Category Archives: websites & blogs

Solar Energy for Homeowners

Posted on April 6, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Enviro Girl and her husband have been exploring renewable sources of energy for a few years now.  They’ve decided that solar is the best route to provide their electricity for a few reasons.  First, wind is a dicey proposition, not quite as reliable as the sun.  Second, turbines have moving parts and in their experience, more moving parts means more maintenance and more potential for Things to Go Wrong.  Third, turbines can create friction with neighbors.

The beauty of solar panels is how still and quiet they are–absorbing the sun’s rays, creating energy to be converted to the grid, not moving and not calling any attention to themselves.  All of these reasons convinced Enviro Girl and her hubby to narrow the field strictly to solar energy.

What they’ve learned is that solar panels are expensive–no two ways about it.  Yet their electric bill shows no signs of flagging and as long as they don’t plan to move within the next ten years (they don’t), they’ll earn back their investment.

Some fun things Enviro Girl and her husband learned from a contractor this past weekend include:

1.  Installing solar panels will earn a tax credit equal to 30% of the entire cost–including installation and tax.  This tax credit can be rolled over into another year if maxed out the first year.

2.  Focus on Energy grant money is available–a cash rebate worth $3000 or more 60 days after installation.

3.  Solar panels have a 25 year warranty and the contractor they’re working with has only replaced one in his career.  Pretty impressive.

4.  Installing solar panels CANNOT affect their tax assessed value of their property, but it will increase the value of their home.  Win-win!

5.  There’s a groovy program called SRECTrade which allows homeowners to double-dip into their energy production by selling the worth of their solar-generated power to buyers required by law to purchase a certain percentage of their energy from “green” sources.  By signing up for this program, homeowners can sell their solar power to the grid they’re connected to directly and sell their Solar Renewable Energy Certificates via SRECTrade for their market value each month.  Doing this allows a homeowner earn additional cash for the energy output of their system.  Factoring this program into the equation means Enviro Girl and her husband could get their solar panels to pay for themselves even sooner.

They also learned that they can install nearly any size of system to provide for any percentage of their electric needs.  The key to solar is access to sunlight.  By mounting solar panels on a roof, space is not a factor, but Enviro Girl’s husband is partial to a ground-mounted system (less expensive and since they live on 60 acres, not unreasonable either).  The contractor agreed that the ideal spot lies south of their house in a field clear of trees.

Stay tuned as Enviro Girl and Mr. D continue their solar adventures!

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Electric Consumption: The High Cost of Modern Living

Posted on March 21, 2011 by | 5 Comments

Enviro Girl braces herself every month when the electric bill arrives–it seems that no matter what she does, her family owes a little more each month.  It amazes her that with each new installment of technology, the energy consumption seems to climb exponentially.  Like most families, hers is in the habit of adding on with each new trend, not reducing their use of electronic gadgets.   To Enviro Girl’s mind, the opposite should be happening in this modern age:  advancements in technology should create more energy efficient conveniences.

It  started with the microwave oven in the kitchen.  For years it seemed fine to use a conventional oven, but when microwave ovens came on the scene, Enviro Girl’s family added one to their kitchen, along with a dishwasher and several smaller appliances like a toaster, blender, griddle and crock pot.   In the living room it seemed enough to have a TV and  a stereo back in the 1970′s.  Now her family has a TV, stereo, DVD player and Wii system plugged into the wall.  Their electronic office technology once included a desktop computer and a phone.   Now Enviro Girl’s household has two cell phones, a regular phone, laptops and iPod Shuffles.  Everything’s plugged in, draining the grid on a daily basis, contributing to global warming and for what?

Compounding the issue of consumption is grasping exactly how much it costs to run electrical gadgets and appliances.  Enviro Girl struggles to comprehend kilo watt hours and wattage and voltage and whatnot.  She’s thankful for websites like Saving Electricity and Energy Savers that explain in specific terms the most energy-greedy appliances and gives tips for how to reduce electric consumption.   To save electricity, Enivro Girl uses clotheslines for laundry, unplugs seasonal equipment, installed power strips and invested in energy efficient light bulbs.  All of their appliances are newer and have great Energy Star ratings.

