Let’s start with something currently near and dear to my heart – and my baby’s bum! Autumn Beck presents How To Make A Fitted Cloth Diaper posted at All About Cloth Diapers. We also have some great tips from N. & J. on the The Making of Homemade Soap Making posted at Bad Human! Don’t take chemicals from strangers!. Speaking of chemicals, how about we neutralize the commercial products and focus on Natural Cleaning Products You Can Make At Home posted at The Art of Balanced Living, brought to us by Lovelyn. But if you’re not up to the task, Anne-Marie posts about Getting down to the nitty gritty with green cleaning products posted at A Mama’s Rant.

And after all that cleaning? Join Jamie McIntosh in Brightening Your Home with Flowers posted at Suite101: Organic Gardens blog.

Now on to my favorite subject: food! Looks like we have another veggie in town! Jean Mosher presents Kelly’s New Vegetarian Cooking Blog « Always in Motion posted at Always in Motion. Over at Natural Family Living Blog, Tiffany Washko urges us that Now Is the Time to Pick a CSA. Theodore Pappas rings in with Eating Locally: Or, the Day of the Locavores posted at Britannica Blog. Since we’ve covered the actual food, what about food storage? Scott Blackburn presents Is your Refrigerator Hiding 10 Pounds of Greenhouse Gas? posted at WattHackers | Save Power | Go Solar | Live Green.

As a nod to my British and Asian pals, Alison discusses the repercussions of improper tea brewing in her post Green Me Tea at Green Me. And what discussion of food would be complete without discussing Why Learn How To Compost? posted at How To Compost courtesy of Jim. Thanks peeps!

Let’s take a minute to educate ourselves with some interesting green news. This time around, Jackson Kern presents us with two very educational posts: Can Sustainable Development Be Clean AND cheap? A Promising “Carbon Credits” Case Study and Sustainable Development: The Role of Coal, both posted at Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Causes: The Alternative Channel Blog. Excellent, Jackson! Unfortunately, the US business in the dark on climate change and not learning from these articles as we are reports Leon Gettler at Sox First. So let’s change that! Thankfully, Sagar Satapathy recommends GreenDev: 50 Environmentally Friendly Apps, Hosts and Resources for business owners posted at Virtual Hosting. Even Fiona Lohrenz piped in on Recycling at your day care posted at Child Care Only – if the customer cares, the business will follow suit. In fact, that’s the whole idea behind Matty Byloos’ Petition Signing Campaign: Get Plastic Bags Removed From Grocery Stores | GreenEggsandPlanet posted at Green Eggs and Planet.

While we’re on the subject of business, Jacob is busy bragging that My commute is awesome posted at Early Retirement Extreme. Indeed, it is Jacob! Mine’s better – 5 seconds from bed to office. I love being a writer!

And last, though certainly not least, Liz Smith presents Eco-egos posted at Practical Living Blog as a reminder that going green is about doing what you can, not focusing on everyone else’s “green sins”.

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That’s it for this edition of “Tips for Green Living”. Thank you all for your great submissions and I hope you found some useful info in this carnival. You can find a new edition posted every second and fourth Monday here at Green Your Apartment. If you are interested in participating in our next edition set for March 24th, submit your post HERE.

PLEASE NOTE: I am currently waiting to find out if labor will be induced nearly a month early due to pregnancy complications. Monday’s carnival will be posted as planned, but any further posts will be held off until my maternity situation is either stabilized or induced. Thank you for your patience and well-wishes and I promise there will be updates on our situation as we have them.

I look forward to seeing what else you have to offer for next week’s carnival!

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The purpose of recycling is similar to reusing, except that recycling is usually done to create new products of old ones to not waste useable resources such as wood, plastic, glass, etc. This obviously reduces our need for virgin materials (such as wood or rubber) and allows us to give new life to our old items.

Today’s post will not have 3 tips each. Instead, being inspired by the simplicity of Earth911.org’s recycling site, I am giving their suggestions labels according to green dedication.

Newbie

This is super easy and I don’t want to hear any excuses!

Take five bags or bins and place them in a convenient location in your apartment. Label them “paper”, “plastic”, “aluminum”, “glass” and “tin/steel”. Sort your various garbage into these containers and once a week or two take them to your local recycling center for cash. Yes, cash. You save the world one can at a time and get paid for it!

