Category — Green Energy

Here’s a convenient way to prevent endless trips to your outdoor compost pile. Recycle kitchen waste in a compost jar. This ceramic compost jar has a tightly sealing lid and a built-in filter to prevent odors. Plow & Hearth recommends using biodegradable kitchen bags with the compost crock to allow heat and moisture to escape. Counter top compost jars and compost pails are also available in brass and stainless steel.

Preventing you kitchen waste from being sucked down the garbage disposal or washed away by the dishwasher is beneficial to the environment. Composting enriches soil, helps absorb pollutants and heavy metals, and reduces the need for pesticides. Find more information on the benefits of composting from the Environmental Protection Agency.

If you’re new to green living, here’s an idea to help you get started in purchasing green cleaning products and recycled household products. It’s a green cleaning starter kit filled with a variety of non- toxic cleaners and recycled paper goods. Here’s what the green cleaning kit includes:

Phosphate Free Household Cleaner: An every day non toxic cleaning spray for cleaning the bathroom sink, kitchen appliances, and counter tops.

Biodegradable Dish Washing Soap: Plant-based soap for dishes and cooking pans.

Recycled Paper Towels: 80% post consumer waste.

Recycled Facial Tissues: 100% recycled, 20% post consumer waste.

All Natural Hand Soap: Biodegradable hand soap made with essential oils.

I think the Starter Green-kit available at Green-kit looks like a convenient way to take some of the initial confusion out of selecting green products, and choosing the ones you like the most.

With all the recent publicity surrounding CFL light bulbs, it’s easy to forget about LED lighting as a green choice for environmentally friendly homes. Thanks to advancements in technology, LED lighting is becoming more affordable and used in more household light fixtures. Here are just a few of the benefits of LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes).

Longer-Lasting: LED lights blast the competition when it comes to longevity. According to some reports, LEDs last 10 times longer than CFLs, and last more than a hundred times longer than incandescent light bulbs. In addition, LED light fixtures can help you save money by conserving energy in your green home.

Cool to the Touch: LED lights, including LED flashlights and LED Christmas lights, operate on very little power, allowing them to burn cool and reduce the risks of children being burned and accidental fire.

Compatible with Solar Panels: If you’re making the green energy switch to a solar-powered home, you may want to consider LED lighting. Because they use such little electricity, LEDs are a great option for use with solar panels.

See more information about LED lighting.

From preparing meals to sorting the mail, your kitchen countertop is undoubtedly one of the most used surfaces in your home. Choosing an environmentally friendly and non-toxic countertop is an important decision when building a green home or starting a green kitchen remodel. Here are two suggestions for choosing a green countertop.

Bamboo: A renewable natural resource, bamboo countertops are beautiful and earth friendly. Bamboo destined for countertops is often sold in large slabs which must then be sealed and fitted to your kitchen. Bamboo countertops are available in several designs, including flat grain, vertical grain, and parquet end grains.

Glass: Although you might be skeptical about installing a recycled glass countertop, the material is actually a very durable surface. Recycled glass countertops are available in large solid slabs of pure glass, or glass/concrete blends, which can be formulated to match your decor. Glass countertops are particularly attractive when highlighted with accent lighting under kitchen cabinets or in other areas of your kitchen.

If you’re wanting to create a more energy-efficient home, but you’re not up for a complete green remodeling project, there are some fast and easy projects you can complete in a single weekend. Here are two examples for making your home more energy efficient…in a flash!

Insulate your Attic: For a few hundred dollars and just a few hours work you can dramatically increase your home’s energy efficiency by installing insulation in your attic. Attics are a major source of wasted energy in many homes, especially those that endure cold winter climates. A well-insulated attic will allow you to conserve power, and reduce heating and cooling costs.

Caulk Away: With a $3.00 caulking gun and a tube of caulk, you can be on your way to creating a more energy-efficient, green home. Walk around your home and eliminate any gaps around baseboards and windows with a quick bead of caulk. This will help prevent the escape of air conditioning, heat, and your hard earned dollars.

It’s important to remember that green living isn’t always about expensive alternative products. Sometimes the very best green alternatives are actually quite simple.

