Why wash laundry on a cooler setting?

About 90 percent  of the energy used to wash clothes goes to heating the water. Assuming you already wash half your laundry in cold, moving the other half from hot to warm can save a substantial amount of energy.


Washing laundry in hot water is unnecessary as advance in clothes washers and laundry detergents have made it possible to get white and colored clothes perfectly clean in cold water. Except when washing particularly tough stains, such as oil, even load of laundry done in hot water wastes energy.

Why switch five lightbulbs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs?

A 25-watt Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) provides the same amount of light as a 75-watt incandescent. CFLs use a third of the energy to last 10 times longer. Switching five bulbs could save about $400 over the CFLs lifetime.

Calculate Your Nutrient Needs - New Online Tool!

I just found a wonderful resource an online tool that helps you calculate your daily nutritional needs. Based on your gender, age, ht, wt, activity level it helps calculate your Daily Recommended Intake needs for  macronutrients (e.g. fat, protein, fiber), vitamins and minerals. It also calculates your BMI and daily calorie intake need.

Check it out here!

Thanks to the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine for creating such a great tool. Tell me about your results? Were you surprised by anything?

Why compost a fifth of your garbage?

Putting less trash on the curb reduces the amount of fuel required to haul it away. Plus,composting provides a way not only of reducing the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of, but also of converting it into a product that is useful for gardening, landscaping, or house plants.

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/composting/

Re-Usable Bags - Product Guide

I was at the doctor's office the other day and met a mother and her son. The son was happily snacking some nuts and dried fruit from a great re-usable bag. The mother told me she had tried many, many different bags/containers and these were by far her favorite and the easiest to use (she puts them in a mesh bag and tosses them into the washing machine to clean).



http://www.reusablebags.com/store/reusies™-sandwich-p-1669.html