When Enviro Girl’s not badgering her family to “Turn off the darn lights already!” and “Unplug that if you’re not using it!” she’s taking a huge step back from the consumer model of modern living and asking this question:  “Do I really need (this electronic device) to make my life better?”   She’s learning the answer is “NO!”  Recently she decided NOT to upgrade her six-year-old digital camera, despite the fact that it takes almost 3 seconds to take a picture with it, rendering action shots a blur.  She’d love to get an iPad someday, a device that would include a decent digital camera and recorder.   For now she thinks it’s wiser to hold off on purchasing several electronic devices and buy one that bundles many features like camera, e-reader, phone and DVD player together.

The other solution to her family’s energy consumption involves switching to renewable resources for power.  The world currently runs on electricity, so Enviro Girl has begun exploring wind and solar options to fuel their plugged-in lifestyle.  So far solar looks like the best bet, and as her family’s electric bill keeps rising each month, investing in a solar electric system does not seem terribly expensive anymore.

Tell the Eco Women:  what are you doing to reduce your electric consumption?  Are you plugging in less stuff or looking for alternative ways to power your lifestyle?

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Posted in 3 Rs, electronics, house stuff, living green on a budget, websites & blogs

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On the Topic of Vegan Diets

Posted on March 2, 2011 by | 12 Comments

Three years!  The Eco Women have been doling out advice and exploring how to live an earth-friendly lifestyle on this site for THREE YEARS!  To celebrate our blogoversary we’re giving away three  Eco Women canvas shopping bags.  The Eco Women love these bags and not only use them daily, but also regularly give them as gifts.

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post.  Share your favorite eco tip, suggest a topic for the Eco Women to blog about, or just say hi.  One entry per person.  The contest is open until 11:59 p.m. EST this Friday. Over the weekend, the Eco Women will randomly draw three names and announce the winners next Monday.

This month Enviro Girl is helping host an artist-in-residence for her children’s elementary school.  In the process of researching how to make this experience go well for everyone involved, the PTA learned that the artist is a vegan.  One of Enviro Girl’s jobs is to create a gift basket for the artist’s hotel room, a sort of welcoming gesture to make the artist more comfortable.  She wanted to include a tube of nice hand cream, brochures about area attractions, snacks and other treats.  But a vegan!  What does that mean for the welcome basket?

Essentially, vegans abstain from eating animals and animal products, like dairy or eggs.  The movement is based on a belief of respecting animals and preventing animal cruelty.  It’s also an environmentally healthy way to eat and live since it relies on renewable resources (plants) and leaves the smallest environmental impact of any animal-based diet.  Enviro Girl had to rethink the food she’d planned to include in her gift basket and came up with the following vegan snacks for the artist:

nuts

seeds

hard candy/caramels (most chocolate contains milk)

energy bars

fresh fruit

juice

She also did a little local research and came up with a short list of restaurants offering vegan options for diners.  Finally, the PTA was glad to learn of the artist’s preferences since they planned a breakfast for the staff to meet and greet on the first day of the program.  They will be sure to include some animal-free offerings on the menu that day.

She also found these websites helpful for understanding a vegan perspective and how to eat a vegan diet:

Vegan Action

Vegan.com

The Vegan Society

Reader, do you have any vegan advice for Enviro Girl as she prepares for a vegan artist-in-residence?

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Posted in food, websites & blogs

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Keep it Local this Christmas – Join the Shop Local Campaign

Posted on December 7, 2010 by | 2 Comments

Enviro Girl is a HUGE fan of shopping at locally owned and operated businesses.  From restaurants to florists to film developers to groceries, if it’s owned by Mom and Pop, you’ll find her spending her money there.  Her reasons are environmental, political  and economical — here’s the breakdown of why she shops local:

1.  More money stays in the local economy when we shop local.  According to the 3/50 Project, for every $100 spent at local independent businesses, $68 stays in the community, vs. $43 at a non locally owned business.  Shop online and none of it returns to your town.  Want to boost your area’s economy?  Shop local.  Enviro Girl likes her money to go to her neighbors and friends, not to the Waltons or the Kohls (even though they live in her state).

2.  Local businesses give locally.  Check out the back of Little League t-shirts and programs from local theater productions — it’s Lou’s Diner and King’s Variety Store sponsoring community life.  It’s pretty darn hypocritical to beg the locally owned businesses for donations to your school’s silent auction and then turn around and shop at the Big Box Stores who don’t give to local organizations at the level that independent retailers do.

