It’s Easy Being Green

A World Naked Bike Ride Event

I’m having a good chuckle while waking up to my first cup of coffee this morning.  Heads were apparently turning in St. Louis Saturday night, while hundreds of mostly nude bicyclists protested society’s dependence on oil.  It was all part of the “World Naked Bike Ride” which stretched for 10 miles through the city.  So far 70 cities across the globe have unknowingly been host to one of these political rides.  Officers with the St. Louis Police Department checked to make sure the bike riders were within the decency laws, wearing minimums like pasties, body paint, loin cloths and thongs.

For more information about organizing your own World Naked Bike Ride, check out their website.  There is also an entertaining video of what the rides look like.  You can also Google search for pictures using the ride’s name.  It’s quite entertaining.  I’d really like to see one of those come to Flagstaff!

Have you ever thought about the environmental impact of all those paper coffee filters you might use to make your pot of coffee every morning?  Our last coffee maker required a special kind of paper filter.  But we tried to make the environmental impact of those as little as possible by purchasing unbleached filters and composting them, complete with the coffee grounds when they were done.

Reducing that impact can be simple and save you money in the long run.  You can buy a reusable hemp or gold coffee filter to fit your coffee maker’s filter basket.  They range from as little as $3 on up to about $15.  You could even to make filterless coffee by picking up a french press, a fun way I’ve found to make an unusual cuppa morning joe!  Do you have a reusable coffee filter?  If so tell us how well it works and any challenges you’ve faced!

The Environmental Working Group just completed a study that went more than skin deep into the best and worst sunscreens on the market.  They studied more than 950 different name brands studying the effectiveness of the product and the potentially harmful chemicals the brand included.  The study is frightening, showing that 4 out of 5 sunscreens are either ineffective or contain ingredients with significant safety concerns.  The leading brand, Coppertone, didn’t have any sunscreens that made the effective or safe list put out by EWG.  The next leading brands, Neutrogena and Banana Boat, had only 1 out of 103 sunscreen products ranked safe and effective by EWG.

Here are the top 5 performer’s in EWG’s tests:

1.  Keys Soap Solar Rx Therapeutic Sunblock, SPF 30

2.  Trukid Sunny Days Facestick Mineral Sunscreen UVA/UVB Broad Spectrum, SPF 30+

3.  California Baby Sunblock Stick No Fragrance, SPF 30+

4.  California Baby Sunblock Stick Everyday/year-Round, SPF 30+

5.  Badger Sunscreen, SPF 30

To see the full report of all 950 tested sunscreens so you know where yours stands, click here.  If you can’t find any of those, it’s recommended that you find sunscreen with at least 7% zinc oxide or titanium dioxide for better sun protection.  Always use SPF 30 or higher.  Look for sunscreen that doesn’t contain any bug repellants so that your skin isn’t absorbing pesticides.

Can you believe we’re already sliding into mid-July?  As we hit the hottest part of the year for many locations, the amount of electricity you’re using to cool your home is going to surge through the roof.  With energy costs on the rise right along with gas, it’s going to cost you more this year than it probably has in the past.  But you can put a stop to the waste of energy and the cash flowing right out of your pockets.

For every degree you raise your thermostat in the summer, you can slash a minimum of 3% off your total bill.  Experts recommend that you don’t cool your home below 72 degrees, the point at which things get insanely expensive and wasteful.  When you’re away from the house, they say you can set your thermostat between 80 and 85.  To make it even more simple, buy a programable thermostate from your local home improvement or hardware store.  They don’t cost much (between $30-$100) and can save you oodles of money by automatically maintaining your temerature settings.  We had one at a previous home we lived in and it was great at helping to control our bills.

You might also want to think about installing some ceiling fans if you don’t already have some.  According to Consumer Reports, they cost very little to run and can help you feel up to 7 degrees cooler than the ambient air temperature.  Just think, if you have your thermostat set at 80 the fans could help you feel like it’s 73 in your home.

Here in Flagstaff, daytime temperatures rarely climb above the 90 degree mark.  Most homes here don’t have A/C, so to compensate and keep your home cool you have to get creative.  At night, we open all the windows in our house and use two box fans to blow in the cool, nighttime air.  In the morning, we shut the fans off and begin to close windows on the sunny, warm side of the house to prevent having warm in flowing in.  We also shut the blinds on the sunny side.  But, we keep the shady side open to allow for the continuous exchange of air.  Once the sun shifts, so do the opened and closed windows.  While it may be chilly in the morning when you first wake up (about 68 degrees), we can prevent the temperature in the house from going above 78 degrees during the hottest point of the day.

Do you have any creative tips to cut down on your cooling bill?  Let us know!

As noted in the report, solar power has been expanding rapidly in the past eight years, growing at an average pace of 40 percent per year. The cost per kilowatt-hour of solar photovoltaic systems has also been dropping, while electricity generated from fossil fuels is becoming more expensive. As a result, the report projects that solar power will reach cost parity with conventional power sources in many U.S. markets by 2015. But to reach the 10 percent goal, solar photovoltaic companies will also need to streamline installations and make solar power a “plug-and-play” technology, that is, it must be simple and straightforward to buy the components of the system, connect them together, and connect the system to the power grid.

The report also places some of the responsibility with electric utilities, which will need to take advantage of the benefits of solar power, incorporate it into future “smart grid” technologies, and create new business models for building solar power capacity. The report also calls for establishing long-term extensions of today’s investment and production tax credits, creating open standards for connecting solar power systems to the grid, and giving utilities the ability to include solar power in their rate base. See the Clean Edge press release and the full report.

Reprinted from EERE Network News, a free newsletter of the U.S. Department of Energy.

With gas prices still on the rise and holding at record levels, there seems to be a lot of discussion revolving around shortening the work week to only four days.  Some schools in Arizona are considering the move because not running busses one day out of the week would save a tremendous amount on fuel costs.  It would also help out family budgets since they would be driving to school one less day every week.  But can parents handle the extra day of the kids being home to save some money on gas?  Is it worth one less day of education every week?  Those are interesting questions that will only be answered if someone actually passes this measure and it goes into effect.

In addition to schools, some employers are kicking around the idea of going to 4 day work weeks as well.  You’re still going to work 40 hours in those 4 days.  Or you could telecommute one day out of the week.  That move would supposedly save a lot of fuel consumption too.  But, if you had one extra day off work, do you think you would end up driving the same amount you would normally going to and from work that day?  Has your employer considered an idea like this or have you presented it to them?  Let us know!

Summer is just around the corner and that means things are beginning to heat up.  But, before you flip the switch for that air conditioning and start sucking down electricity like a cool lemonade on a 90+ degree day, take some simple steps to save money and energy.  Making sure your a/c unit has a clean filter will not only cut down on indoor air pollution and allergens in your home but also save you some cash.  Clean filters not only ensure that your a/c is working most efficiently but will also save you 1% to 2% on your total electric bill to run the unit.  It may not sound like much but it will add up in the long run.  Also, when you change your filter make sure to vacuum out the filter compartment to pick up all that extra dust.

When it comes to buying filters, if your unit can take reusable filters that will also reduce on waste.  Reusable a/c filters can be popped out, rinsed with water and placed back in the unit for another use.  If you’d like to buy filters that are made from recycled materials, look for the “Merv 8″ brand.  They make a filter in just about every size you might need.