Go Green tip for 4/22

BOTTLED WATER
TIP: A perfect example of this is bottled water - Americans currently spend $15 billion a year on bottled water and the amount of oil required to make the plastic bottles is the equivalent to the amount of oil required to run 100,000 cars for a year.
ACTION & EFFECT: Simply by eliminating 1 bottle of water per day, people will save $500 per year and help reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills and waterways (96 percent of water bottles sold in 2006 were in single-size containers, which have a lower recycling rate than nearly any other form of plastic packaging.

GET RID OF JUNK MAIL
TIP: Let's face it, in America shopping is a leisure activity and we don't even have to leave our homes to play: Every day, catalogs and junk mail fill our mailboxes with temptations to buy things we don't need. In 2006, we bought $160 billion in merchandise from catalogs. And more than 8 million tons of trees are used to produce the 19 billion catalogs printed each year, requiring enough energy to power 1.2 million homes for a year and producing as many emissions as 2 million cars. As for junk mail, the average adult is on at least 50 mailing lists and receives 40 pounds of junk mail a year-nearly half of which ends up in landfills unopened.
ACTION & EFFECT: Cut down on junk mail by calling 888-5OPTOUT and cancel your catalog subscriptions by going to www.abacus-us.com and clicking on "Consumer Opt-out" to save $1,413 a year on unnecessary catalog purchases, helping us to collectively save 100 million trees a year.

GET RID OF A CAR
TIP: This may sound controversial or difficult, but the fastest way to cut your family's expenses is to get rid of one of the family cars. Consider this: there are roughly two cars on the road for each household in the U.S., and the average annual cost of each of those cars-factoring in gas, insurance, maintenance, parking and so on-is $8,580 per year. So do the math: if your household income is $50,000 per year and you have two cars, you are working 4 months of the year just to pay for them.
ACTION & EFFECT: If you live in one of the 48 cities in the U.S. where Zip Car operates-which allows you to reserve a car for 6 2-hour slots and 2 4-hour slots each week for just $162 per month-ditch one or both of your cars and save up to $8,580 each year while keeping 3,640 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air.

BRING YOUR LUNCH TO WORK
TIP: Today, Americans spend over $134 billion each year on fast food. While it's convenient, it's not always cheap or healthy. And takeout food packaging creates 1.8 million tons of trash in the U.S. each year, representing a huge waste of resources. Let's say you spend $9 a day on a chicken sandwich and soda at your local Subway outlet. That's $45 a week, or $2,250 every year. If you instead saved that amount and invested it, in 20 years you'd have more than $111,000.
ACTION & EFFECT: Save $2,250 per year by "brown-bagging" your lunch and help us to collectively reduce our landfills by 1.8 million tons of trash.

GREEN YOUR NEST EGG
TIP: With the current mortgage and credit crises, people are understandably nervous about investing in the stock market. But in the long run, investing in the stock market can make you rich and the good news is that the emerging "Green Economy" represents the greatest single investment opportunity of the 21st Century-as big or even bigger than the technology boom of the 1980s and 1990s. Catch the new "Green Wave" of investing by investing a portion of your savings in an SRI (Socially Responsible Investment), like a socially responsible mutual fund or an SRI exchange-traded fund. Today, it is possible to invest in Socially Responsible Index Funds that screen out companies whose practices are harmful to the environment or are otherwise socially and ethically irresponsible and screen in companies whose practices promote sustainability and benefit the environment-like clean energy and renewable energy companies or natural food companies. A number of "Green" mutual funds and exchange-traded funds have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past few years, and many more such funds are becoming available.
ACTION & EFFECT: "Pay yourself first" by investing the maximum amount allowed by law in your 401K plan or IRA, and allocate a portion of your savings for investment in a "Green" Index fund, mutual fund, or ETF. If your plan administrator does not have any "green" funds to offer, express your interest in having an SRI or green fund added to your menu of choices. Check out the Green mutual funds

BUY IN BULK
TIP: Buying in bulk doesn't mean buying large quantities of things you don't need simply because you couldn't resist the bargain. Buying in bulk does mean buying the largest size of products you were going to buy anyway both to save money (items typically cost significantly less by weight when purchased in bulk v. single-size/small packages) and to reduce your consumption of packaging/containers-which make up more than 31 percent of all municipal solid waste.
ACTION & EFFECT: Save up to one-third on your grocery bill by shopping in bulk while reducing the 80 million tons of packaging that ends up in landfills each year.

CLEAN IT GREEN
TIP: The average U.S. household spends $600 per year on about 40 pounds of chemical cleaning supplies-and it is a huge irony that many of the products we use to clean our homes are a source of poisonous chemicals-toxins that may cause cancer, asthma, or other medical problems. Chemical cleaning supplies are an $18 billion annual business, and they not only threaten our health but also end up in our rivers, soil, air, and oceans.
ACTION & EFFECT: Save $580 per year by making your own non-toxic household cleaning products and spare the environment 40 pounds of toxic chemicals. You can find recipes for making your own non-toxic cleaning products using everyday items like baking soda, vinegar, and soda water at www.greenpeace.org/usa.

PLANT TREES & SHRUBS TO SAVE ON ENERGY COSTS
TIP: Strategically planting trees and shrubs to shade your home and keep your home naturally cooler in summer can save you between $150 and $250 on energy costs per year-while also providing food and housing for birds, protecting against erosion, and cleaning the air as the plants soak up carbon dioxide.
ACTION & EFFECT: Start planting practically for free by purchasing an annual membership for $15 to The Arbor Day Foundation, which offers ten free shade trees for each membership-and save $177 on annual energy costs while reducing your home's CO2 emissions by 3,952 pounds per year.

SKIP UNNECESSARY CAR TRIPS
TIP: 40 percent of all car trips made in the U.S. are less than 2 miles long-a distance that could, in many case, be covered by bicycle or on foot. Also, an astonishing 91 percent of Americans commute to work alone in their car, averaging 30-miles per round trip. If every person in the U.S. commuted by carpool just one day a week or took public transportation instead of driving, we'd reduce carbon emissions by 149 million tons.
ACTION & EFFECT: Save $215 a year by carpooling to work just one day a week and help us to collectively reduce 149 million tons of carbon emissions.