Enviro-Girl suggested that her mother-in-law get an energy evaluation — most utility companies will send someone out to audit a household or business at no cost. While in college, Enviro-Girl and her roommates did this and got loads of free stuff to winterize their slum — plastic for wrapping windows, caulk and tape to keep the drafts sealed. Mr. D’s mom had never heard of such a thing, which does not speak well of the electric company in Iowa. In Wisconsin many utility companies heavily promote these services. By reducing customer use, utility companies keep their customers’ bills down and have an easier time meeting energy demands.  Enviro Girl also learned that many public libraries will check out electric meters that you can plug into any outlet to gauge the amount of electricity you use for various appliances.

Web sites like National Grid and Energy Right will allow you to self-audit your energy use and suggest ways to save money and energy.

Assessing energy use and suggesting ways to reduce it is best handled at a state or local level — in Wisconsin we spend more keeping warm than folks in Florida — and they spend more keeping cool. Obviously some fixes like improved lightbulbs or Energy Star rated appliances will help lower your utility bill regardless of where you live.   An energy audit doesn’t take much time, an hour or less, and can improve your energy efficiency by pointing out ways to conserve all over your home–from bedroom to attic.   Click on one of the links above or call your utility company and schedule an evaluation TODAY!

These are lovely gestures, but frankly, they’re not enough.  If people really want to make more of an impact protecting the planet for Earth Day (and the rest of the year), they have to start leaving less of an impact.   Our human habits of consumption are destroying the planet more than our grand gestures are helping it.  In the last hundred years people, particularly Americans, have destroyed more habitat and decimated more natural resources in their quest for bigger, better, more comfortable and more luxurious.   Our living space has tripled, our driving habits have grown exponentially, we burn more fuel for electricity and heat.  For every “green space” we’ve planted, we’ve paved many more acres over with roads and strip malls and subdivisions.  Our food is processed with chemicals in factories, wrapped in plastic, packaged in boxes, shipped across hundreds of miles, and carried home in plastic bags.   Our air, soil and water is full of manufactured chemicals that leech poisons into fish, wildlife, birds and ourselves.  Our climate is changing, our shores are shifting,  creatures of all species are dying.

Depressing stuff, really.  It’s easy to make ourselves feel good by planting a tree or saying “No, thanks” to the cashier offering us a free plastic bag for our purchases.  Enviro Girl challenges readers to raise the stakes this Earth Day–for April 22 and for the rest of their lives.  It’s a tough challenge, not for the fainthearted or weak.  She can sum it up in four words:  Use less, buy less. 

Let’s break it down, starting with “Use less.”   Pick any area of your consumption habits–water use, energy use, food or plastic.  (The Earth Day Network Website has a footprint calculator to get you started.)  Determine how much you gobble up in a week’s time and then commit to reducing that amount.  Perhaps you can reduce your water use in your garden by employing rainbarrels or installing new shower heads.  Maybe you can cut some plastic out of your life by opting out of single-use plastics like to-go cartons, straws, shopping bags, Happy Meal toys and individually packaged servings of food.  Maybe you can install better insulation, screw in different lightbulbs or turn down your home thermostat to conserve energy.  These adjustments will help the planet exponentially over the long haul and will ultimately save YOU money, too.

“Buy less” also saves money, but it requires a shift away from a consumer-based mentality that gets foisted on us everywhere we turn.  Enviro Girl suggests this trick:  for a single month buy only consumable items.  Steer away from the new towels, the spring home decor, new clothes, new gadgets.  Purchase only food and toiletries.  Enviro Girl did this and was floored by the money she saved every month.  Years ago she called Target “The $100 Store” because she simply could NOT walk out of there spending less than that amount.  Now she routinely spends less than that amount because she’s curbed her impulse buying by sticking only to the necessary aisles to purchase her family’s toothpaste, toilet paper and deodorant.  It’s become her habit to ignore the home goods and clothing departments and head directly for the dish soap and mosquito repellent.  For gift-giving she tries to buy people experiences or consumable goods like nice chocolates or plants.  When something breaks or wears out (as all things eventually do), she replaces it only if she needs it.   Her household has adopted an “equal mass in, equal mass out” philosophy and it has simplified her family’s life.  They believe the human experience should be more about what we DO and who we ARE, not what we OWN.

“Use less, buy less.”  Enviro Girl challenges you to consider participating in this year’s Earth Day Challenge. To further celebrate this week before Earth Day, the Eco Women are giving away a 4-pack of wool dryer balls (homemade!), a Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Kitchen Basics Set (consumable) and two Envirosax shopping bags (designed to reduce your consumption).  Each comment telling the Eco Women how you plan to celebrate Earth Day this year is an entry to win–we’ll announce the lucky winner next Monday!

Perhaps it started with the housing crash–Americans clued in that building McMansions cost more than they can afford to pay and consequently cost a lot to heat and maintain.  New home construction trends show shrinking square footage, fewer bathrooms and more single story homes.

Cities are beginning to shrink their borders, recognizing that population shifts might be permanent and it’s a better use of resources (like tax dollars and sanitation crews and police forces) to give up the ghost of their former glory.  NPR reported here and here about cities like Flint, Michigan returning empty neighborhoods to green space.

The ultimate sign of a different breed of progress in America could be this news:  some parts of the country are reconfiguring freeway systems. In the ultimate stroke of irony, the rationale for abandoning freeways is to improve mobility.

Quality, not quantity.  Are you seeing the signs, too, reader?

