You could decide to lose weight—again—or this year you could resolve to lighten the load you leave on the planet. To help, we’ve outlined a series of small changes that add up to big results and divvied them up by time frame—tasks you can complete today, in the next week, during the next month and over the course of the next year. Breaking your efforts into smaller, more manageable tasks isn’t a cop-out: By following this plan, each small step adds up to changes that will benefit the health of the planet—and, yes, even your own health—immediately and in years to come.

Food
Over the course of the year,your goal is to educate yourself about food—where it comes from, how it’s packaged and transported, and what happens to the waste—so you can make wiser choices at every meal.

This week, start at the end: Research your composting options. Throwing food scraps in the garbage may seem innocuous, but decomposing food not only clogs landfills, it also releases methane—a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. And encasing food scraps in a plastic bag or landfill keeps fruits and vegetables from replenishing the soil, increasing our dependence on chemical fertilizers.

The University of Arizona estimates that if every American household reduced the amount of food it throws away by half, we’d cut our entire environmental impact as a country by 25 percent. Aim to do your part by composting your fruit and vegetable scraps. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, check out a no-fuss option such as the Once a Year Compost Bin ($139.99; cleanairgardening.com). Or find local resources that will accept your food waste, such as a community garden, recycling center or farmer’s market, and start storing scraps in your freezer until you can make a drop-off.

Transportation
Vow to take two fewer car trips over the next seven days, replacing them with walking, biking or public transportation. Keep tracking each car trip in your notebook, and start writing down how many gallons of gas you’re buying each time you fill up. And for each car trip you do without, note any other benefits you reap beyond saving gas—such as fresh air, exercise, community interaction or reading time—so you can see the full spectrum of ways that driving less impacts your daily life.

Energy
Schedule an energy audit to get a list of suggestions for reducing your home’s energy use. You can either get a free audit from your local utility— the best choice if you rent since their suggestions tend to be smaller-scale projects, such as weatherstripping—or from an energy assessment professional. The latter is the best choice if you own your home, since they specialize in larger projects such as helping you choose efficient heating and cooling systems.

A professional assessment will run $350 to $550 but will likely pay for itself in energy savings if you end up making a major improvement. To find a certified building energy rater, visit resnet.org. And if you think an energy audit isn’t worth the time or money, think again. “An energy audit will help you focus on the top one or two purchases that will have the biggest impact on your home energy use,” says Josh Dorfman, author of The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget ($14.95, STC, 2009).

Open a savings account devoted to green home improvements. Look at your budget and see what you can set aside toward a new efficient appliance, hot water heater or furnace. Even if it will take a couple of years to get there, it will pay off in the long run.

Everyday Purchases
Create your own personal “Going Green” kit. Small purchases that can add up to a big impact include: – reusable tote bags
- stainless steel water bottle
- travel coffee mug
- BYO-lunch supplies—an insulated carrier, utensils and wax paper or aluminum foil (instead of plastic wrap)
- compact fluorescent light bulbs

By Kate Hanley

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BulbAmerica.com makes the transition easy AND affordable!  You can select from a wide variety of lighting options, including Stage & Studio, Medical, Aviation, Automotive, Marine, Outdoor Lighting, General Lighting and many more.  You can find ways to save energy and money at home, at the office, and more! 

BulbAmerica.com offers ALL top, high quality brand names like GE, Osram Sylvania, Philips and Ushio as well as other brands.   Their light bulb catalog contains more than 16,500 products as well as 4,500 lighting equipment.   If you cannot find it here, I am not sure where you will find it!

Why choose BulbAmerica’s product line?

1. NO ONE CAN BEAT THEIR PRICES!  And that is important to those of us trying to SAVE money!
2. NO QUESTIONS ASKED when it comes to returning a product because the customer is ALWAYS right!  (Don’t you love that kind of customer service policy?!)
3. Excellent customer service with more than 28 dedicated knowledgeable agents.
4. Experienced & knowledgeable technical support team
5. ALL items in stock!
6. Shipping order within 24 hours

If you are looking to go green with your lighting options at home, at work, for students or dorm rooms, or at play, look no further than BulbAmerica.com!  Energy Saving Bulbs – 10% off ALL Fluorescent Bulbs – use Coupon Code: 10bacj10005   *Use Coupon Code for all Green Office Home readers!*

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Unfortunately, what also comes to mind are kind of noisy and smelly lawn mowers, leaf blowers, chain saws and more that help to maintain my lovely lawn and garden areas.   I often find myself trying to drive far around the landscaping companies that maintain the green spaces in and around my neighborhood and community as the tools that they are using cause a great deal of noise and air pollution.  While I certainly do enjoy the green spaces and can appreciate the environmental impact that they offer, I wonder about the trade-off in the environmental impact in the nosiy and dirty way in which those green spaces are kept green and lush.

