SunCorp

CONDUCT AN AUDIT. More than 20 percent of the atmosphere-warming carbon-dioxide emissions created in the United States come from energy used in homes, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. Getting a professional energy audit is the single best way to identify and solve inefficiencies, experts say, which, of course, can save homeowners money on energy bills, too.

STOP HAND WASHING THE DISHES. Good news: Using the dishwasher is actually better for the planet than washing dishes by hand. The average energy-efficient dishwasher uses just 4 gallons per cycle, saving as much as 5,000 gallons of water per year compared with hand washing, as well as $40 in energy costs and 230 hours of washing time, according to the EPA.

REPLACE WITH ENERGY STAR. When you need a new major appliance, heating or cooling device, or light fixture, buy an Energy Star model. Prices vary, but many manufacturers offer a range of certified products. "There are two price tags when you buy a product," says Maria Vargas, EPA spokeswoman for Energy Star. "The actual one, and what it costs to operate a device over its lifetime. The Energy Star promise is payback on your energy bills within five years or less."

POWER THE GRID. Going "off the grid" - living without power from central utilities - sounds like a good way to lessen your personal impact on global warming, but there's a better way to help. Homes that use a decentralized renewable energy source like solar panels can sell excess power back to the public utility provider. In Massachusetts, utilities are required to offer "netmetering," a system that allows the meter to spin backward when a home creates more power than it uses, sending energy back to the supplier and showing up as credit on bills.

BUY RENEWABLE ENERGY CREDITS. Some electrical companies - including National Grid's GreenUp program, which is offered in Rhode Island and Massachusetts - offer customers the option to purchase renewable energy certificates through their utility bills. This doesn't mean that the power delivered to your home will come directly from a wind turbine or other renewable energy source, but the money you pay - usually a few dollars extra per month - supports alternative energy projects sponsored by private energy companies. Some credits are tax deductible, depending on the clean energy certificate supplier; your utility provider can let you know specifics for your area, or go to Mass Energy Consumers' Alliance (massenergy.com) to get started.

CLEAN UP YOUR CLEANING PRODUCTS. There are about 15,000 different chemical compounds sold in the United States each year, according to the EPA, but not all have been evaluated for human safety. Some conventional household cleaning products contain known and suspected carcinogens and hormone disrupters, and many can induce asthma and other respiratory illnesses. "To be on the safe side, it definitely makes sense to avoid things such as air fresheners, optical [laundry] brighteners, and anything with artificial fragrance," notes epidemiologist Julia Brody, executive director of the Silent Spring Institute, a nonprofit scientific research organization in Newton focused on finding links between the environment and women's health. Homemade options make good alternatives. "Water is a great cleaner," says Brody, "along with vinegar and borax."

Sure, big ideas like generating electricity from ocean waves or legal limits on carbon emissions are important to slowing global warming. But the little things count, too. Here are some ways that you can make a difference.

SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF. Energy conservation can be simple, but it has a big impact. If every home in the United States replaced just one incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL), the energy saved would prevent greenhouse-gas emissions equivalent to taking more than 1 million cars off the road, says Arthur Rosenfeld, a physicist and member of the California Energy Commission. He also says that if Americans achieved a 2 percent reduction in energy use each year for the next 30 to 40 years - a feasible rate - we would be halfway to stabilizing our greenhouse-gas emissions. "What many people don't realize is how easy conservation is," says Rosenfeld.

MAKE SURE "OFF" IS OFF. Household electronics account for more than 25 percent of home electricity use, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Since chargers for iPods, cellphones, electric drills, and the like draw electricity even when not connected to their mates, these should be removed from sockets as soon as the devices are juiced. Anything with a standby light - TVs, for example - should be plugged into a power strip that is shut down when not in use. (Electronics qualified by the federal Energy Star program - a joint effort of the EPA and the Department of Energy - use lower wattage in standby mode.)