Amateur Environmentalist

I’m assuming you already are recycling the “Big Five”, so now I’m going to ask you to take it a step further. Recycle your electronics – cell phones, old computers, televisions – as well as their various paraphernalia like ink cartridges, batteries, and even remote controls! Click on the item you’d like to recycle and it’ll take you to a link to find out the location nearest you (please note these suggestions are just one possibility, not an endorsement or sole choice for these types of programs):

• batteries
• cell phones
• CFLs
• computers
• ink cartridges
• various electronics

Certified Tree-Hugger

Finally, the ultimate recycling program is that of composting. You’re already sorting out the recyclable “Big Five” and have prepped other large items for recycling, but now we’re talking coffee grinds, lemon rinds and tea bags, baby!

In an apartment, there are several ways to compost. You can get a small composter like this one found on the Apartment Therapy website or you can go to the vermin: vermicomposting. It is the most hygienic and easy to maintain composting method while living in an apartment. There are better authorities on the subject than little ol’ me, so I’ll direct you to them: see Wikipedia, StopWaste.org, and Journey to Forever.

Also, you can purchase vermicomposting bins (“ideal for apartment dwellers”) at StopWaste.org’s site and around the web, including Amazon.

I hope you were inspired to get down to what matters by this “Back to Basics: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” series. I know it has made me re-evaluate and even measure my patio for a “worm box”. My kid is gonna love that one!

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Like the tips but have an even better one? Leave it in a comment!

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Let’s start with a celebration of what you are doing – reading! Rita Toews presents Read an ebook week 2008 posted at Life’s quite a ride.

Looks like transportation has been on everyone’s mind lately. Vihar Sheth presents some new driving alternatives in the post Car Sharing with WeCar posted at green | rising. matt smith presents » SuperBowl MVP Eli Manning selects hybrid Cadillac Escalade simple + green: taking steps towards a more sustainable life posted at simple + green. Already have one of those pretty Prius’? Then thank Isabella J Mori for presenting Win, win, win: $500, blogging, and the environment posted at Alphablogs. And if you’re a public transportation person like me, you’ll appreciate Raymond’s Subway and Public Transportation Is The Way To Go posted at Money Blue Book.

Looks like the UK has some catching up to do: Louise Manning presents UK carbon emissions only show slight fall posted at The Human Imprint. Maybe you Brits should look into Alexander Kohl’s post about Business as Sustainability Advocate | Green to Profit – Becoming a Sustainable Entrepreneur posted at Green to Profit – Becoming a Sustainable Entrepreneur.

So let’s talk food and drink. Is a CSA really worth it? David Gross compares apples and oranges in his post The Picket Line — 15 February 2008 posted at The Picket Line. The cost comparison does prove a bit pricey. But Caitlin Giles still insists there are Four Reasons You Should Join a CSA posted at Parenting Squad. Despite our best intentions, Freddie L. Sirmans, Sr. asks Can The US Prevent A Starvation Crisis? posted at Can The US Prevent A Starvation Crisis.

As for our water, Hung Nguyen presents Water Wars: Fighting over the Source of Life posted at Meaningful Issues in Today’s World. But what happens when the water you have isn’t safe? MamaBird presents Whither Our Water? Addressing Hormones in Local Waterways posted at Surely You Nest.

GrrlScientist presents Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Loving Our Oceans to Death posted at Living the Scientific Life. A great post on what’s happening and what you can do to help end it!

I wanted to end this carnival on a fun and lively note. Harrison presents Go Go Green Couture: Eco-friendly Fashions for Your Closet posted at CustomizedGirl Blog while Eva Yusa shows us What Nau!? posted at Eva the Shopping Diva ShopLocal’s Shopping Expert and Blogger. While I browse all the cute and green couture, I’ll use Amanda Harris’ homemade recipe for Green Tea Toner posted at Nature’s Bath and Beauty. Ah, to feel eco-kind and pretty.

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I hope you enjoyed the third edition of “Tips for Green Living”! You can find a new edition posted every second and fourth Monday here at Green Your Apartment. If you are interested in participating in our next edition set for March 10th, submit your post HERE.

Happy (com)posting!

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Why go green at all? Jacob presents Ecological capitalism and consumer capitalism posted at Early Retirement Extreme, a post explaining why he thinks the world looks as it does, why he went green, and why others should go green as well. Great job, Jacob!

Let me present you with another kindred soul, Alison Sharley who recently discovered our friend “No Impact Man” in her post, No Impact Man posted at Healthy and Green by the Day. What a great experiment, no? Insistent on being prolific, she also shares her posts Neused (Freecycle, anyone?) as well as Fish Biscuits which gives us tips on green entertaining with a dose of Lost Dharma cookies. Yum!

