40 A
2007
10 times longer,” says Anca Novacovici,
president of Eco-Coach.Worry not—bulb
technology is finally catching up to your
design aesthetic. The latest compact fluo-
rescent bulbs don’t throw off that oddblue
light, and they even look
like their incandescent
counterparts, so your lamp
shades will continue to sit
snugly.
Recycle — seriously.
Yes, it’s almost painful to
say it to you, because of
courseyoualready separate
out the paper and the plas-
tic, right? But just in case
you don’t, soda cans make
it clear why you should:
Aluminum has a 99 per-
cent recycling rate. “You
can recycle it forever,” says
Novacovici. And recycling
just one little aluminum
can saves the same amount
of energy it would take
to run a TV for three full
hours.One can!
Put the kibosh on junk
mail and catalogs (asmuch
aspossible).Directmarket-
ers send out about 60 cata-
logs for everyman,woman,
and child in the United
States annually, according
to Novacovici. And all that
junkmail?There’s 100mil-
lion trees’ worth sent out
per year, which is “equal to
deforesting the entireRockyMountainNa-
tional Park every four months,” says Wise.
Stop in at the Direct Marketing Associa-
tion’s Consumer Assistance site (
consumers.org/cgi/offmailing) toopt out of
mailings from the association’s members,
and visit the Center for a New American
Dream’s “Declare Your Independence from
Junk Mail” page
/
junkmail/index.php).
Paper or plastic?Go fabric instead and
you couldkeepup to 1,500plastic bags per
year frommaking their way into landfills,
saysWise, adding, “It takes 1,000 years for
plasticbags tobiodegrade.”
Layer on clothes instead of giving your
thermostat an extra twist. Take your ther-
mostatdownamere twodegrees thiswinter
(andup two in the summer) and you’ll save
2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.
And if the environmental
benefit isn’t enough to get
that thermostat moving,
just think howmuchmon-
ey you’ll save. “Being green
doesn’t take more green,”
saysWise. “Youcanactually
savea lot ofmoney.”
Givepower cords a tug.
There’s still a little some-
thing surging through all
those electric cords around
your house after you turn
off your appliances. “Be-
tween 10 and 40 percent
of energy used is actually
usedwhen the appliance is
turned off but still plugged
in,” saysNovacovici.
Take public transpor-
tation when you travel, or
if you must drive, rent a
hybrid vehicle. How much
does a hybrid really save?
A Toyota Prius emits four
tons of greenhouse gases
and uses 7.4 barrels of pe-
troleum per year, while a
Toyota Camry emits 7.7
tons of greenhouse gases
anduses 14.3barrels of pe-
troleumannually.
Lend your voice to the earthby encour-
aging your local representatives “to support
anationalmandatory cap on global-warm-
ing pollution,” says Ben Dunham, staff at-
torney for theU.S. Public InterestResearch
Group. “The biggest step … an individual
can take is to
[
ask
]
their member of Con-
gress to support a science-based solution to
global warming.” Two bills currently under
consideration inCongress are the Safe Cli-
mate Act in the House of Representatives
and, in the Senate, the Global Warming
PollutionReductionAct.
IfYou’reReally
Serious…
What?Youwant to do
more? These books, maga-
zines (just remember to
recycle them), andweb-
siteswill help youmake
the leap frombeing a
good acquaintance of the
earth to being one of its
closest pals.
TheGreenBook: TheEveryday
Guide toSaving thePlanetOne
SimpleStepat aTime
byEliza-
bethRogers, $13 (ThreeRivers
Press)
The LazyEnvironmentalist:
YourGuide toEasy, Stylish,
GreenLiving
by JoshDorfman,
$15 (Stewart, Tabori &Chang)
The LiveEarthGlobalWarm-
ingSurvival Handbook: 77
Essential Skills toStopClimate
Change
byDaviddeRothschild,
$15 (Rodale)
National Geographic
’s
“TheGreenGuide” newsletter
Plenty
magazine
Greenhome tips from
ApartmentTherapy.com
JENNASCHNUER
is a contributing editor to
AmericanWay
. She
is based inNewYorkCity.
A typical U.S. household generates 45,000pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year.
}
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