Going Green At Home

If you missed it, here's the Weather Matters segment from yesterday.
Continuing our series on going green in the spirit of spring, we'll start with ways to go green at home.

The EPA estimates that each homeowner could reduce home electricity use by 30%. All we have to do is use energy more wisely and purchase energy efficient products. Appliances that use the most energy in your home are: water heater 16%, refrigerator 12%, air conditioning/heat 8-30% (depending on climate), lights 7%. So here are some tips to reach those goals:

Tip #1: Get a bright idea.
You've heard this numerous times before, but change your light bulbs to CFL bulbs! They may cost a little more in the beginning, but they will pay for themselves in savings within the first year. They look cool and they're very durable too! If every household replaced 5 lights with CFL's, the energy saved would be equal to taking 8 million cars off the road for one year! Try them out!

Tip #2: Roll with it.
Replace 1 roll of toilet paper with recycled paper. That would save almost 500,000 trees.

Tip #3: Say Goodbye To Junk.
Did you know that about 17 million catalogs are mailed out every year? That destroys over 62 million trees each year. Remove your name from those annoying and unwanted mailing lists.

Tip #4: Be like Good Morning Delmarva
Use reusable mugs. 25 million disposable cups are thrown away each year and less than 20% of them get recycled.

Tip #5: Recharge
We all love electronics. But plan to use rechargeable batteries to power those beloved objects. You can save hundreds of dollars a year, plus avoid all those dead batteries going into landfills.

Tip #6: Old Is New Again
Head to craigslist or freesharing to find furniture, appliances, an apartment, or anything else! You can really find some great steals. Check out garage sales and thrift stores too!

Tip #7: Plant a Tree
Trees not only help the atmosphere by absorbing some carbon dioxide, but planting trees is also great exercise! Also, depending on where you plant it, trees can also help to save on cooling costs by providing some shade.

For more information, just head to our website and click on 47 weblinks. Next week I'll tell you ways to go green at the store.