3.  Locally-owned ensures choice and diversity.  Chains don’t have any regard for local needs, climate or concerns. Chains don’t have character.  Sadly, many folks live in areas where Big Box stores have taken over, leaving no choice, no diversity.

4.  Locally owned means COLOR and CHARACTER.  The entire planet is morphing into identical strip malls with identical storefronts.  How depressing.  If you value the unique color of your downtown, you have to leave your money behind supporting it.  If you don’t, those stores shutter up and you’re left with nothing but Big Box shopping experiences that look the same from San Diego to Philadelphia.

5.  Luring chain stores costs communities more than they benefit them. The tax revenue drops, an equal number of jobs are displaced, the co-dependence of locally owned businesses is broken when Big Box stores enter the picture because they’re beholden to no one local.

6.  Big Box stores and chain stores and superstores waste land resources, contributing to urban sprawl and suburban blight.  New Mexico now has eight empty Wal-Mart stores.  Colorado has two, both exceed 100,000 square feet, not counting the parking lot.  Strip malls give way to enclosed malls and free-standing megastores.  Wal-Mart has 400 stores sitting empty, 30 million square feet of empty building and that much more asphalt-covered parking lot.

7.  In addition to wasting land resources, chain stores pull traffic away from “Main Street America” and out to the edges of town, creating more reliance on driving and resulting in more dependence on cars. Most new retail outlets are not pedestrian or bike-friendly and many strain already underfunded public transportation by adding miles and miles to their routes — pulling shoppers and workers further from the central hub of their communities. Chain stores add to traffic congestion and taxpayers end up footing the bill to manage and reroute traffic every time a new Big Box gets built.  In this article, Enviro Girl learned that the new trend in chain stores is to go SMALLER to fit into neighborhoods once again in response to consumer demand.  Turns out people want shopping centers in the CENTER of their communities–it’s easier for pedestrians, more convenient and creates a stronger sense of community.  Enviro Girl adds that in the face of an aging Baby Boomer population, better pedestrian convenience will keep more elderly people in a position to live independently.

8.  Urban sprawl that inevitably results from Big Box stores puts more stress on a community’s infrastructure.  It increases pollution to air and groundwater.  It demands expansion of sewer, water, electricity, garbage pick up, police patrol and first response services.  This also happens at taxpayers’ expense.

9.  Shopping local means more expertise and more attentive customer service.  Why?  Because that’s what they have to offer instead of loss leaders in aisle 7.

10.  Shopping local means connecting with your community.  Enviro Girl knows the guy who bags her groceries and she’s taken karate classes with a local florist.  These people live in her town, work in her town and are invested in her town.  Their livelihoods depend on Enviro Girl just as hers depends on theirs.  She will not break that cycle just to save a few bucks on film development because the ten reasons she’s just listed mean more to her than money.

Do your community a favor this Christmas:  shop local.  Check out The 3/50 Project to learn more about how you can support your locally owned businesses.

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FOUR “Rs” for Modern Environmentalists

Posted on November 17, 2010 by | 6 Comments

Enviro Girl grew up aware of the “3 R’s” of environmentalism:  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  But the celebration of “America Recycles Day” seems to fall short of encouraging people to be true environmentalists and shrink their environmental impact.  In fact, it encourages just the opposite, greenwashing single use products by telling people to “Recycle them!” You see, recycling would be a useful concept if people really did it–but they don’t.  Recycling waste is no different from throwing it away when piles of “recycled” paper and plastic and metal loom beside landfills and manufacturers still turn to virgin materials to make their products.

Super Eco-Warrior Beth Terry makes an excellent point on her blog Fake Plastic Fish in the post “The Truth About America Recycles Day.”  We’re forgetting about the other option, the FOURTH “R,” if you will:  REFUSE.

Just say no–say no to bottled water, plastic shopping bags, single-wrapped servings of snack food, Happy Meal Toys.  Demand better use of our natural resources by consuming less and supporting only those manufacturers committed to reusing recycled materials.  Being a modern environmentalist means more than tossing your plastic bottles into the recycling bin. It means connecting our waste stream and our consumption and committing to making both smaller.  It means crying “Foul!” when corporations try to sell us on goods that only pad their pockets while increasing our collective environmental impact.  It means recognizing wasteful behaviors and addressing them with more efficient solutions.

Refuse.  Reduce.  Reuse.  Recycle.  In that order.

Tell the Eco Women, what do you refuse in the name of environmental activism?