Here’s an environmentally friendly way to illuminate your front yard or garden. This set of 12 solar powered LED light fixtures recharges with direct sunlight, so there is no power required. Manufactured by Malibu Lighting, these green light fixtures are constructed of stainless steel so they should hold up to rain and other outdoor elements.

In case you’ve never purchased an LED light fixture, they’re a great green lighting option. Cool-burning LED bulbs last many time longer than incandescents and they use just a fraction of the energy. Many people prefer LED lighting because of the clean, very white glow the lights cast.

The solar powered LED light set above will illuminate your outdoor area for up to ten hours. I found the set at 1000Bulbs.Com.

With much of America in the hottest part of the summer, electric meters are no doubt whirling in response to the increased energy demands of the air conditioners in millions of American homes. Here are a few quick tips for conserving energy and saving money on energy costs this summer. First, change the filter on your air conditioning unit often. A dirty air conditioner filter causes your unit to work harder and use more energy. A second tip for reducing summer energy costs is to conserve energy by purchasing a programmable thermostat for your air conditioner. Is it really necessary to chill the house down to 68 degrees all night long? Chances are you’ll never notice giving the air conditioner a break in the wee morning hours, and you’ll be saving energy and avoiding high summertime electric bills. A third tip for reducing the amount of energy you use in the summer is to open the windows. Sometimes we get so busy that we forget to check the outside weather to see if we really need the air conditioner all the time. Opening the windows in the evening hours is a great way to save energy and allow you home to breathe a little. As the summer sun glows, every little bit you do to conserve energy is helpful to the environment and will save you cash.

One of the biggest energy guzzlers in many homes is the water heater. With an average family of four, daily showers and household chores can deplete the contents of a fifty gallon water heater in no time, resulting in high utility bills. If you’re looking for a greener, more energy efficient water heater, here’s a green alternative that may work for your household. AirGenerate’s AirTap™ water heater uses mostly air and a small amount of electricity to heat the water. The unit attaches atop any standard electric or gas water heater and acts as a heat pump to pull the heat from the surrounding air, compress it, and send it into your water heater to heat the water inside. According to AirGenerate, their AirTap™ heat pump water heater uses 2.5 times less energy than standard water heaters. Along with energy efficient water heaters and other household appliances, don’t forget one of the simplest steps in conserving energy and water—taking shorter showers!

Did you know that you can convert your car to run on pure vegetable oil? It’s true, with all the buzz about bio-fuel development, there are vegetable oil converter kits readily available for diesel engines right now. Vegetable oil converter kits typically include a heated secondary fuel tank, in addition to your tank for diesel, and all the wires, hoses and controls needed for a successful conversion to vegetable oil as fuel. One of the biggest benefits associated with vegetable oil as fuel is that burning vegetable oil produces ZERO carbon emissions. For those trying to reduce or even negate their personal carbon emissions, this is a big plus. Another benefit of running your car on vegetable oil is that waste oil will work. Properly filtered waste oil from restaurants is just as effective in a vegetable oil powered engine as new vegetable oil. And, what’s even better is that most restaurants will gladly give away their waste oil and the five gallon containers it comes in, as it saves them from incurring disposal costs. Remember, vegetable oil fuel conversion kits only work with diesel engines, and your engine must be relatively new (made without rubber seals), because vegetable oil is a solvent which will eventually dissolve rubber. Vegetable oil fuel converter kits range in price from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. For more information about converting your car to run on vegetable oil, visit Grease Car.

You may have seen recent news articles about jatropha curcas, a tree which grows in several countries, including The Gambia, India and Indonesia. The seeds produced by the jatropha curcas tree contain up to 40% oil which some scientists think shows great potential as bio-fuel. It’s not just cars that could be potentially fueled with jatropha oil, which is actually poisonous to humans. According to a June 8 report by the Los Angeles Times, jatropha fuel will be tested in New Zealand this summer as jet fuel in an Air New Zealand 747 jumbo jet. Some believe jatropha fuel is a better bio-fuel alternative than bio-diesel, as it can be produced without the negative impact on the environment that bio-diesel is often criticized for. The seeds of the jatropha tree are pressed to obtain the oil, which can be done by machine or even by hand, similar to the pressing of olive oil. For more information about jatropha fuel, visit Jatropha World , an India-based organization dedicated to the promotion of jatropha as bio-fuel.