REDUCE, THEN REUSE, THEN RECYCLE. In the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart - an architect and a chemist who collaborate on developing ecologically-smart products and materials - note that "more than 90 percent of materials extracted to make durable goods in the US become waste almost immediately." Think about it: Whether you buy a candy bar or a DVD player, you will undoubtedly toss some packaging into the trash before ever taking a bite or watching one movie. Someday there will likely be a wide variety of packaging that can be composted or endlessly reused and recycled; until then, consuming less that's new, reusing anything you can, and recycling what's left are your best options.

 

AND THEN RECYCLE EVEN MORE. When citizens ask for and participate in recycling programs, cities respond. Boston Recycles launched a pilot program this year in Jamaica Plain and Roslindale that gives residents large, wheeled bins for all of their recyclables - there's no sorting wine bottles from newspaper from plastic. "The results are very encouraging," says James W. Hunt, chief of Environmental and Energy Services for the city of Boston, who notes that recycling tonnage has gone up 53 percent in those areas. No matter where you live, recycle as much as you can, and ask your municipality to do more.

 

 

Each year, 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are doled out worldwide. That's more than 1 million bags per minute. Over half that amount - 380 billion plastic bags - are used in the U.S. alone. About 1 percent of these bags are recycled, and about 10 percent are reused. Many of these bags wind up as litter.

Plastic bags have been dubbed the "national flower" in South Africa because so many can be seen flapping from fences and caught in bushes. Plastic bags also have become the most common man-made item seen by sailors at sea. If those 500 billion bags were tied together, they would form a chain long enough to go around the world 37 times.

These ubiquitous little buggers are wreaking havoc on the environment. Plastic bags degrade due to sunlight, meaning they break down into smaller toxic bits, contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food chain. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals mistake bits of bags for food. On land, many cows, goats and other animals die from ingesting plastic bags while foraging for food. Recently, a cow was found dead in the streets of New Delhi, where cows are considered sacred. Indian media reported that it had several thousand plastic bags in its digestive system.

Eight billion pounds of plastic bags enter the waste stream every year in the U.S. alone. Many bags collected for recycling never actually get recycled. Some are shipped off to developing countries with lax environmental laws that allow them to be incinerated, which produces massive air pollution and soil degradation. Recycling centers are diminishing for plastic bags because it is not economically feasible to recycle bags.

"It costs $4,000 to process and recycle one ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32," says Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment.

San Francisco is the first major U.S. city to outright ban plastic bags. Ireland passed a "Plastax," which reduced bag consumption by 90 percent, saved more than 180,000,000 liters of oil and raised $9.6 million dollars for its "green fund." South Africa's bag tax appears on printed grocery store receipts to remind consumers how much money they could have saved by bringing their own bags. Taiwan expanded its bag ban to include disposable food containers. Bangladesh and India both implemented bag bans after discovering that the littered bags choked drainage ditches, causing flooding and casualties. (The Bangladeshi ban has coincidentally led to a revival of the jute bag industry and other sustainable alternatives.) Hong Kong has implemented a campaign of "No plastic bag, please," and prohibits retailers over a specified size from providing free bags. Voluntary bag limits have reduced plastic bags by 24 percent in one year in Australia. Ninety percent of Australia's major retailers charge customers for shopping bags and offer on-site recycling bins where shoppers can dump plastics after taking groceries to their cars.

Many people think that using paper bags instead of plastic is a better choice for the environment. Actually, it takes four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag. The Society of Plastics Industry found that it takes 594 BTUs, British thermal units of energy, to make a plastic bag and 2,511 BTUs to make a paper bag. Also, paper bags are made primarily from virgin wood pulp, creating a global warming feedback loop. Trees, our primary defense against atmospheric carbon, are cut down and processed, producing tons of carbon emissions, to make paper bags. To add insult to injury, most grocery stores will wrap your paper bags in plastic bags as well.

Some stores are encouraging people to bring their own bags by offering incentives or charging for bags. What really would make a difference at a household level is to politely refuse to accept any more shopping bags from stores. Instead, bring your own reusable tote bags. Keep a set of tote bags in your car or on a handy hook by the door. Remembering to bring your own bags is the hardest part of starting this healthy new habit. Each time you use your own bags, you save our natural resources, reduce litter and pollution, and make the world a cleaner, greener place.