery warehouse stores charge $45-50 for a yearly membership and allow up to three people to be on the main member’s non-corporate card.  When split three-ways it comes out to a little over $16.00 per person to join.  The average savings buying in bulk from these kinds of stores is 33 to 38% on fresh vegetables and fruits, up to 43% on fresh meats or poultry or fish and up to 55% on canned goods and staples such as flour, rice, sugar and coffee.  These discounts include the organic foods more of these stores are carrying.  While these stores keep a basic inventory of popular items in stock, they do switch brand names, quantity sizes and rotate seasonal items quickly.  Most send out flyers in the newspapers or put on their website special deals or things being offered for a short time so check those out before you go. 

 Go green easily buying in bulk with your buddies and keep your friendships enriched.  One of the beauties of bulk purchasing with people you like is how you spend more time together just by doing a necessity.  You get to hang out writing the shopping list, making the purchases and then dividing it all up.  The other nice thing about shopping together is that impulse purchases are kept at bay.  Having a friend there to remind each of you that it’ll be harder to separate out the cost and taxes on that cute bird feeder or the complete Beatles compilation keeps everyone feeling more on task.  The free food samples can be a bit distracting but if you go there hungry, after 15 minutes of wandering the aisles, you’ll be full; we all know how important it is not to shop on an empty stomach. 

 Go green easily buying as a co-operative with neighbors, family, or even coworkers.  What’s not to like about something that saves you money, strengthens your bonds of friendship and helps the planet?  Your bank accounts stay as full as your cupboards, you can reuse containers from past purchases (good for the earth) as you divvy up the goods, take one car and turn a boring chore into a fun day.  There’s strength and savings in numbers so round up your posse and get your “green” on.
 

For more interesting articles and free advice on living green tips and eco green living  visit us at
http://livinggreentips.info

Go Green, Grow Your Own Goodies

 Go green by growing your own fresh garden goodies, no matter how small or large your garden area.  All the ingredients for salsa can be grown in two pots on the balcony.  Fresh herbs thrive in tiny pots on the window sill as easily as in a side yard.  Amaze your guests by letting them pick their own potatoes for the grill at the same time they gather flowers for the salad, no matter where you live.  Even tall plants like corn and sunflowers will do well in patio pots.  By catching and storing the cold water that would go down the drain when it’s heating up for a bath or shower you have provided your garden its life source, cut down on your water bill and stretched another resource that much farther.

 Go greener planting goodies you watched grow from seedlings.  Seed companies are increasing their varieties and stocks of ornamental and edible plants for the small-space and backyard gardeners because the demand is high.  People want fresh, ripe, toxin-free food that is affordable and readily available.  How can you be any more in control of what you eat than by growing it yourself?  Patio gardens are easy to plant, care for and are right at your fingertips.  Gardening in your backyard isn’t as complicated or time consuming as you may think, especially if you join forces with a couple of folks who don’t have any more extra time than you.  Everybody takes an hour or two, one or two days week to weed or mulch or water and all enjoy the harvest.

 Growing fresh flowers, edible or just ornamental, is a very environmentally friendly and neighborly thing to do.  There’s no need to buy crop flowers that needed bug-spray or hauling from the fields because those bright beauties are in front of your door.  Flower beds or potted plants add sparkle and smiles to your neighborhood, even up on the 12th floor.  Everybody likes to see fresh blooms whether they have allergies or not so take pictures of your accomplishments for sneezing friends and share the real deal with everyone else.  You can even make potpourri drying your scented bloomers.

 Go green and grow your own goodies to eat, admire and share.  Considering all the information available on what grows best where and how you live, why not see what color your thumb is?  Food costs go down, stress and blood pressures lower while nutrition value goes up.  Go green all the way around; plant greens to save greens.

