New Year, New Green Tips!

Ahh... the first Monday of a new year, a new decade. Do you feel fresh, renewed, hopeful? Or do you feel the same old same old, another Monday, back to work, back to the grind? I tend to be a glass-half-empty kind of person myself. I know: shocking. Greenies are supposed to be eternally sunny and hopeful. But I'm going to try harder this year to be more of the solution. There's more than enough of the problem going around.

Let's start this by some really easy suggestions on how to save water around the house. The cool thing about this tip is that it can save you money, too. Any time you save water, you save on your water BILL. These are things that certainly will not impact your quality of life, or even incovenience you in any way. Just little things that you might not have realized are a little wasteful and unecessary. These following suggestions don't even cost you anything up front, and there's nothing to install!

For instance, we all know to turn off the water while brushing our teeth. That's been said til we are all blue in the face. There's no need to keep that water running, and the gallons (yes, GALLONS) you save every week will tick off your water bill nicely and noticeably. Be the Enforcer around your home, too. Sometimes everyone needs to be reminded. Soon, it will be second nature to turn it off.

Try to cut your shower by a minute. Just one little minute! That's not hard at all! This was my big downfall. I love me my showers. I have finally been able to cut way back. If you shave a minute here and there, then maybe you can take it down even further. Either way, just that one minute off will also save you gallons over just one week.

When washing dishes by hand, keep in mind that you don't need to FILL the sink before you being washing. Use the fill-water to be rinsing what you are washing as you fill. And once the sink is full and you are rinsing on the other side, remember to not keep the water running in between rinses. It's tempting, I know. If you only have a small amount of dishes to do, consider just washing out of a bowl or pot instead of the whole sink. Pile all the things to be rinsed on the other side and do them all at once.

See? No low-flow fixtures to install, no major llife changes, no money out-of-pocket... just simple common-sense ideas. I always think these are things most people already know, and maybe you already do, but somehow, there are people out there who simply don't put the thought into it. This is a year of action for us. It has to be. Feel free to spread your knowledge and pass things around. A lot of times, what we we think is common sense or common knowledge, isn't so common.