5 Ways to Go Green: Eco Living Articles: Eco20/20

5 Ways to Go Green

Generally when people think about "going green" they think about solar panels, hybrid vehicles and recycling. All of these things can be big investment of time or money. Solar panels and hybrid vehicles are expensive even with government tax credits and subsidies and recycling can be a real chore with all of the sorting and driving to the recycling facility if your city doesn't have a decent recycling program.

Why does going green have to be so expensive or inconvenient? If you are interested in going green without emptying your wallet or sorting glass, plastic and aluminum here are five ways to go green on the cheap that actually save you money.

Ditch the Bottled Water

Currently there are approximately two million tons of plastic water bottles buried in landfills across the United States of America. A pretty astonishing number that is bound to go up due to the longevity of plastic, which can last for thousands of years, and the fact that only 1 in 5 plastic water bottles find its way into a recycling bin.

Recommendation: Buy a water filter for your kitchen faucet. A decent water filter can be purchased for around $25. One third of all bottled water is simply filtered tap water anyway. This small investment pays for itself in no time considering bottled water costs a staggering 2000 times the price of regular tap water.

Borrow Instead of Buying

Sharing is caring as the old adage goes. That is especially true for books. Millions of books each year are purchased read once (or not at all) and are then relegated to a bookshelf never to be touched again. The raw materials, manufacturing and transportation of the books takes a huge toll on the environment.

Recommendation: Get a library card. Checking out books from the library is free and allows the same books to be re-used over and over so hundreds if not thousands of people can enjoy them without the environmental cost of creating and distributing more books.

Swap Out Incandescent Light Bulbs

Incandescent light bulbs may be cheap to purchase, about thirty-five cents each, but the upfront savings slips away quickly by increasing the electric bill. Each incandescent light bulb can cost as much as $184 to run for its lifespan.

Recommendation: Change out inefficient incandescent light bulbs with CFL bulbs. CFL bulbs use approximately a third of the power of an incandescent bulb. They do cost more up front, about $1.25 per bulb but that is made up quickly in energy savings. A CFL bulb cost approximately $43 to run over its lifespan.

Support the Local Economy

Next time you take a trip to the super market take a few minutes to stop and look in your cart. How much paper, plastic, metal and glass go into the packaging for the items you purchase? And where do all of these items originate? How much fuel does it take to transport the raw materials to the factory that processed and packaged the food and how much more to transport it to the super market? Nearly everything purchased from the super market has additional environmental costs associated with it. But the environment isn't the only thing that pays. The cost of the transportation, packaging and the markup from the super market are passed on to the consumer.

Recommendation: Buy local. Buying local is not just a hip way to support the local economy. It is environmentally and fiscally responsible. Food purchased from a local farmers market has a much smaller carbon footprint than massed produced food and can cost significantly less as well due to the lack of processing, packaging and transportation costs.

Think Big

Buying local may work for produce, meats and a few other things but it just doesn't work for some items. Very few cities have local toilet paper manufacturers for instance. In some cases there is just no getting around the environmental cost but it can be limited.

Recommendation: Buy in bulk. It may seem counter-intuitive but by purchasing in bulk the actual amount of packaging is reduced. It may take the same amount of fuel to transport the items to the super market but you should have to take fewer trips to the store, which makes up for that some. Buying in bulk also reduces the cost of items through economy of scale.

Not everyone is an eco-warrior. Not everyone has the time, money or energy to be as eco-friendly as they would like to be but there are things that almost anyone can do to reduce their impact on the environment. These were just five ways to go green without spending a lot of greenbacks.