And to clean up that mess I would have made making the cookies, Tiffany Washko brags about a wonderful product line she’s discovered in her post Organic and Natural Home Cleaning Products! posted at Natural Family Living Blog. Ah, a clean home without that nasty indoor air pollution.

What about those egg shells and natural kitchen waste? How about composting! Karen Dowell gives some fun tips in her post composting worms love kitchen waste posted at Wiggly Wigglers.

But what happens when there isn’t any food in the kitchen? Louise Manning presents Food shortages posted at The Human Imprint. Remember, the reason we strive to live green is to improve life on this planet for everyone on it.

As we approach Valentine’s Day, Raymond gives us some alternatives to keep ourselves warm in his post Save Money On Heating Costs – Sacrificing A Bit Of Comfort For Frugality posted at Money Blue Book. Don’t forget to snuggle to keep warm too!

Speaking of staying warm, Phil for Humanity gives us some great (and surprising!) news in his post The Alternative to Foreign Oil: The Solar-Hydrogen Economy posted at Phil for Humanity.

Brave New Leaf asks us to learn to drive green posted at Brave New Leaf. Just, please, make sure you obey your local laws of the road while trying to boost your mpg!

Since we’re going places, Marilyn Terrell gives a quick green traveler’s tip in her post Marilyn’s Miscellany: Bermuda Sports posted at Intelligent Travel.

Want to see something cool? Gavin R. Putland shows us Google Earth shows two whales posted at /etc/cron.whenever/. What a great reminder of why we protect our environment!

Thanks to all the bloggers who submitted their posts and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next!

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I hope you enjoyed the second edition of “Tips for Green Living”! You can find a new edition posted every second and fourth Monday here at Green Your Apartment. If you are interested in participating in our next edition, submit your post HERE.

Happy (com)posting!

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For my first tip, I’m going to recommend you start the New Year with less stress on your electric bill and the whole energy-making schematic by enlightening your life with energy-efficient lighting. It’s easy, cost-effective and has more impact than you think.

Newbie
Cost: about $20
Time: 30 minutes (run to the store and changing bulbs)
Energy to do this: minimal

Purchase one six-pack of Compact Florescent Lights (CFLs) to replace your most used lights. Because the CFLs use lower wattage to produce the same amount of light as standard bulbs (15 watts in a CFL is equal to a 60 watt regular bulb), the estimated savings on replacing just 6 lights in your house that you use up to 4 hours each day is $54 a year in your electric bill. That’s only $4.50 a month, but those bulbs will pay for themselves within 5 months!

The other impressive thing about this little change will keep an estimated 3 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the life of the six-pack of bulbs. To get an idea of that kind of impact, you’d have to live car-free for a little over 7 months to get the same CO2 impact!

Amateur Environmentalist
Cost: $20-$100 depending on how many lights you have
Time: 45 minutes (including run to the store and changing bulbs)
Energy to do this: minimal

Replace ALL your light bulbs with CFLs. It will cost you upfront, but if you’re like me, it’s worth it! We have 22 light bulbs in our apartment, which means it cost us about $80 to replace all the bulbs. But using the same calculations as above, we’re saving about $198 a year on our electricity bill – about $16.5 a month.

And in CO2 emissions, our change was the environmental equivalent living car-free for two years and two months! It has even been estimated that if every household in the U.S. replaced their lighting with energy-efficient lighting – like CFLs – we could comfortably retire 90 average sized power plants.

Certified Tree-Hugger
Cost: $0 – $121 + s/h
Time: Depends
Energy to do this: minimal

Despite all the wonders of those little compact fluorescents, there is a danger. CFLs contain the neurotoxin mercury, just like in all those warnings about contaminated fish you keep hearing about. This means dumping them in the trash when they eventually burn out is not a good option. The best thing to do is recycle your CFL bulbs. Depending on your situation, you have two options.

One: if you have an IKEA near you, you can recycle all your CFLs there for free! (See their site for more details.) It’s a lovely service provided by a fabulous company.

Two: if you don’t have an IKEA near you, you can purchase a CFL recycling kit here. Yes, it’s a little pricey but you don’t really want to dump mercury into our landfills which will leak into our drinking water now do you? I didn’t think so.

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Like the tip but have an even better one? Leave it in a comment!

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