What are some green practices at home?

Answer 1

when you go green in school all you have to do is recycle weather its painted on or not and try to use the least amount of pencils in a week/year/month lastly if you find any paper that's unneeded just recycle it recycling at school is as easy as that :)

Answer 2

What can you do to live green? What can you do to help the environment and reduce your carbon footprint? There are so many choices and options available that the average person can do. These things don't have to cost a fortune and are easy to incorporate into daily living. Some of the most basic things you can do to live green involve using less. Turn your lights off and use natural light to use less electricity, turn your heat down to use less gas or oil, combine your errands so that you use less gasoline, cook multiple items at the same time so that you turn your oven on only once a day instead of four times, and turn the water off when you brush your teeth. Many people worry that living green will cost you money; however all of the above ideas will actually save you money. Another way to help the environment and reduce your carbon footprint is to reuse items. There are two ways to reuse items. Reusing them for their original purpose, such as ziploc bags, tinfoil, plastic utensils, etc and finding new uses for things you already own. By doing this you are not consuming any more of the world's precious resources. If you can't reuse something of your own, purchasing something secondhand instead of brand new is another way to reduce your consumption of resources. Recycling is a great way to reuse items. Many cities offer free recycling, all you need to do is start taking advantage of it. If recycling is not offered curbside there are other options. I know many organizations, such as churches, raise money by collecting paper products. You will notice these bins in many parking lots. They typically take newspaper and magazines, and sometimes boxes. This is a great way to help the organization raise some money, while recycling your papers instead of throwing them away. Do you use a lot of aluminum cans? You can make a little money by taking these to a can depositor. Check your phone book to see if there is a place near you. There are also some options that will cost you a little bit of money - at least upfront. My grocery store sells cloth grocery bags for $.99 each. Yes I had to buy them to avoid using all those plastic bags the grocery store loves to give out, however I also get a nickel back for each bag of my own I bring in. Slowly I will make my money back from this investment and I am helping the environment in the process.Replacing your incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs will cost you upfront as well. I purchase these in bulk from Sams Club, eight of them for $11.97. My estimate is that I spent about $6 more to purchase these bulbs that use so much less energy and last so much longer. It won't take much time for me to make my money back in energy savings. And it is better for the environment than incandescent bulbs. Another huge thing a parent can do to live green is to use cloth diapers as opposed to disposables. Disposable diapers take up an enormous amount of this countries landfills, don't break down easily, cost a lot of money, put chemicals directly on the bottoms of our children, and in many cases delay potty training. Yes it is a chunk of change in the beginning, but a couple of hundred dollars spent upfront will save you thousands in the long run, especially if you use them on more than one child. Other easy things a person can do to live green include carpooling to work or the store, using the Diva Cup or Keeper instead of disposable sanitary products, bringing your own mug to coffee places instead of using their disposable cups, turning up the thermostat in the summer to reduce electricity usage of your AC, putting a sweater on instead of turning up the heat, borrowing books and magazines from the library instead of purchasing new (it takes 15-20 trees to make the paper for a new average sized adult book), using cloth napkins instead of paper, using rags instead of paper towels, cooking from scratch (uses less packaging than convenience foods), and getting your ink cartridges refilled instead of buying new. Purchasing as much as you can from local resources will help reduce fuel consumption and pollution. Why not eat the oranges from Florida instead of the bananas from Another Country? Better yet, purchase food items that are grown within the same state or county as you to really reduce fuel consumption. An added benefit of purchasing locally is that you are supporting people in your own community, state and country, as opposed to people halfway around the world. This could cost you a little more money depending on what is in season; however it doesn't automatically cost more to eat locally. In the summer and fall especially this should reduce your grocery bill. Composting and growing your own food are also ways to help the environment and live green. Doing things yourself instead of hiring a third party helps the environment as well. When you hire someone else to do something there is fuel use involved in transporting the person to you or transporting you to the person. Cutting your own hair or at least your kids saves a trip to the barber as well as saves you money and time. On the high end of living green you could always install solar panels on your home, invest in wind energy, or purchase a hybrid car. These cost a good bit of money, but if money isn't an object and you really want to help the environment these are great ways to do it.Living green does not have to be hard and it does not have to cost money. I find it very easy to do most of these things. Start small if you need to, but try to incorporate these things, and more, into your daily life. It takes some thinking about it in the beginning, but in time you won't even notice. By living green you will be helping the environment as well as saving money. If you're like me and live in an apartment, or live anywhere for that matter where you don't own your property, this is probably your only option for reducing or eliminating your carbon emissions from electricity. Fortunately its one of the easiest, and even if you own your home you may want to consider it. One Bill, Serious Carbon Emission Savings

