Every little bit helps?

[Undertoad]

That doesn't work, but I find you can save by only using it every other time.

[Beestie]

UT posted at 4:20. I'm just sayin.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

Use toilet paper on both sides?

Ya got to give it a day or two till you use the second side.
I do buy paper made from recycled paper. I forget how many Gazillion trees would be saved if everybody used one roll of it each year of regular paper. But what they don't tell is the trees they're talking about are little scrub pines they plant and grow like weeds. But hey, they are trees.

[Flint]

I only wash in cold water. Detergents are designed for use with cold water. My clothes washer is in the garage (1950s house retro-fit) hooked up to a bootleg water connection from my rear-porch water hose supply. In other words, there is only cold water running to it. My clothes get clean.

[bluecuracao]

We use cold water for most of the laundry.

I got us PECO wind energy at home about a year ago, and we recently signed up for it at the workplace. It costs a little more at the moment, but not too bad--and they say the more people that use it, the cheaper it will eventually become.

Plus, we live within walking distance to most everything we need, and try to purchase local products and services as much as possible.

[Aliantha]

We use cold water for washing. We have solar power for our hot water. We have energy efficient lights in the house and only turn on the lights in the room we're in. Our outdoor lights are all motion sensitive so if you're not moving they go off (which can be spectacularly annoying at times). In Oz every toilet has to have a dual flush system so you only need to full flush to get rid of really nasty stuff. Our house has wooden floors so no need to use electricity with a vaccuum.

[yesman065]

Oh yeah, I forgot - we bought fluorescent bulbs to go into most lamps and I'm not sure if we are saving or not but they seem to work just fine - anybody else try these?

[xoxoxoBruce]

I've been hearing rumors about our recycling system here in Delaware County.
Different towns (and cities) have their own programs in effect, to satisfy the state requirements. Some town collect only certain things but my town collects everything, metals, glasses(colors), plastics, newspapers, et al.
That makes it a losing proposition because there's virtually no market for paper and until recently very little market for plastic.
I don't think the glass market is very hot, so metals are the only thing that helps defray costs.
The state pays the town a small amount per ton collected of everything.

So I've been hearing they have been burning much of the paper and plastic, collected for recycling, at the trash to steam plant. That's where all the trash from the county gets trucked and burned.

Since China has driven the metal prices up by buying everything in sight, like Japan did leading up to Pearl Harbor , the programs are doing better. But they are still burning stuff that was collected under the guise of recycling.
It also means part of the trash being burned is being collected by a much more time consuming and expensive method, to maintain the sham.

[yesman065]

We live about 5 miles from Delaware and take a lot of our paper and metals there as they do not collect it here in my neighborhood - just glass & plastic. I figure if its recycled somewhere all the better. Kinda lame story. . . my recycling can which I paid $30 for was stolen on Friday. Some people are beyond lame.

[Aliantha]

For recycling tips, look to the scandinavians. They even recycle nappies!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yesman, the compact fluorescents save quite a bit and give off plenty of light in ordinary fixtures. However, you can't put them on a dimmer, and I have dimmers on damn near every light.

I've been told they make dimmers for fluorescents, but they are expensive and use special bulbs. But I haven't investigated myself.

The compact fluorescents that are twisted up to look like a soft ice cream cone, work great in drop-lights for the garage or where ever you need one. I can attest to that. They seem to handle shocks better than bulbs with a filament.

[yesman065]

I was told you shouldn't use the dimmer function with them, but that if you just used that particular socket - you were fine. Makes sense, but who knows. You aren't supposed yo use regular bulbs in recessed lighting either and I've had them in there for years with no probs. not really sure what it all means though.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well, recessed light fixtures usually use spot or flood lamps because they push the light in one direction, out. A regular bulb will waste much of it's light, not being able to find it's way out.
The other issue is heat build up in the cans makes the bulb operate at higher temperatures than they were designed for. That could shorten the life, or even break the bulb, I suppose, but hey, bulbs are cheap.
If you have a dimmer on those fixtures, turning it down just a little bit will drop the heat dramatically.

[tw]

Wal-Mart stumbled on a fact that those Edison base fluorescent lamps are probably the most successful energy saving product on the market today. Wal-mart was so enthralled by resulting numbers as to want to start a campaign to have all incandescent bulbs replaced by years end.

Then Wal-Mart got resistance. First from their supplier GE who did not want to convert so many light bulb factories to fluorescent production. So Wal-mart did what they do to some many suppliers who feared innovation (ie Rubbermaid). They threatened to go to the competition.

Wal-mart was so impress by how much these bulbs save as to propose step two: have the competition - Home Depot and Target - join Wal-Mart in a national program to make traditional incandescent bulbs obsolete. Both Home Depot and Target declined.

A classic incandescent bulb uses something like seven times more energy to achieve same light. They are that grossly inefficient. And yet even consumers will not use these bulbs because somehow their emotions dislike the shape of replacement fluorescent bulbs. Aversion to change – even when the light bulb is seven times more efficient – is that MBA.

[glatt]

We've got the compact flourescent bulbs in all our fixtures and lamps exept in the dining room where we have a dimmer switch. I mostly love them, but they do have an annoying high pitched buzzing noise that you can hear if it's very quiet and you are sitting close to them. Nobody else in my family can hear this buzz. I guess I have dog ears.