For more interesting articles and free advice on living green tips and eco green living  visit us at
http://livinggree ntips.info

Go Green Easily:  Reuse Glass Jars

 Go green easily by reusing glass jars from sauces, olives, jams and even spices.  Instead washing jars out and throwing them in the recycling or, say it isn’t so, the garbage, use them again and again.  It’s so easy to soak the label off, grab masking tape (it peels off easily) and relabel them for left-over soup or anything you can think of, really.  You go to a warehouse grocery store and see a gallon of artichoke hearts but what to do with that large jar after the goodies are gone stumps you.  Put your flour in it to keep bugs out or use it for the jumbo bag of coffee beans you’ve been wanting to put in the freezer.  Glass freezes well as long as you don’t subject it to extreme temperature changes and leave room for the food to expand while it’s freezing.  When freezing liquids always leave 1/2 to 1 inch of room from the top of the jar and keep the lid loose until your food is frozen so the jar won’t break.

 Go green easily using glass jars and utilize the bulk foods.  Most stores have bulk cereals, pastas, snack foods and other staples that can be bagged there and put in jars at home.  They also have spices, honey, nut butters and syrups so why not reuse the same type jars for that?  You’re saving resources, counter clutter and you don’t have to guess what’s in the jar; if you use masking tape labels even spices aren’t a mystery.  When the item inside the jar changes, peel off the old tape, put on a new piece  and voila, a used glass jar gets a new life, again.

 Go green easily with reused jars and be healthier.  There is a lot of controversy about storing and microwaving food in plastic storage containers.  Too many types of plastic leach unhealthy chemicals and vapors into the hot food when it’s cooking and also as it cools in the container.  Glass doesn’t leach, leak or warp when heated so it has a built-in safety feature.  Using 8-12 ounce jam jars to store left-over soup will give everyone their own cups of soup to heat and serve, so clean up is a breeze. 

 Going green is easier than you may have thought and you have the start of a new storage container collection already in your cupboard.  Soak off the labels, use tape for new labels, fill them up and reuse them when they empty.  What could be easier?  Money, resources and your healthiness are saved in larger doses for the future.

For more interesting articles and free advice on living green tips and eco green living  visit us at
http://livinggree ntips.info

Go Green Easier:  Plan Out Your Shopping

 Go green easier by planning out your shopping and making some very simple changes to your habits. Simple steps will make a huge impact, it just takes a little patient rethinking.  From reusable grocery bags to buying and selling at consignment stores, a little preplanning will stretch your money and your planet’s resources a long way.  Take plastic bags.  Do you have a pet to pick poop up after?  Unless you’re in an area that recently banned plastic grocery bags, why pay extra for tossing out critter waste?  These are great for the cat box clean ups or for poop scooping after the dog.  Unless you go through a lot of bags every week, opt for using totes instead of the plastic or paper bags. Some stores use mostly-to-fully post consumer recycled materials in their bags, so ask.  If the paper bags aren’t using post consumer materials, don’t use them.  Trees still have to be cut down and milled to make those bags.  Totes rinse out, tear less, fold up easily and a stack of them isn’t unsightly on the backseat of anyone’s car.

 Go green easily by planning your shopping trips and you keep fuel costs down.  By making a list of what you have to do and where you want to go prevents back tracking.  If you live with others, see if you can’t run errands together or even divide and conquer your lists.  One trip to the consignment shop can get your items up for sale, some new clothes in your roommate’s or partner’s closet and a new bedside novel before  grabbing some zinnias for the patio.  A phone call before leaving work puts a new batch of salad on the dinner table, replacing what got eaten as someone else’s snack; one trip, no unhappy surprises and fuel saved.  Just grab a tote from the car and grab those goodies on the way home.

 Going green is easier than most people think and you don’t have to change your political party, your zip code or even your dress code.  All it takes to keep a greener planet and wallet is a little “Stop before you shop” thinking.  Need poop bags, get plastic today.  Start paying bills on line; electricity for the computer is cheaper than gasoline and uses no trees; there’s no paper check.  Bulk shop with friends to save fuel and food costs.  Get as many errands run in one area of town as you can.  There are internet sites, magazines and local groups devoted to helping everyday people, just like you, get a little greener, a little easier.

For more interesting articles and free advice on living green tips and eco green living  visit us at
http://livinggree ntips.info