Green N’ Easy; Saving Money Doin’ Right

In Episode 215 we visited with Rhonda DeFelice, author of a new book called “Green N’ Easy Living”, which has lots of great tips for going green and saving money. In these times, that’s a combination whose time has come. For more information please check out her website http://www.greenneasyliving.com.

I hand picked a few fun topics that I thought were informative and easy. Please check them out and learn some common sense approaches to greening up your life and your wallet.

Plastic Straws, Evil Incarnate

Here’s a simple one. Plastic straws. Its simple, don’t use them. Americans threw away an astounding 138 billion straws and stirrers last year. These were used once and off they went. Where’s they go, you ask? Into landfills just like this where they will reside for more lifetimes than we or our progeny will populate the planet.

This is another great example of completely unnecessary waste. So, next time you reach for that straw, please think twice.

Banana Peels Repel Aphids

Contrary to popular belief the best use for banana peels is not a cheap way to get high (that’s a myth, by the way.) A much better use is to cut them into small inch long peices and put them in your plants. Those nasty little aphids don’t like and they run, run, run away.

Saving your plants and saving all of us from more pesticides we don’t need.

Share Magazines With Your Friends

This was a simple, common sense idea that is especially good for pack rats like me. I hate to throw out magazines, but I only read them once. So instead of sending them off to the incinerator after the pile gets out of hand, you can share them with friends. Just to give you a sense of how many trees are used to make magazines: it is estimated that it takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of paper. So, by exchanging and reusing we save some of those green fella that keep pour planet cooler.

Magazine sales people won’t be so happy, but who cares? Its time we all made the change to a different economy anyway, one where resources are conserved and shared.

Use Alka-Seltzer to Clean Your Toilet

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz…oh what a relief it is to not pour harsh chemicals down your drain so that they end up in our water ways, wreaking havoc with marine life. Just to give you a sense of this; bleach is quite corrosive to respiratory tissue (remember in WWI it was used in trench warfare). That includes the respiratory tissues of fish who breath under water. Use alka-seltzer instead.

Disposable Razors

Another scourge whose only redeeming quality is convenience. However, we have arrived at a point where the consequences of convenience are starting to take their toll. Like plastic straws, these end up in landfill and stay there forever. Use an old school, double edge razor if you like to live dangerously or get a rechargable electric. Or if you really want to wear your greenness for all to see, don’t shave at all. (Yikes!)

Add Water to Liquid Soap

This one I love. I have had many an argument with my mother over this, saying that the average liquid soap is much stronger than necessary. And its true. Add water and make it last. It still works quite well and saves you money. More common sense, this is another one of those old school approaches that really makes good sense.

Baking Soda and Vinegar: Saviors in the Kitchen

Any Google search of these two essential household items will give you a huge wealth of ideas for how to use them around the house. One great one? Use baking soda and vinegar and boiling water to unclog your drain.

Remember the old baking soda vinegar volcano from grade school science class? Well you can put that same reaction to work for unclogging you drain. Use instead of Drano, whose main ingredient sodium hypochlorite, is toxic to marine life and remains in the environment for many years. It is a potent spermicide, killing little sperms, people.

Last, But Not Least Plastic Water Bottles

Americans spent more money last year on bottled water than on ipods or movie tickets: $15 billion.

We pitch 38 billion plastic water bottles a year; in excess of $1 billion worth of plastic.

24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi: (Desani and Aquafina are the brands).

Not to mention the enormous amount of diesel fuel consumed to drive this all over the country. Get a filter and a metal water bottle and do the world a favor. The vast majority of plastic water bottles end up where? You guessed it, landfill. Same old story, the real cost of convenience.

That’s all I got, people. See how easy it can be to live green and be healthier, wealthier, and wiserer?

Your Host with the Whole Wheat Toast,
Marc