GREEN
Minimize, Simplify, Reuse and Recycle
Plastic Bags measure your commitment to the earth. Ideally you grow 50% of your food and buy the other 50% at local grown stands, brews and bakeries. You don’t put things in a bag that you can carry and you bring your own reusable bags when needed. When you forget your bag and you end up needing a plastic bag, then you reuse them to sort recycling. You keep 5 bags in inventory and if you start to accumulate more then that, you are either forgetting your reusables or buying more then you need or not using them to separate recycling.
Use Renewable Energy and bio-fuel (Solar heat, wood/bio furnace)
Use lights sparingly and be efficient with solar lighting
Use mirrors to reflect sunlight inside
Use a High pressure low flow shower head (they cost $5!)
Turn off the heat just before it reaches the desired use. The remaining radiant heat will finish the job.
If you have a ceramic or stone cooking surface you can cook with 25 degrees lower then recipes say to use with standard stove etc.
Use LED bulbs
Use Solar water heaters and a tankless heat on demand unit.
Leave floor vents from basement open in summer to keep houses cool.
If you do not have a low flush toilet, put a bottle of water in the tank to reduce water waste.
USE Clotheslines
Water garden early before sun gets high and increases evaporation
BIKE everywhere local. Carpool on road trips. Use public buses and trains.
Grow hemp for industrial uses. Hemp is the worlds miracle life crop. Everything from oils to fiber use can replace hundreds of store purchases.
REUSE FABRICS:
Socks with holes in them or missing their mate make great dust cloths (slip them over your hand and dust away), or use them as dish cloths, or to wash the car, or store stuff in them (game pieces, marbles – you’ll come up with all kinds of other things), again slip them over your hand to clean window blinds or shutters
http://hubpages.com/hub/30-Uses-For-Old-Socksm
http://www.ehow.com/how_4588136_new-uses-old-socks.html
http://frugal.families.com/blog/new-uses-for-old-socks
Type uses for old socks in any search engine and see what other ideas people have come up with.
REUSE PACKING MATERIALS:
One-third of all packaging is thrown away immediately after the package is opened. Try to think about ways you can reuse these materials.
Packing peanuts can be used to fill the bottom portion of outdoor pots and planters, saving on the amount of soil you need to use to fill the container.
Cardboard has many uses – lay a large piece of cardboard on the garage floor in a place that will catch drips or leaks from the engine or other parts of the car.
Cardboard can be made into furniture (type “making furniture from cardboard” into any Internet search engine). Here’s just one list:
1. Burn barrel starter material.
2. Garage floor covering for oil spills.
3. Packing material for shipping your friends presents.
4. Makeshift dust pans for large floor junk in the garage.
5. Storm window coverings.
6. Broken car window replacements.
7. Coloring material for the kids.
8. Project material for the kids and their friends and their friends…
9. Backing for paper note pads.
10. Garage notes for measuring, drawing or figuring something so you don’t have to back into the house to find a note pad and pencil.
11. To use for your outside burn barrel cover, to set on the grass so the hot lid won’t burn the grass.
12. Patterns for things.
13. Garage trash holders.
14. Use extra 123’s to hold your movies in,
15. Use them for bookshelves or CD holders.
16. Sock drawer separator walls.
17. Placemats for the table when kids are doing home projects.
18. Fan to restart your burn barrel fire.
19. Computer mouse pads.
20. Wind protector for the beach.
21. Cut & line with foil and create a sun tan shield for your face.
22. Inside cupboard lining.
23. Silverware drawer separators.
24. Mudroom flooring.
25. Recycle.
26. Kids play houses.
27. Play houses for your cats.
28. Tear up for a compost pile or a worm bed.
29. Donate to a local cardboard drive
And there are many more…
SPENDING
Shop with Cash/debit Card to avoid Credit Debt
Use Coupons (find your local double coupon store)
Buy Clearance (if you must buy processed food like Yogurt/Cottage Cheese then look for a store that has a clearance section)
Shop Thrift
Shop Dollar Stores
Net 10 Has .10 cents/min. pre paid. $1 FCC fee for total $16/mo. for 150 minutes! Boost Mobile has unlimited cell plan for $25 plus $10 fees a month. Add Skype mobile unlimited for $3 a month on a separate smart phone for WiFi use.
Don’t support the insurance and bio-med giants! (car insurance is mandatory by law so try to bike as much as possible and have the lowest priced policy possible. If everyone did this, the prices would drop and a lot of the corruption would be solved.) Use organic medicine!
Don’t finance! If you can not afford something up front with cash, do not get it!
BUY GOLD/SILVER
Keep spending cash in a 5% wachovia account ($100 max each month plus $1 per card use is transfered) This account will not be available after 2011!
