Great Green Idea: Green Living: Turning Green IS Good

Turning Green IS Good

Who knew looking "green" could feel so good? Put on your green face and live a healthier life at the office and home. You can even help your children to turn green at school and it won't be from the eating the food in the cafeteria. Embrace your healthy new life and turn green.

Turning Green at the Office

Office personnel can take charge of making the office a greener place to work. When it comes to office supplies look for options that yield the same performance levels of your traditional equipment but reduce waste, use fewer chemicals and lower energy and material usage. For example, Energy Star equipment used in the office can save 75 percent of electricity. Buy remanufactured ink and toner cartridges, high Post-Consumer Recycled Content paper and buy from companies that seek to conserve natural resources. In an act to reduce paper and clutter, offices can opt to use digital storage systems like zip drives and CD-ROMs. For Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents that perform at high efficiency levels. These compact fluorescents can save up to 75 percent of electric energy.

Turning Green at School

The kids may rake up points with the teacher if they try to implement these green ideas for the classroom. Class projects can promote a healthy green life. The class can start a recycling project where students can compete when gathering recyclable materials. The class can also start their very own organic garden, adapt a rain forest, bring real plants into the classroom, calculate the class carbon footprint at Conservation.org, take an eco-friendly fieldtrip, use water-based paints for classroom projects, use recycled pencils and biodegradable cups and utensils for classroom parties. The class can participate in green projects such as building their own cleaning kit with non-toxic cleaners.

Turning Green at Home

Turning green at home is always a good look. You are promoting a healthy family and home life. Start in the fridge. If the refrigerator is ran 10 degrees above 40 degrees or the freezer is ran 10 degrees above 5 degrees, energy consumption goes up by at least 25 percent. Check the temperature of both the refrigerator and freezer and make sure they are holding at these temperatures for maximum consumption. Clear the garage and get rid of your extra refrigerator or freezer. Clean it out and get to cooking. Have a feast and invite folks over or simply give the food away. Reducing this one appliance will save you about $200 a year in electricity bills. Block your refrigerator from the sun by moving it out of the direct sunlight or placing sun blocks on the window like curtains, than a buffer between the sunlight and refrigerator. This will save about $70 a year.