New Year's Resolution: Get a New Bag

Or find an old one in your house you can use -- whatever you work out so that you can refuse plastic bags in stores. According to True Green by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin, "Americans go through 280 billion [plastic bags] each year, and about 100 million of those are just for shopping (at a cost to retailers of $4 billion)."

The solution to this problem is simple...bring a reusable bag when you go shopping. It'll not only help the environment — it probably has a very good chance of helping your pocket book as you will be more conscious of what you are purchasing.

Tip: Get Voicemail, Nix Answering Machines

Another great tip from Rogers & Kostigen's The Green Book...

"Get a voice-mail service for your home phone. If all answering machines in U.S. homes were replaced by voice-mail services, the annual energy savings would total nearly TWO BILLION kilowatt hours. The resulting reduction in air pollution would be equivalent to removing 250,000 cars from the road for a year"

Depending on your communications provider, voice-mail service for your home phone ranges from $7-10 per month.

Happy Holidays & Recycle Your Tree

Happy Holidays to everyone.

...And don't forget to recycle your christmas tree when it's time to take it down. Use the National Christmas Tree Association to find a recycling program near you.

http://www.christmastree.org/recycle_program.cfm

GreenEnergyChoice.com Offers Texas Residents the Ability to Switch to Renewable Energy

If you're a resident of Texas, you probably already know that you can chose your electricity provider. And that you're basically the only state that can do so (Like Texans need more to brag about ;) ). Why is that important? It's not so much that you can find lower rates (which you probably can) it's that you have the ability to switch to an electric company that provides energy from renewable sources.

GreenEnergyChoice.com, which is a member of the WhiteFence network, lays out these renewable energy options in an easy-to-compare way. Once you find a plan and monthly rate you like, you order it right then and there. Your order is placed with the provider and your service is never iterrupted.

There's also this myth that green/renewable energy plans are more expensive than your standard energy plans, but if you do some research, you'll notice there's plenty of options where you not only can "go green" but you can also save money. A good place to see ALL electricity plans in Texas (compare renewable and non-renewable plans) is at ElectricityTexas.com.

Side Note: Check out GreenEnergyChoice's Green Guide... it's chalked full of good info, including definitions of the different types of renewable energy.

Another Side Note: If you're a resident of Georgia, GreenEnergyChoice also gives you the option of a renewable natural gas package, provided by MXEnergy.

A few videos...

What exactly is Energy Star...

...and what does it mean to you?

Energy Star by definition is:

"ENERGY STAR is a government-backed program helping businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency."

Created in 1992, Energy Star began as an EPA-backed program to reduce greenhouse gases produced by chemical and power plants. It was a voluntary "label program" aimed at identifying consumer products that were efficient, such as appliances, computers, tv's, stereo systems, etc.

Consumers who are environmentally conscience usually look for products that are Energy Star-qualified. Computers, for example, that are qualified usually run cooler and switch to a low power mode when not in use, saving a ton of energy consumption.

So, did those new electronics you purchased as Christmas presents qualify for the Energy Star label?

Tip: 86 the Trips to the Library

According to Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen's New York Times Bestseller, The Green Book...

"the circulation of books from public libraries is 1.9 billion a year, or about 7 items checked out per person. If every American checked out and researched online a single book a year, we would save three hundred million trips to the bookshelves"

Now, not everyone has high-speed internet (so they would have to travel to Starbucks, anyway) and not all books & periodicals are online, but this is a good start. Sorry libraries.

Here's a few ways to hunt down what you're looking for...

• Search Amazon for used books on the topic you're researching, you can usually find your books cheaper, especially if they're older, from Amazon users.
• Use Google's Book Search (in beta)
• You can find just about everything you would ever want to know at Wikipedia

Squidoo Giving Users Great Green Resources

Over at Squidoo (www.squidoo.com), writers are making a habit out of providing great environmental resources. Squidoo allows people to create easy-to-build "lenses" about everything on the planet ranging from backpacks to movies to artists, etc. A lot of great articles are popping up over there including:

Energy Guy's Green Energy Lens

Allie8020's Going Green Shortcuts

The Green Guide

lptx82's A Lighter Shade of Green

There's plenty more... just go to www.squidoo.com and search for "green" or "global warming".

Human Fat-Powered Boat Looks to Break Speed Record

From the land of bizarre and frankly... awesomeness, Adam Stein over at TerraPass's blog posted about an "eco-boat" powered by biodiesel made from human fat.

See it. Read it.

Easy-to-Swallow Tips on Being Green Everyday

Ah...my inaugural post. I figured I'd start my tenure here at Project: Greenify by sharing with you a resource that I dug up in my search for making my life green. If you, like me, are beginning your journey into a greener lifestyle -- you may start to feel that you "bit off more than you can chew."  There's adding solar panels to your house, buying a hybrid vehicle, not driving a vehicle at all, better insulating your home for more energy efficiency and the list goes on and on. This is where IdealBite.com comes in. In their words, they offer "bite-sized ideas for light green living." Just sign up for their newsletter to get a little reminder each day on what you can do to lead a greener life. I mean, where else will can you get time sensitive tips on small things like where to get recycled calendars for the new year or how to make sure your snow day clothing isn't burning a whole in the ozone — all delivered directly to your inbox.

I know that there are tons of other tips and guides out there, but it is Ideal Bite unique and entertaining takes on greenifying your life that makes this one a keeper in your green reading repertoire.