BARTER as much as possible
MAKE your own items and make enough to use for barter!
FOOD
GROW YOUR OWN
Use a Solar Dehydrator to dry meet and fruits/veggies (cheap to build)
Cook from Organic ingredients
Support Organic Farmers Food Stands and Market gatherings
DRINK Water (you do not need Sodas etc.) Wine and Beers are for special occasions
Extract Fresh Juices from your fruit if you want fruit juice
Shop Bakery Outlets (grains are 75% lower priced then WalMart)
STOP buying fake food (each purchase is a vote to support Monsanto and outrageous food prices)
Cook in Cast Iron (Teflon flakes rub off into food and cause health problems)
Avoid Microwaves (this is a leading cause of cancer) Avoid warming in Plastic containers. The government sold out to GE and refused to accept the studies showing radioactive waves being infused with food made food high in cancer causing agents.
Store Fish by Rinsing with Lemon Juice and keeping on ice or curing
Cure and Dehydrate Fish and Meats
Freeze Berries w/out rinsing
Blanche Veggies before Freezing (put into boiling water then dip in cold water)
Eat the top 10 items listed on my Health Food Blog daily to avoid being sick.
GENERAL
Teach your children the right choices for the future of the Earth and generations to come
Keep a Price Book (record increases so you will be inspired to protest)
Use Cloth (Napkins, towels etc.)
Avoid Single use, Styrofoam/Plastic items.
Wash in Cold Water
Trade Clothing with Neighbors to limit buying new
Store Paint Cans upside down to keep a tight seal
HOME REMEDIES
Use kitty litter and grind with a brick to remove oil stains on cement
50/50 water and white vinegar helps nail polish last 2x longer
FACTS:
According to the Aluminum Association, Americans throw away enough aluminum every three months to rebuild the commercial air fleet. The only use I accept for foil is for survival. It’s ability to take up little space but expand for large scale use, puts it at the top of the survival list with duct tape. It can form a solar funnel for heating, cooking, fire starting and many other life saving uses.
Corporations spent $121 million in 2009-2010 to flood D.C. with lobbyists to kill the climate legislation. And to keep things interesting in the 2010 election cycles, the oil side of the business spent $19,588,091 on the U.S. political process. And the coal side of things spent $10,423,347.
2011, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that they’d be opening up big tracts of public land for coal mining.
Peabody Energy and Arch Coal are racing to build coal export terminals on the Washington coast to export the dirty black rock to Asian markets. The Dept. of Interior just green lighted these port expansions by opening up the Powder River Basin coal tracts.
Increasing climate mayhem, irrigation running dry in some countries (the World Bank says 175 million people in India are being fed with grain grown by overpumping aquifers), erosion and desertification in some others, corn being used for fuel, yields-per-acre having levelled off in the advanced countries, phosphorus for fertilizer getting scarce, 80 million more mouths to feed every year and a couple of billion more in Asia moving up to the Western-style banquet table: all this doesn’t add up.
Packaging
One-third of all packaging is thrown away immediately after the package is opened. Try to think about ways you can reuse these materials.
- Packing peanuts can be used to fill the bottom portion of outdoor pots and planters, saving on the amount of soil you need to use to fill the container.
- Cardboard has many uses – lay a large piece of cardboard on the garage floor in a place that will catch drips or leaks from the engine or other parts of the car.
Cardboard can be made into furniture (type “making furniture from cardboard” into any Internet search engine). Here’s just one list:
1. Burn barrel starter material.
2. Garage floor covering for oil spills.
3. Packing material for shipping your friends presents.
4. Makeshift dust pans for large floor junk in the garage.
5. Storm window coverings.
6. Broken car window replacements.
7. Coloring material for the kids.
8. Project material for the kids and their friends and their friends…
9. Backing for paper note pads.
10. Garage notes for measuring, drawing or figuring something so you don’t have to back into the house to find a note pad and pencil.
11. To use for your outside burn barrel cover, to set on the grass so the hot lid won’t burn the grass.
12. Patterns for things.
13. Garage trash holders.
14. Use extra 123’s to hold your movies in,
15. Use them for bookshelves or CD holders.
16. Sock drawer separator walls.
17. Placemats for the table when kids are doing home projects.
18. Fan to restart your burn barrel fire.
19. Computer mouse pads.
20. Wind protector for the beach.
21. Cut & line with foil and create a sun tan shield for your face.
22. Inside cupboard lining.
23. Silverware drawer separators.
24. Mudroom flooring.
25. Recycle.
26. Kids play houses.
27. Play houses for your cats.
28. Tear up for a compost pile or a worm bed.
29. Donate to a local cardboard drive
And there are many more…
The Helping Hands Network Blog 