In a nutshell, utility-based green power programs work like this: Rather than have your utility itself generate the electricity you use (most likely from mostly fossil fuel sources), you sign up with a third party electricity producer who uses renewable energy. This electricity is fed into the electric grid like anything else, but you pay the electricity provider for the power you use. Since your local utility is still distributing the power to your home, all of this is included on the same bill you're used to getting. This will cost slightly more than your normal electricity but not much: Maybe anywhere from 1-4 cents more per kilowatt-hour. To find out your options for utility-based green power in your area (in the US at least), the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy site has a page listing green power programs by state. This should get you started. You'll have to peruse your local power providers for exact details (and I'll admit that some third party green power providers don't make it easy to find out rates), but once that's done the sign-up procedure is generally easy. Most of the time with these programs the energy source is wind power or run-of-river hydro, with some biomass power being used. Some providers allow you to choose the source of power, while others only have one program. Green Power Programs

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photo: Maine Coast Semester via flickr If you own your own home, but don't want to quite take the plunge of owning your own solar panels, then a solar-as-service program is perfect for you. Though they're not available in every location, this is how this sort of program works: You contract with a third party solar power company which assesses your home's solar power potential, installs the panels, services them and sells you the power they produce for a given contract period. At the end of that period, most offer the option to purchase the panels or to renew the contract and have the latest panels installed in place of the old ones. Low Upfront Costs, Worry-Free Maintenance

The upfront costs are minimal, the maintenance is hassle free (on your part), and you can feel good knowing that at least a part of your electricity usage is coming from an eminently renewable source. How much power will you be able to generate? That's the big variable, and one which can't be answered without looking at your home's particular location. But if you want solar panels on your home, don't have the money or inclination to install solar panels on your own dime, and have a solar-as-service program in your area, this is an easy and effective way to do so. Having a home where you own your own solar panels seems to be an aspiration for many budding environmentalists. If I lived in a free standing home and the location was right, it certainly would be for me. While that may conjure up images living in some off-grid retreat, the majority of homes with solar panels have them tied into the power grid, with any energy shortfall being supplied by the utility and any excess flowing back into the grid. Depending on how large of a system you want to install (ie: how much space you have and/or how much of your electricity needs you want to supply from the panels) the price is going to vary. But in any case, it's not going to be exactly inexpensive: After various rebate and tax credit programs are figured in (these can federal or state-based) you're looking at $6000-$9000 per kilowatt. For an average home a complete system could run to $20,000, easily. Don't let that get your down: A number of cities and states, as well as some utilities, are starting to offer loan programs to encourage more people to install their own solar power systems. Advantages of Owning Solar Panels v. Buying the Power

So why would you want to install your own solar panels when you could avail yourself of a solar-as-service program? One reason: Other than the fact that solar-as-service programs aren't available in all locations, owning your own panels is an investment in your house that doesn't exist with solar-as-service. The payback time is certainly longer than just buying the power someone else's panels produce (in that case the concept of payback time isn't really applicable...), but if you want to sell the house the panels aren't yours to sell. Unless you've bought them yourself. Solar Power

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How to Mount a Solar Panel, in 7 Steps photo: Southwest Windpower Whenever I write about small-scale or home wind turbines I include an obligatory intro: Though they certainly look cool out in your yard or on your roof, in many built-up locations wind speeds are such that the power output from them is likely to be much different than their rated capacity. In fact, one fairly recent report indicated that when used in urban locations, the power output of some home wind turbines over their lifetime may never outweigh the embedded carbon emissions of manufacturing the turbine. But if your location is right, they certainly do generate renewable power. That said, there are some cool looking designs out there-we profiled some of them a few months ago in Hot Home Wind Turbines You Can Actually Buy-and they fall into two broad categories: Smaller versions of the big commercial wind turbines and vertical axis wind turbines. Both varieties come in models that can be mounted in your yard, provided you have the space, or on your rooftop. Prices vary widely between models, from under $100 for a 200 watt Air Breeze several thousand dollars for a vertical axis Windspire which that can supply about one-third of an average home's power. How long it'll take to pay off that investment is going to vary by location and how much you're now paying for electricity. Home Wind Turbines

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The Energy Ball: Another Innovative Option in Home Wind Turbines If home wind turbines aren't suitable for every location, then that is even more true for micro-hydroelectric power. But, if your home is built in a place with the right sort of water supply then this option could be a good investment.

Answer 3

Get some green paint and dump it over yourself OR, compost your organic food, recycle paper, juice boxes, pop cans, etc., turn off the lights, shut down your computer, use a source of electricity that does not pollute, bike or walk to places, etc.

Answer 4

recycle, buy hybrid car, use less paper, plant trees