The good news is that you can create lush, green spaces for your home or even your community, without worrying about the environmental impact of the tools and equipment used in maintaining and grooming the landscaping.  Now, of course, many of us have not-so-fond memories of push mowers, right?  That is certainly one way to cut your lawn in a “green” manner.  However, Green Garden Tools offers a variety of lawn mowers and other landscaping tools that are truly “green” and incredibly easy to use.  I was amazed by the following information on the Green Garden Tools website:

“Every weekend, about 54 million Americans mow their lawns and tend to their gardens while using more than 800 million gallons of gas per year and producing tons of air pollutants.

Don’t let the fact that their engines are small lead you to believe that they don’t pollute. In most cases, they can be worse the automobiles when it comes to pollution. In fact, ONE lawn mower can produce as much pollutants equivalent to driving 43 new cars 12,000 miles every year!

Even smaller garden equipment engines such as trimmers and edgers can be detrimental to the environment. Having had unregulated emissions until recently, gas-powered lawn and garden tools emit high levels of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. To put this in perspective, according to the EPA, lawn and garden equipment produces up to 5% of the nation’s air pollution each year.

By shifting to eco-friendly lawn and garden tools, you can help reduce the impact that lawn and garden equipment has on the earth. Electric, battery-powered, and even propane-powered equipment helps fight pollution, reduces our dependence of foreign oil, reduces outdoor water consumption, and eliminates harmful fumes from being emitted into the atmosphere.”

Green Garden Tools makes it easy to not only impact the earth with green gardening equipment, but they also help you keep more “green” in your wallet with money-saving and eco-friendly garden tools!  Many of these tools are also far more efficient than their gas-guzzling counterparts, saving you time on tending to your lawn and garden as well.  Saving the earth, saving money AND saving time…what more can you ask for when it comes to tending to your green spaces and enjoying your lawn and garden?!  Visit Green Garden Tools today to “Go Green” with ECO FRIENDLY landscaping tools from Green Garden Tools and the LOWEST PRICES on the Internet!

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So what is the solution?  SCE suggests unplugging consumer electronics when they are not in use.  A stunning energy fact: even when turned off, CD players in the U.S. consume enough energy in one year to power the Las Vegas Strip for six months.

As a consumer, you do have choices.  You can select consumer electronic items with the “Energy Star” rating, as these products use less energy, and this has a direct impact on your ability to create a greener home and impact your wallet by controlling soaring energy costs!

You can also select items with fewer “bells and whistles”.  For example, I have a clock in my kitchen, and I do not need redundant clocks on my kitchen small appliances.  I try to buy small appliances that do the same job, but have fewer features, and they also use less energy.   I am also not setting dozens of clocks around the entire house anytime there is a brown out or power outage!

And, as someone who LOVES to cook, I strive to use fewer electronics in my cooking, and more of my own personal energy.  I rarely, if ever, use my hand mixer any more, I prefer to do that work myself (and give my arms a great workout!).  Ditto with the food processor.  While it saves time to quickly “chop” veggies in my food processor, I can save electricity and money by taking a few more moments to chop them myself.   There is something really enjoyable about chopping veggies and other foods and putting that care and love into the meal I cook for my family.

Do you have any special energy saving tips to share?  We would love to hear from you!

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Making it Easy to Go Green!

Green office home is curious to know if you are sometimes as overwhelmed by green choices as we sometimes feel?!  We, too, want to create a greener lifestyle, save money on our energy bills and ensure a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren to inherit.  However, it is a challenge to sift through the great deal of information, the onslought of product offerings and this expert or that expert telling us how to best “go green”.  If you want to get some sound, knowledgeable, and real world advice, we recommend “The Rewards of Making Energy Efficient Choices”, by David Nelmes, offered by Alternative Power Choices.

In this book, you will get how very easy it can be to “go green”.   Here are some of the key topics covered to help you make green choices for your home and/or office:

In addition, Alternative Power Choices offers many of the kinds of products that are covered in the book so you can make a fully informed decision prior to making an investment in your greener home or office!   Discover the Best Energy Saving and Renewable Energy Products.

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Going green, one bite at a time!

GreenOfficeHome.com strives to offer you the very best information, resources, tips, ideas and products to create your ideal green home, green office, green home office and more!

GreenOfficeHome.com will provide you with the “inside scoop” and reviews on green products that we know will make your home or office greener, your life easier, your budget stretch a bit further and bring you peace of mind that you are using the green and eco-friendly products.  We know you want to make a difference, and this is the perfect site for you to find the information and products that you need to create your green experience.

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