JANUARY Don't let your bathroom water run. Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, washing your hands or face and when shaving. Save 3 gallons of water a day. Try taking a 2-3 minute shower too and save 5 gallons of H20 a day.
DECEMBER Wrap your holiday gifts this year creatively with paper/objects that already exist in your own home. This is an exciting way to personalize your gifts and create less demand for those one use holiday papers in your one stop shopping stores. Cutting down on waste and guilt big time!!! Your friends and family will appreciate your effort and thoughtfulness.
NOVEMBER Save water more often. Think about where you can save more water in your daily routine. Take a 3 minute shower. Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, washing your hands, lathering in the shower. Run a full load in the dishwasher or washing machine. Live by the phrase "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down." Fix faucet, pipe and toilet leaks. Catch water waiting to warm up in a bucket and use it to water your garden. Double up in the tub. Put a water tub in your kitchen sink to hold water to set dirty dishes in, to clean with before putting them in the dishwasher. Save your old pasta water to water your indoor plants. Sweep instead of using your hose to clean your patio or outdoor stairs. Use a bowl of water to wash fruit and veggies in instead of using a running faucet. Deep soak garden once a week rather than watering several times a week. Use a nozzle on your hose that can be shut off or adjusted to a fine spray. Mulch your garden to reduce evaporation around your plants!
For more tips check out these sites: http://www.h2ouse.org/tour/index.cfm
http://www.bewaterwise.com/
OCTOBER Your vote counts, but won't if you aren't registered and this is the most important election of our lives. If you live in a swing state if you are already registered help out by registering others to vote. And double check to make sure you are registered too! Send this link to your friends just in case. http://justvote.org/
SEPTEMBER Looking to refresh your fashion for the upcoming school year? Try clothes swapping. Dig 'N' Swap is great place to swap clothes and accessories for free that you don't want anymore in exchange for some that excite you. http://www.dignswap.com/
AUGUST Break free of your paper towel addiction and reduce your trash and protect our tree buddies. Virgin paper towels and even recycled content ones are unnecessary. It not only takes a lot of energy to make them but also adds to your trashola. Buy bulk cloth towels, such as flour sack towels new or old and use them like paper towels but throw them in the laundry basket when dirty instead of throwing them away like you would a paper towel. Cloth towels last a long time. Try it! You won't believe how easy it is to let go and be free of the single use paper ones.
JULY Bring Your Own Produce Bags to the farmer's market or supermarket instead of using new plastic ones provided for putting your veggies and fruits in. Use them to buy and store all kinds of bulk foods as well. Get your cloth produce bag collection started here www.ecobags.com or www.unwrappedinc.com or reuse the plastic ones you have already collected from previous shopping.
JUNE Hang your clothes to dry. Save more than $100 a year on electric bills and cut down on CO2 use. Electric dryers use 5-10% of residential energy in the U.S. Check out Project Laundry's Top 10 reasons to hang out your clothes to dry. http://www.laundrylist.org/index2.htm
"If we all did things like hang out our clothes, we could shut down the nuclear industry."-Dr. Helen Caldicott
Member, Board of Advisors, Project Laundry List
MAY Stop bottled water use. Out of the 28 billion single use bottled water bought each year in the US, only 20% or less are getting recycled, the rest are ending up in landfills. Tap water is cleaner than most bottled water. Bottled water is not regulated. For more info. http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/climate411/2008/03/26/bottled_water/?gclid=CNXI-YCVhpMCFR8ViQodhWpswg Use a filter on your tap water and support your city water system. Make sure you use a filter that will remove the contaminants listed in your city's Water Quality Report (WQA) or Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) For more information on the best filters for home use. Check out the The NRDC's Consumer's Guide to Water Filters-http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/gfilters.asp
Use reusable glass or stainless steel drink containers to bring your water with you. http://askwoollym.typepad.com/my_weblog/wm-important-food-related.html
APRIL Start a compost bin. Keep your food scraps and various paper materials out of the landfill and put them to good use by creating nutrient rich soil from them for your garden or indoor plants. Inside or out, you can have a compost of your choice. It's really simple and really addictive. Read about the best compost method for your own lifestyle. Download how to compost in the next section below.
MARCH Stop junk mail, including credit card solicitations, unwanted catalogs, grocery coupon clipping flyers, magazines among many other irritating pieces of unsolicited mail from showing up at your doorstep and save our natural resources. Try these effective and easy to use services:
Catalogchoice*
http://www.catalogchoice.org/
(a free service)
41Pounds*
http://www.41pounds.org/
(for $41. for 5 years service. $8.20/yr & $15. dollars will be donated to a non-profit org.)
FEBRUARY Bring Your Own(clean)Containers, BYOC, to your favorite restaurant for take out instead of using their disposables. Say "no thanks" to food boxes, utensils, menus, plastic bags and sauces. Reduce waste and even save the restaurant some money.
JANUARY
Plug your small appliances and electronics into a power strip and turn off at night before bed or when not in use.
