Toxicity | Be a Seed for Change

Basic Tips for an Eco-Friendly Home

Many people think that having an environmentally friendly house means spending thousands of dollars on solar panels or planting a garden on the roof to keep the house cool during the summer time.

That’s not really the case. There are many things you can do to help the environment without having to transform your home, or even spend too much money. In fact, you might end up saving hundreds of dollars per year in the process.

The following tips will help you get started.

Use ENERGY STAR Appliances

Refrigerators. Microwaves. Air conditioners. Heaters. Dishwashers. These are the appliances that eat up more than half of the $2,200 an average family spends in energy costs per year. However, you can do your part to help the planet and also save up to 30 percent of the electricity bill by using energy efficient products that have the ENERGY STAR symbol.

To enjoy some of the benefits of appliances with the ENERGY STAR symbol,

Replace the five most used light bulbs in the home with energy-efficient bulbs. This could save you $65 per year in electricity bills.
Replace, whenever you can, old and energy inefficient appliances such as air conditioning units and heating equipment. These devices alone typically consume more than half of the energy in a house.

The ENERGY STAR website has tips for saving energy and finding ENERGY STAR products.

Use Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products

An easy way to reduce damage to the environment is to use cleaning products that are biodegradable and have low toxicity levels. These products could also make your home safer, as the lower toxicity might reduce the chance of accidental poisonings.

To use eco-friendly cleaning products:

Avoid those products that are highly flammable and are labeled as dangerous or poisonous.
Buy solvent free or bio-based products such as those made with citrus or pine.
Buy products that are certified by third parties such as Green Seal or Scientific Certification Systems.

You can also clean your house by using simple, non-toxic household substances such as white vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice and borax. However, be careful because these substances don’t work well on all surfaces.

Recycle, Recycle, Recycle … Well, At Be a Seed for Change … We say in 2014, recycle only if you can’t reuse redecorate repurpose reclaim it first …

The Environmental Protection Agency says that recycling is one of the best ways to help the environment. But beyond recycling, it’s important to properly dispose household items like cleaning products, oils, batteries, pesticides and other products containing hazardous components that can harm both humans and the environment.

Your local government recycling program can give you more information on which products can be recycled and how to dispose of dangerous household items.

Mercury is so toxic… just 1/70th of a teaspoon can contaminate a 20 acre lake. Imagine the damage 50 tons can do.

Coal-fired power plants emit over 50 tons of mercury into our air every single year, more than any other source. Today, mercury exposure is so widespread in our country that as many as 1 in 6 women of childbearing age have blood mercury levels high enough to put a baby at risk of mercury poisoning.

There are no restrictions on the amount of toxic mercury that utility companies can emit. But, at long last, the EPA has proposed a critical rule to reduce the emission of mercury and other toxic chemicals that power plants are now able to freely dump into our air.

The Power Plant Mercury and Air Toxics Standard is the most important clean air rule since 1990 — and the EPA is predictably under tremendous pressure by the coal industry and other polluters to weaken it. Now, the EPA has asked us – the public – to weigh in on this critical rule.

Tell the EPA to uphold this rule and protect Americans from dangerous air pollution. Submit your public comment now.

For decades, the electric industry has successfully fought requirements to reduce these toxics.

They’ve kept releasing mercury into our air, where it finds its way into the vast majority of our lakes and waterways, into our fish, and then into our bodies, where the poison accumulates, causing deadly diseases and impairing fundamental brain functions like the ability to walk, talk, read, write and learn.

According to the EPA, reduced emissions from this new air toxics rule will save as many as 17,000 American lives every year by 2015, and will prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma. We must put our support behind this lifesaving new emissions standard!

Tell the EPA to uphold this rule and protect Americans from dangerous air pollution. Submit your public comment now.

Thank you for taking action during this critical comment period,
Kathleen Rogers