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Disconnect It: how to reduce and recycle your electronics

Posted on November 1, 2010 by | 4 Comments

Technology keeps advancing  faster and the electronics market bombards us with buzzwords like newer, better, faster, smaller, clearer.  And in America, economic recession be damned, we consume the message and the products without a second thought.  It’s a disposable world today where the life expectancy of a cell phone is two years and a laptop is five years.  Instead of keeping and repairing our gadgets, we toss them aside and buy the latest upgrade.  It’s not uncommon for a household to have several cell phones, a couple laptops, a couple gaming systems, an electronic reader, digital camera, DVD/Blu-Ray player, TiVo/DVR, video recorder, GPS and MP3 players.  But the proliferation of electronics in landfills creates 70% of the toxic waste thrown away in America according to the Global Futures Foundation  Heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium are present in batteries, cell phones, LCD and plasma screens, and computers.   When these heavy metals get disposed of improperly, they can contaminate soil and groundwater.  caustic chemicals can burn sanitation experts and heavy metals can expose them to health problems.  It’s also pretty wasteful to use and toss these metals when they’re dangerous to mine, so recycling them makes a lot of sense.

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!

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Posted in 3 Rs, electronics, fast facts, living green on a budget, quick link, websites & blogs

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Green Contests & Green Cities

Posted on September 8, 2010 by | 1 Comment

Ecobunga offers green giveaways and deals.  From contests to win free organic cotton socks or cleaning supplies or bikes to coupons and great deals with environmentally friendly companies like Seventh Generation and Stonyfield Farm, you can find a great deal and save a little “green” over at Ecobunga.

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.

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ARCIMOTO- PULSE – All Electric Car

Posted on August 27, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Nathan Fillion who plays in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and Castle was in Eugene, Oregon test-driving these sustainable vehicles.

And The Green Queen’s son, who played Captain Hammer here in town from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, rushed down to see the event.

This car is supposed to be a “new way to drive.” The Pulse is debuting in 2010 and is supposed to combine style and innovation for fun, affordable, emission-free driving.  The Green Queen’s son had to hop in the car and check it out too.

The Target Price is $17,500 for a base model.

And The Green Queen’s son enjoyed his chance to meet a celebrity and test a sustainable car at the same time.

The Drivetrain is ALL-ELECTRIC with a range of 40-50 miles with and equivalent efficiency of 150 MPG and a top speed of 65 MPH.  The charge time takes 5-7 hours.  Seating allows for the driver and one passenger and safety features include a full roll cage and crumple zones, with disk brakes.

If you are interested in seeing more, check out Arcimoto.

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Is the Grass Really Greener?

Posted on May 24, 2010 by | 5 Comments

Dandelion season finally ended about two weeks after it began.  During this time, Enviro Girl bemoaned the fact that her lawn looked more yellow than green, but dandelions are a fact of life, try all you like, you’re not getting rid of them.  It took more convincing for her husband to learn to ride them out, but by allowing nature to take her course, the dandelions do disappear.  Coming home last week, Enviro-Girl immediately noticed the sharp contrast of her family’s green lawn compared to their neighbor’s. She cut a suspicious glance at her husband. “Did you fertilize?”  (He agreed not to use weed killer, but he’d promised nothing about fertilizers.  Mr. D spreads Scotts around like cheap parade candy — for the first time this spring Enviro-Girl convinced him to try worm castings and eschew the poisonous chemicals in the plastic bags. She’d been gone a week and would not put such devious behavior past her Lawn King.)

“Nope,” Mr. D announced proudly. “I moved the mower blade up to 3 inches. The M’s are still mowing at 2 1/2. See the difference?”

She did. Her family’s lawn looked greener, lusher, and less weedy — all without the “help” of hardware store chemicals.

According to National Geographic, grassy lawns cover over 30 million acres and the average homeowner bought 102 million pounds of active ingredients used in pesticides for said lawns. Over $28 billion is spent on American lawns, at the cost of our environment — groundwater, bird life, children’s health, and soil health. Even the all-American act of mowing the lawn uses 800 million gallons of gas each year and produces up to 5% of America’s air pollution according to the EPA.

