Since I’m updating our Green Tips page, I’ve added our original tips here to make space for new ones there…  Let me know if you’ve got any favorites to include on our next green-go-round!

• War on Junk Mail: More than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail – the equivalent of clear cutting the entire Rocky Mt. National Park every four months.

• Houseplants Clean House: Common houseplants can rid the air in your home of organic chemicals, pollutants, toxins & carbon dioxide from paint, cleaning supplies & synthetic rugs & fabrics.  Rock the green at home!

• Turn It Down: Turning down your thermostat by one degree can cut 8% off your fuel bill.  What’s one degree between you & your sweater?

• Lite Lights: Compact flourescent light bulbs (CFLs) use 75% less energy than regular light bulbs & last up to seven years.  If a quarter of the US households replaced just one incandescent with a CFL, it would save as much CO2 as planting 257,215 acres of forest.

• Cold Wash Clothes: Heating the water in your washing machine uses 90% of the machine’s power consumption.  I guess that explains why washing your clothes in cold water reduces energy usage & saves money.

• Bad Lint Bunnies: While we’re talking laundry – a full lint filter will cause your dryer to use 30% more energy.  Use lint to start fires in your fireplace, not your dryer!

• Star Power: More on the laundry front: An energy efficient washing machine will use a third less electricity for each wash, which could save you more that the cost of the appliance.  Who knew laundry could be so interesting?

• Change Your Filters: Studies show that regularly changing the filter on your car can save the equivalent of 28 cents per gallon.

• Slow Down & Enjoy the View: Speaking of cars… Keeping your speed at 65 mph instead of 55 mph increases fuel consumption by 15%.  Slowing down saves money & the environment.

• Love Your Wheels: Properly inflated tires can increase fuel efficiency by 3.3%, routine maintenance can up fuel efficiency by 4% & fixing serious car problems can improve efficiency up to 40%.

• Idle Waste: Idling for just 30 seconds burns more fuel than turning off the car & restarting it.  Turning the ignition off at long stoplights & other lengthy hold-ups saves gas & air.

• “Micro-wave Safe”: “Micro-wave safe” plastic containers & plastic wrap only guarantee that the plastic won’t melt or crack in the microwave but don’t guarantee they won’t leach chemicals into the food… The greenest & safest way to contain your food for microwave heating & cooking is to use oven-safe glass cookware.  Think Pyrex.

• Glass is Good: The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.  Recycling that bottle also causes 20% less air pollution & 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.

• Airplanes & Television: Every three months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the nation’s commercial air fleet.  Recycling one aluminum can will operate a television for three hours.

• The 411 on TP: If every household replaced one roll of regular toilet paper with one recycled post-consumer waste roll, then 424,000 trees would be saved.

• Trees & America: It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the New York Times.  Recycling the Sunday papers alone would save a million trees a week.