It's Easy Being Green

Now that it’s getting colder outside, we’ve had an influx of fruit flies inside our house.  We’ve always got fresh product around so the little buggers who hitched a ride home constantly find the nourishment they need to reproduce.  We’ve prevented some of the madness by putting produce away in dark cupboards that the flies don’t have access to instead of keeping things in a fruit basket on the counter.  But there are still a pesky few that can breed into dozens of fruit flies and just drive you nuts.

A quick and eco-friendly way to get rid of the fruit flies is to pour red wine into a small container like a bowl or a cup.  Cover the top of the container with saran wrap and then poke a few small holes into the top.  The idea is that the flies will be attracted to the fruity scent of the wine, crawl through the holes in the middle of the saran wrap and not be able to get back out.  My fiance discovered this trick and put it into play and sure enough it works like a charm.  We keep our fruit fly trap by the kitchen sink. So everytime I go to the sink and see some inside, I give the bowl a good swish.  That knocks the fruit flies into the wine where they eventually drown and don’t reproduce.  Also, pour boiling hot water down your drains.  Apparently fruit flies like to lay their eggs and reproduce in the sludge that can buildup in your sink drains.

Do you have a natural and chemical-free way to get rid of pests in your home or garden?

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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.

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Here’s four more tips showing you it really can be easy going green:

5. Adjust your home’s thermostat to be lower in winter and higher in summer. Learn how to heat and cool your home simply by venting windows at certain times of the day and when it’s cold, bundle up and put on your sweat pants!

6. Clean and replace dirty air filters in your home’s heating and cooling system. A dirty air filter can use 5-percent more energy while your a/c unit is running.

7. Replace the standard incandescent light bulbs in your home with the new compact fluorescent bulbs.

8. Help your water heater to be even more efficient by wrapping it with an insulating blanket specifically designed to go around your water heater.

Check back tomorrow for four more easy green living tips!

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Five days and counting to Earth Day so enjoy the easy ways to go green tips I post as we head to the big celebration:

1. When it comes to doing the dishes with your dishwasher, use the energy-saving setting. If your dishwasher is older and doesn’t have one of those settings, just let the dishes air-dry. Don’t use the heated option.

2. Reduce the energy needed to wash your clothes by washing in cold or warm water, not hot. We do all of our laundry with cold water, sometimes warm if some stain treatment or sterilization is needed and we’ve never noticed a problem with our clothes!

3. To save on energy used to heat up hot water, turn your water heater down to about 120-degrees. I have to confess, that’s a hard one for us to stomach because we love our hot showers and baths!

4. As you replace appliances in your home, pick out on the best energy efficient appliances. A lot of new appliances carry the Energy Star label which tells you that particular appliance is designed to save you money. If you’d like to learn more about what appliances to look out for, head over to the Energy Star website.

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There are thousands of sites spread across our globe where groundwater supplies have been contaminated due to dirty factories, military installations and the dumping of toxic waste.  These so-called superfund sites are left to sit until the expensive cleanup operation can get underway and have undoubtedly a harmful impact on our environment and supplies of drinking water.  But one scientist at Rice University has come up with an amazing solution, one that could leave at least part of our planet gleaming!

Chemical engineer Michael Wong developed a gold detergent that is amazing effective at cleaning up water contaminated with toxic waste.  No, this isn’t a hundred dollar bottle of soap that the likes of Paris Hilton would bathe in twice daily!  Typically cleanup of these sites containing the cancer causing chemicals TCE and PCE costs millions of dollars and it never really gets rid of the problem.  TCE is an industrial solvent used to clean greasy machinery and while it smells sweet, the after-affects are anything but.  The current cleanup method is simply a process that moves the chemicals to another spot.  The federal government has suggested that just to clean up the 1,400 military sites would cost $5 Billion.

Wong realized he could combine gold particles (molecule sized) with palladium (another metal) and sprinkle the resulting mixture over contaminated water.  What happened was pure genius!  The gold detergent broke down the TCE and PCE and turned them into a more eco-friendly gas, ethane, and chloride salt.  The gold detergent works about 100 times faster than the current groundwater cleanup method which involves pumping water through charcoal filters to remove the TCE and PCE.  Wong and his partners at Rice will now deploy the system at an actual cleanup site to see just how effective and cost-efficient their gold detergent can be.

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A lot of people want to cover up or get rid of odors in their home whether it’s from cooking, pets, smoking or the occasional dead mouse you haven’t been able to locate yet.  But it seems the easiest thing to reach for to improve the smell of our homes are room sprays over loaded with fake fragrances and chemicals.  It’s super easy to freshen the smell of your home while keeping it more natural by using essential oils.

Essential oils are just oil extracted from a particular plant or botanical through distillation.  By buying an essential oil warmer (usually powered by a candle or power outlet) you can scent a room with natural fragrances.  They won’t only make your house smell good they’ll also help your mood too!  Here’s some suggestions:

Would you like to lift your mood and spirits?   Try Almond Extract, Lavender, Orange Blossom, Vanilla or any other scent you like.  If you’d like to reduce anxiety, try Roman Chamomile, Lavender or Orange Blossom.  If you want to reduce agitation, try Lavender or Lemon Balm.  If you want to feel revived, use Rosemary.  It’s easy to find essential oils at local stores and Googling the term “essential oil” will show you a ton of online retailers.  One simple way we freshen up our home is to simmer a small pot of water on the stove with orange slices and a pinch of mulling spices.  The orange spice smell infuses your entire house and I think smells pretty darn good.  While mulling spices can be expensive, one tin has lasted me more than five years for the occasional air freshening.

Do you have a natural tip or trick to keeping your home smelling fresh without the use of chemicals or overpowering room sprays?  Let us know about it and share your tip too.

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Here’s a little treat to share with all of my readers.  I’ve talked about Green Cleaners in the past but now you can actually get a free sample of one of those products.  Head over to the Ecover website to enter for a free sample of an eco-friendly cleaner.  You can also register in their contest to have your home completely cleaned top to bottom in an eco-friendly way.

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