Wrap Your Greens In A Tea Towel To Keep Them From Going Bad As Quickly

One of the biggest green hacks in our book is one that people likely realize but don’t seem to consider very often. Paper Towels are meant to be for one use only and then thrown away just as quickly as they were used. These disposable towels of paper aren’t efficient at all. Washcloths in this case work far better. That is especially true if you’re wanting to clean up messes.
If you’re flossing on the regular, then you’re going to be making your dentist very happy. However, while dental floss is relatively cheap, most of us tend to use the regular plastic version. That might be due to the version given to us by our dentist or due to the ease of finding plastic versions. The problem is the plastic side of it all though. Many feel that is hard to avoid when it comes to flossing as there aren’t many options outside of plastic floss versions.
If you have a dryer in your home, generally many will use it as it can be useful to have. However, the trade-off when you use these dryers is the use of unnecessary energy. It can even raise your power bill too. This means using something like a clothesline to hang out clothes can be great for the environment and your wallet. This is best during the spring and summer period, of course. Although, there are some important things to consider for this.
People often complain about their heater or air conditioner is not working properly. Yet the reason it might not be working as well as you’d like to is due to insulation. There are usually two issues to consider. First, the lack of proper insulation can cause heat or cold to get into your home much easier. Thereby making it seem like the system is not doing its job. The second thing is that due to those things referenced, a system has to work much harder to cool or heat your home.
We know that if everyone could bike everywhere they need to go, we’d save a lot of energy as well as cut down on a lot of carbon emissions. Yet we know the ability to ride your bike to places can be strictly based on your location as well as where you’re biking. Some would also rightly point out that if there is nowhere to park and secure your bike, it would be bad to ride your relatively expensive bike there. We understand all of those potential issues, so we want to be sure you’re aware of this.
One of the best green hacks we can discuss for car use is to simply drive one efficiently. When you drive, your car is going to use up more fuel with some actions versus others. For example, the faster you go and the more acceleration you maintain in the process, the more energy you’ll use. When one drives like this, they are often going to need to stop at a fast rate. Then they’ll go right back to speeding again.
When you buy a regular toothbrush or get one from your local dentist, you’ll get a normal plastic toothbrush. While the bristles on this toothbrush will be perfectly fine when it’s new, they will quickly begin to become pretty bad. This means your toothbrush will not work as properly, thus the need for a new one. However, many of us will use one toothbrush for a year or longer. The CDC actually recommends changing your toothbrush out every three to four months though.
As kids, TV dinners were awesome. These microwavable bad boys were the hallmark of homes with two working parents. Funny enough, microwaves have always been easy to use and they also use less energy than a regular oven. On average, you use 1200 watts of electricity per hour of microwave use. Most things will be microwaved for about 1 to 5 minutes on average, with some occasionally surpassing that. Yet for every hour of regular oven use, you’re using 3000 watts of electricity.
One of the biggest issues in our environment is food waste. This is a huge problem when it comes to things one cannot throw out for animals to eat or give their pet. The best thing you can do is compost various food products. This means stuff you will not eat like the shells from nuts and eggs, along with coffee grounds and filters. However, you can also compost any fruits and vegetables along with shredding newspaper, cardboard, and paper.
Recycling is great, but did you know you can essentially get creative yourself and “upcycle” various products people do not use? This pretty much means you will make something new out of something old. You’ll see this more often with clothing items, but it’s regularly done with numerous things. The goal of upcycling is to create not just something new out of discarded objects or materials. Rather, they want to make something of higher quality or higher value than the original.
You’d be surprised how much energy the normal incandescent bulb uses in your home. Not only do they use up more energy but they also die off quickly too. Of course, companies want to make money, so selling off lightbulbs that are made to die after a specific period of time is a good way to do just that. However, LED lightbulbs eventually hit the market and changed the game. These lightbulbs are much brighter than regular lightbulbs of the same size.
You’d assume that if you’re going somewhere faster, you’d use less fuel. Yet Air Travel is one of the biggest contributors to climate change issues. A trip from New York to San Franciso can expel between 2 to 3 tons of carbon dioxide per passenger. This is compared to the 19 total tons per person on average in America per year, as of this current writing. While it makes sense to assume a trip from one coast to another in the U.S. will use up a lot of fuel.
While many farmers will grow and sell what they have, they’ll often need to sell their fruits or vegetables at a higher cost simply due to the work and money it took to grow them. Yet farmers are often growing a large supply of crops meant to sell. However, you can buy some seeds or plant trees that will produce your own fruits and vegetables at 10% of the cost it takes to continue buying them from a store or farmer.
We should make sure to point out that collecting rainwater can be very helpful. However, this will truly depend on your location. Places near China or Russia will often have acidic rain that will actually make rain and even snow turn orange from pollutants in the environment. If you are not near a plant of some kind or in a badly polluted environment, you can collect rainwater to use for a variety of things.
When electric vehicles were first brought out a little over a decade ago, they weren’t fairly priced and the mileage was terrible. Hybrids seemed to sell better, as they allowed the driver to switch between using gas and electricity. The electric and hybrid vehicles of today are far different. Not only are they priced around the same as any other gas-powered vehicle, but the mileage is tremendous. The average for an electric car today is roughly 200 miles per charge.
Speaking of electric vehicles, every single one of them will have a rechargeable battery. However, you should also know that you can buy several rechargeable batteries for numerous other products. That includes smaller battery versions like AAA and AA batteries. You’d think that, since batteries sell so easy for companies, they’d never want to make a battery that can be recharged numerous times.
Continuing the trend of green hacks surrounding electric products, this type of thing is perfect for lawn equipment. Did you know that the average push mower or riding lawnmower emits more carbon dioxide than your average vehicle? The U.S. EPA looked into it and found that hour-for-hour, lawnmowers emit up to 11 times more CO2 than cars do. That means that this is one of the most important areas to improve. Like electric cars, electric lawn equipment has improved dramatically.
One of the biggest problems people have, seemingly, is impulse control. We’re going to be honest in this part of the green hacks list to tell you, quite simply, to stop buying crap you do not need. We know, it looks cool or could be useful. However, unless you plan to use this item a lot, do you really need to buy it? We bring this up because so many people buy things they don’t use much, only to throw them out and further pollute the environment.
While we referenced you should try to grow your own food at home, if possible, we know this is not always possible. That said, if you’re going to buy something like fruits and vegetables, always buy them from someone local. This goes for any food product, as there are plenty of local farms that sell eggs and even entire chickens to stores to sell to you. Yet you can go directly to the local places too, or go to the sellers that you know utilize local produce and meat.
An interesting issue has come to pass in this area. People want to use eco-friendly products, which is awesome. Take something like a nice electric car, for example. It is good that a person would want to use this over a gas-powered car. However, it takes a lot of power and energy to make it. This power was provided by things like coal through the local power company. This is okay if you’re buying to go from gas to electric, but not when you’re going from electric to electric.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
United States Department of Agriculture