Lawn Care companies sound benign — the word “care” evokes a friendly, compassionate feeling. Spreading carcinogens like Mancozeb and Dursban isn’t exactly friendly. And lawn toxins have a nasty habit of not staying put — which is why Minnesota is touting a law prohibiting the excessive use of lawn fertilizer. Phosphorous is necessary for new lawns, but not for established lawns. Yet, a lot of people spread it unnecessarily and that phosphorous runs into waterways and feeds dangerously toxic algae blooms. A pound of phosphorous produces 300-500 pounds of algae which then costs local governments $200 a pound to remove.

The 70 million tons of fertilizers and pesticides applied annually is enough of a problem, but the another environmental cost has moved governments to react with more urgency than Minnesota: water. Over 30% of water used on the East Coast goes to watering lawns, 60% on the west coast. From Atlanta to Las Vegas watering bans are now in effect to preserve a precious resource — with fines as much as $1,000 levied against people caught illegally watering their lawns.

A healthy lawn is more than a place to run barefoot and play whiffle ball. It’s a burden on landfills (18% of municipal solid waste is yard waste).

What can I do?

Well you might ask. Here are some easy, environmentally friendly ways to care for you lawn without sacrificing your family’s health or your ecosystem’s viability:

* Improve the soil — use earthworm castings and compost to fertilize.

* Mow often, but not too short — longer grass doesn’t dry out and it chokes out weeds, too.

* Let it go dry in dry weather — most grasses survive a dormant period just fine, so let your lawn go brown in August, it’ll be lush and green with rainfall again in September.

* Leave your grass clippings. They will help your lawn retain water and nutrients while NOT taking up valuable landfill space.

* Control thatch by raking or renting a de-thatcher.

* Choose a grass best suited to your climate when planting a lawn.

* Use a reel mower to reduce noise and air pollution.

* Test your soil and choose nutrients suited to your soil’s needs. Don’t just pull a bag off the shelf at Home Depot and start spreading.

* Control weeds with an application of nontoxic corn gluten, spread it right when the forsythia is in bloom, it kills weed seedlings and adds nitrogen.

* Spot treat weeds. Plain old white vinegar works well for this.

* Explore environmentally friendly lawn and product options. Here is a website that offers many.

* Consider less lawn if you don’t play on it — gardens of succulents, prairies, wildflowers, native species will require less labor and resources while providing a beautiful place to relax outside of your house.

Even a few small changes can make a huge environmental impact when we’re talking lawn care. Now, Enviro-Girl is off to kick off her shoes and play catch with Team Testosterone in the grass.

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The Real Cost of Gas

Posted on May 19, 2010 by | 2 Comments

Since the assembly line began churning out Model T Fords, the automobile industry and oil industry have enjoyed government subsidies allowing them huge profits at taxpayers’ expense.   Without highways, roads, bridges and their continued maintenance, there’d be no way to use automobiles.  According to the USDA, a new road costs between $2800 and $3500 per mile.  Providing a means of using cars at taxpayer expense is a subsidy.  It would be no different from the government providing the entire country free WiFi to use their computers.  According to this article in Reuters, the oil industry collects $36.5 billion in government subsidies.   If Enviro Girl understands this correctly, the government charges everyone a tax and then gives the money to corporations that make a profit using our money to operate.  That doesn’t qualify as capitalism, that’s a form of welfare.

Yet the minute Enviro Girl reads about spending government money on mass transit or bike trails, people object.   They whine about the cost of such projects, but no one seems to whine about the cost of building new freeways, interchanges, and bridges.  Our country has invested for decades in allowing people to transport themselves in cars to get from place to place.  The cost of driving is not reflected in gas taxes.

For too long the true cost of driving has been hidden from consumers.  Enviro Girl knows it costs her nearly $400 a month to drive when she calculates the cost of her car payment (spread out over the life of her vehicle–she’ll drive her Momvan until it dies of natural causes someday), auto insurance, registration fee, fuel, and maintenance.  She gets weary of hearing people dicker about the price of gasoline per gallon because in her view it’s not enough.  If she could, she’d ditch her Momvan and ante up for a $50 bus pass.  And Enviro Girl lives in a place where she can usually park for free.  Driving her clan around in a car is the least cost-effective way to travel, and that’s not even considering the environmental costs associated with driving.

Therefore, Enviro Girl was shocked to learn what driving really costs when she went to this website to calculate the true cost:  $12,009.45 a year!  Head over to The True Cost of Driving to find out what you’re paying annually to drive.  It’s time to change our tune, America.  Mass transit, walking, biking–we need to wean our population off the “freedom of the road” because frankly, it costs too darn much.

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