New Years Resolutions Go Green

Start the New Year with Steps toward Helping the Environment!
By Linda McDonnell

When you're making your New Years resolutions, try adding a few environment-friendly practices you can follow all year to help save the planet.

This New Year why not make a few resolutions to help keep the environment healthy. Simple changes in daily routines followed throughout the year can make a difference. Below are some suggestions that are easy to do and can set you on the road to sustainable living. Some may even save money as well as helping the environment.

• Reuse shopping bags, or better yet, get a durable bag to carry with you to the grocery store and on all your shopping trips.
• Buy locally made and grown products. They usually require less packaging and eliminate the environmental costs of long-distance transport. The added bonus is that local fruits and vegetables are often fresher, and locally produced goods help support your own community.
• Buy fewer disposable items. Look for long-lasting goods that won’t have to be replaced as often. You’ll reduce waste and save landfill space.
• Compost leaves and garden trimmings. The compost will improve your garden soil while reducing waste.
• While you’re shopping with your reusable shopping bag, look for products with recycled content. Buying recycled closes the cycle by putting resources back into use.
• If possible, find a carpool partner to share your daily commute. Carpooling helps reduce air pollution and traffic congestion. It could mean room for more trees if less land is needed for highways!
• If one of your resolutions is to get more exercise, try doing your shopping and errands on foot as part of your exercise program. Walking will help keep automobile pollution down and, like carpooling, help ease traffic congestion.
• If you have a ceiling fan that’s reversible, don't forget about it when summer ends. In winter, set it to rotate clockwise at low speed. As heated air rises, the fan will distribute it downward to keep you warmer without turning up the thermostat.
• Switch to environmentally friendly commercial laundry soaps.
• More exercise! In sunny weather, dry your laundry the old fashioned way: outdoors on a clothesline. You'll save energy by not using the dryer.
• Try using natural, home-made cleansers instead of chemical ones. Here are a few simple recipes: For an all-purpose cleanser, mix ½ cup vinegar in one quart of water (reduce water for hard jobs). Use it in a spray bottle. Instead of commercial fabric softener, add ¼ cup (or less) borax to the laundry wash cycle. To deodorize and soften laundry, add one cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Starting the New Year with a few environmental resolutions can offer the satisfaction of knowing you’re doing something positive toward ecological sustainability.

From GreenLiving.com

Get Tax Incentives for Green Living

Take advantage of state and federal green living tax incentives

There has never been a better time than now to tap into a laundry list of tax rebates and other financial incentives designed to encourage individuals and businesses to go the greener mile. At the federal level in the U.S., individuals can reap the rewards of no less than eight different financial incentives ranging from tax credits and home loans for replacing windows and installing insulation around the house to tax rebates for purchasing a hybrid car or hooking up a solar hot water heater.

Besides these federal incentives, nearly every U.S. state has additional state or local incentives available. Many require utilities to rebate consumers who save electricity. Some utilities even offer “net metering,” whereby consumers who generate some of their power through rooftop solar panels or other technologies can sell electricity back to the utility, thus reducing or zeroing out their electric bill—even earning money.

Green Living Tax Incentives for Business
Many financial incentives are in place for businesses, as well.

At the federal level, examples include an energy-efficient commercial buildings tax deduction, a business energy reduction tax credit, an energy-efficient appliance tax credit for manufacturers, and a new energy-efficient tax credit for green-savvy builders.

At the state level, many are eager to attract renewable energy companies to their region, and offer tax breaks to get them there. Washington State, for example, charges no sales tax on renewable energy equipment produced or sold there. And some forward-thinking cities are beginning to offer “density bonuses” and green building incentives to developers and builders to encourage sustainable land use.

Find Information About Green Living Tax Incentives
The best place to look for what’s available is to steer your web browser to the free online Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility and federal incentives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. DSIRE is a federally funded project of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, whose membership includes state and local government agencies, national laboratories, renewable energy companies and advocacy groups.

In Canada, the Office of Energy Efficiency at Natural Resources Canada offers a slate of federal grants and incentives under its ecoENERGY Retrofit program to homeowners, businesses, large industries and public institutions to help them invest in energy- and pollution-saving upgrades. The agency also administers the High Efficiency Home Heating System Cost Relief program, which will contribute up to $300 to homeowners who upgrade their old oil or gas furnace or boiler to a new high-efficiency model. And low-income households might qualify for additional federal financial assistance for energy retrofits. Another Canadian program, the Vehicle Efficiency Incentive (VEI) rewards those who buy fuel-efficient cars or trucks with rebates of up to $2,000 each. Beyond these federal programs, selected provincial and municipal entities across Canada also offer incentives to those looking to save energy and the environment.