You’ll spend nearly a third of your life in this room, yet it’s probably not even on your “spring cleaning” list.  Bedrooms tend to be dust traps and clutter traps, those dust bunnies beneath your bed?  Mostly hair and dead skin, believe it or not, and major contributors to allergic reactions.  Lying still in one spot (your bed) for a third of every day means your bedroom is the main spot where you’ll shed dead skin and hair, creating the most dust and dust mite-infested environment in your whole house.  Spring cleaning this room is less about heavy scrubbing and more about heavy lifting.   By “lightening up your bedroom for spring,” you’ll be on pace to enjoy a fresh start for the season.  Setting this space to rights might take few hours, but you’ll have peace of mind while you rest there for the next 2,920 hours in the next year.

You’ll need:

1-2 rags and a spray bottle of vinegar diluted with water

vacuum cleaner and attachments

empty boxes

Enviro Girl’s bedroom before spring cleaning.

1.  Strip your bed and put everything through a hot wash cycle–include dust ruffles, pillow cases and mattress pads.  Line-dry your bedding;  it’ll smell divine when you make your bed up again.  If you have allergies, line dry and then put everything through 7 minutes in a clothes dryer to remove the pollen and other allergens.  (Enviro Girl recommends doing this chore before things begin budding and you won’t have any issues with pollen when you line dry your bedding.)   Using a vacuum attachment, vacuum every inch of your mattress and bed frame.

2.  Vacuum under your bed, around and beneath all other furniture.  Use your vacuum on your window frames and window treatments, too.

3.  Clear off every surface.

4.  Grab a clean rag dampened with the diluted vinegar.  Dust every surface–dressers, headboard, baseboards, windows, mirrors, picture frames and do-dads.  Vacuum all vents, fans and lampshades.  Vacuum the corners of your walls and along the ceiling where cobwebs hang down.  Work from top to bottom, hitting every surface in your room.

5.  Replace the knickknacks you love, put the everything else away.  An uncluttered room will help clear your head when you’re trying to unwind at the end of the day.  Use the boxes for trashing or loading up items to donate to your local thrift shop.  Enviro Girl is terrible about letting clutter accumulate in her bedroom.  It’s where the photos to file, books to read and clothes to repair get piled.  She set up a card table smack in the middle of her bedroom and loaded it up with all of her unfinished projects.  Now those projects sit in one spot up off the floor and Enviro Girl’s terribly inconvenienced by this table smack in the middle of her room, so she’s got an incentive to get after things.  Her pile has shrunk by half in the last two months.  This method may not work for you, but Enviro Girl strongly encourages giving it a go.

6.  Empty out your dresser drawers, one at a time.  If you’ve too many of any item (hunting socks, t-shirts, sweatpants), allocate what you won’t or don’t use to a box.  If you don’t wear items because of size or style, put them in the box.  Refold and organize your clothing while replacing it in the drawers.  Enviro Girl and her husband did this a few months ago–they ended up donating over 3 garbage bags full of clothes to the local thrift shop.  Now it’s easy for them to open and close drawers easily and find what they need at a glance.

7.  Repeat this entire process in your closet.  Vacuum out your entire closet–shelves, baseboards and all–before replacing the clothes/shoes/accessories you decide to keep.  If you’re adding hooks or shelving to your closet, do it while it’s empty.

You know the drill–donate those castaway clothes to your local thrift shop and toss the dirty rags in your laundry basket.   Completing this job earns you a good night’s sleep–and you should sleep well in a clean, uncluttered space.

For some great tips on organizing your closets and drawers, check out Martha Stewart’s site or Readers Digest.

Instead of tossing and buying replacements, you can make more environmentally friendly choices and leave less environmental impact.

First, consider whether you really need the latest, greatest gadget.  Can you reduce your electronic use? Is it possible to do without a GPS or a digital camera?  Can you buy a single gadget with the capacity to make phone calls, take pictures and play games?  According to this New York Times article, Americans spend over $2,000 a year on the support services for their electronics.  Time Magazine brashly suggests the average household might consider doing without.  Enviro Girl suggests you really consider your array of electronics.  Perhaps you don’t need to purchase another DVD player or TV set.  Maybe a Nook or Kindle isn’t practical for your reading style.  Maybe you don’t need to pay for Cable or Direct TV if you watch TV shows on your laptop.  Fewer electronics doesn’t necessarily mean you’re less connected.  It can mean less on your monthly electric, phone and cable bills, however.

Second, when you replace a gadget, don’t throw away your old/broken electronics.  Be responsible and recycle your e-waste.   Most cell phone stores and kiosks will take your old phones when you order new ones.  Lots of stores offer recycling programs for all nature of electronics for free or for a nominal ($10 or less) fee, including:

Best Buy Recycling

Dell Recycling

Office Depot Tech Recycling Service

Staples EcoEasy

And of course, the U.S. EPA has a website that explains how and where you can donate or recycle your old electronics.

Finally, many well-intentioned people will suggest you reuse your old electronics by donating them to charities or schools.  Enviro Girl suggests otherwise.  Often, old electronics are outdated, incompatible and expensive to fix (if the parts are even available).  They create a lot of headache for the recipients–and often the recipient is put in the position of having to dispose of your electronic waste.  How unfair!   If you want your favorite charity or school to have new technology, Enviro Girl suggests a direct cash donation is a more effective way to help them out.  Besides, the links she’s given you for recycling your electronic waste often handle donations of this nature far more efficiently.  Leave your electronic waste–the recycling and the reuse–to the professionals!

Be an eco-warrior:  reduce your electronic gadgetry and recycle them when you’re through!

If you live in a mid-sized city or a major metro area or plan to travel to one soon, check out Sustainlane.  This website will help you find green businesses, locally grown food, yoga studios and green jobs.  Enviro Girl was surprised to see her home town represented on the site after a little search–Sustainlane provides an outstanding network of environmentally-minded people, businesses, products and resources.  Of particular interest are their product reviews and news bits.  Enviro Girl declares this web site easy to navigate and chock-full of good stuff.