Taken from www.environment.about.com

How To Shop Green

Considering "going green"? You're probably not the only one.

Enter almost any grocery store and you're bound to find so-called green cleaning products next to traditional ones. Take Tide Cold Water detergent. Procter & Gamble (nyse: PG - news - people ) claims it deep cleans clothes in cold water, cutting down on your energy use, not to mention your energy bill. Car buyers have plenty of environmentally friendly models from which to choose, and energy-efficient appliances get prominent placement on showroom floors.

Even retailers are getting in on the act. Sweden-based fashion emporium H&M introduced a green line in spring 2007, offering frocks and tops made with organic cotton. And Nike (nyse: NKE - news - people ) recently announced plans to make its footwear sustainable, vowing to adopt environmentally friendly production methods where possible.

In Pictures: How To Shop Green

But while an ever-growing range of "green" consumer products are finding their way into our homes, there is very little in the way of industry standard. One manufacturer's green product may have been produced in an entirely different manner than another's. As a result, experts say it's good to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism when choosing environmentally friendly products, and to rely on a select group of organizations monitoring the practices of certain industries.

Do Your Homework
Dig a bit and you'll likely come across the word "greenwashing." This, according to Julia Cosgrove, deputy editor of ReadyMade, a San Francisco-based magazine that focuses on do-it-yourself, sustainable projects, entails marketing a product as environmentally conscious without enough evidence that it really is.

"Much of what we're seeing now is just spin," she says. "When you look further, many of these companies are still making a big environmental footprint."

Translation: Even if a retailer offers clothes made with organic cotton, chances are they are being shipped via huge, gas-sucking airplanes.

Another example is vinyl. It is used in a great deal of vegan shoes, but the production of the material can create dioxin, a known carcinogen.

Clothing company Edun has experienced a case of greenwashing. Although some of its products are made of organic cotton, the company's main objective is to produce ethical (fairly traded, socially responsible)--not green--clothing. Although both concepts are positive, they certainly don't mean the same thing. Edun is an ethical clothing company, and although they take measures to protect the environment, they should not be categorized as green.

How to tell one from the other? Look to several watchdog organizations for a real education.

Digging Deeper
Netherlands-based Made-By tracks a garment's environmental footprint from the first thread on, and the International Forest Stewardship Alliance certifies wood-made products by ensuring that manufacturers collecting lumber are making the best use of forest resources, reducing damage and waste, and avoiding overconsumption and overharvesting. You can find a complete listing of their findings on www.fscus.org.

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) labeling system, Design For The Environment (DfE), ensures that the chemicals in DfE-certified products--like Earth Choice's new range of household cleaners--are environmentally preferable, which means such products are created with lower volatile organic compounds. High levels of these materials can damage soil and groundwater, and emit greenhouse gasses, contributing to global warming.

Kitchen appliances now possess one of the most widely recognized labels, EnergyStar, another EPA-run unit. These labels ensure an appliance meets energy-efficient guidelines set by the EPA and the Department of Energy. Criteria for each appliance differs and can be found on www.energystar.gov under the Products tab.

"It's a fairly well-known metric that will reduce your energy use and save you money," says Ron Jones, founder of Greenbuilder, a development, media and consulting firm dedicated to sustainable development and green building, of EnergyStar. Often, buying a new, energy-saving air conditioner will save you in the end since older models not only cost more to run but often don't work as well.

Whether you're buying one piece of green clothing or remodeling your entire home with energy-efficient appliances, Jones says it's important to note how your everyday activities affect the environment.

"If you start to look at a person in terms of their individual footprint, which includes their transportation habits, eating habits, clothing and housing, it starts to get very complex," he says. "Think through everything. Determine how it will affect your everyday living conditions, and your quality of life going forward."

*from Forbes.com via KCBD Lubbock News

U.S. Paper Industry Working to Preserve Our Forests

The U.S. paper industry is working to clean up environmental excesses of the past and is planting new trees to replace the ones harvested for paper products.

According to Domtar Paper, thare are more U.S. trees today than 70 years ago. The paper industry's forest lands are no longer shrinking. Of the 873 million acres that supply commercial paper products (that's five times the area of Texas), only 2% are harvested each year. Great news when you consider that one tree produces 260 pounds of oxygen each year-enough to support two people.

Domestic printing papers are a smart green buy because they conform to stricter environmental standards in the U.S. and support sustainability of our forests.

http://www.parkscolor.com/Products/web-content/servicecenter/letterheads.html


http://www.parkscolor.com/Products/web-content/servicecenter/brochures.html