Are you going green? How?

We have been green for a couple years, besides the fluorescent bulbs. Our vehicle gets 35 mpg. We only use organic cleaning supplies. We burn as much of our trash as we can, use the ashes for the garden. Our dogs eat only raw meat. We raise our own organic vegetables & fruit, our fertilizer comes from our rabbits. We use rain barrels for watering flowers & garden. We raise our own organic chickens. We ordered 150 trees this spring from NRD . Planted 5 spruces and 4 fruit already. Working on putting most of the yard into garden and edible foods.

Anyone know whether one can put a wind turbin up in one's back yard to generate electricity for your home and car? What's the cost? I would seriously consider solar panels as well.

I get tired of people trying to sell those stupid curly cue fluorescent bulbs. First where are people going to throw these things away since they contain mercury. Those bulbs are run with ballast which will form harmonics in your electrical lines. They can not be placed in an enclosed fixtures, and most cant be dimmed. Save your money LEDS are just about here. People need to be more efficient on things that have large loads like water heaters, AC, heaters, dryers.

I guess one place I'm NOT very green is that my computer is on quite a bit of the day.

However... My family walks most everyplace they go. When we can't or it's too far, it's car-pool time or we take public transportation where available. The car never runs with less than two people in it.

We only run a full clothes washer (no partial loads) and hang-dry the clothes. No dishwasher either.

My eyes are sensitive to fluorescent lighting. I stay away from them as much as possible or at least limit my time under them. I don't know what I'll do when that's the only type of light bulb I can get - maybe just sit in the dark. LEDs sound like a better solution, at least for me, but we'll see.

Klem-I don't know what I'll do when that's the only type of light bulb I can get -

When you go to a store buy some bulbs.

With everyone convinced to buy curly cue bulbs or whatever they are, its going to make the electronic people happy.

Just a few things to help the planet we inhabit:
1. Recycle, Recycle, Recycle
2. Turn the light off when you leave a room
3. Walk
4. Use a rain barrel
5. Fully inflate the tires on your car or truck
6. Use baking soda for cleaning
7. Use only cold water to wash clothes
8. Dry clothes outside in the fresh air
9. Make a compost pile
10. Plant a garden or visit a vegetable stand
11. Plant trees for soil protection
12. Carpool or ride a bike to work
13. Insulate your home
14. Install ceiling fans
15. Open your draperies in the winter months to allow for the sun to warm the interior of your home; likewise in the summer keep the drapes closed to keep out the heat
16. Water your yard once a week and check to make sure your not watering the cement
17. Put a small pool in the back yard for your pets to cool off in
18. Feed the birds for natural fertilization
19. Encourage bees, ladybugs, and praying mantis to inhabit your yard to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals on your lawns, gardens, and flowers
20. Take your vacation in the back yard this year

I hope these tips will help you in reducing your "footprint" on the world.
To see how large your footprint is go to, http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=calculator
You'll be shocked at the impact you really have on world you live in.
11.

I'm with you cfls. Light bulbs are such a small part of any electric load, it's barely worth mentioning.

I get a kick out of people desperate to keep a plastic bottle or a small box out of the landfill. Meanwhile, that is where the old Happy Chef and Phillips 66 went. Just think about the buildings razed for the new Hy-Vee.

There is nothing wrong with recycling, because it all adds up. We just need to keep things in perspective.

My entire house was converted to green about a month after I bought it, I drive fuel efficient cars, and I DON'T use ethanol. Ethanol IMHO, is part of the problem, not the solution.

For starters if it were not for government subsidies of ethanol it would cost twice what it does. All it has done is raised the price of corn which in turn has raised the price of food. If you combine this with the out of control cost of fuel you can see we are heading in a bad direction.

My car gets 28 mpg running straight gasoline and 26 mpg with E10. That's a common difference in computer controlled vehicles. The reason is that alcohol requires a much richer air/fuel mixture to make the same amount of power as gasoline and to not run lean and damage the engine. So if my tank holds 16 gallons and I fill up with straight gasoline it costs me $1.60 more. My car goes 32 miles farther on that tank of gas than it would have on E10. Basically I just saved myself about $2.00 by paying 10 cents more per gallon at the pump.

Do a little study yourself if you don't believe it. E10 is not doing the environment or your wallet any favors.

I turn a shade of green when I hear people talking about going green. To me it's the same thing as this stupid political theme this year of hope and change. All ethanol has given us is higher food prices, less mileage per gallon, more government subsidies, billions of gallons of ground water sucked out of the ground--none of which sound very "green to me". Then there are the stupid light bulbs which will end up being a nightmare in the landfills in 10 years when all the mercury contained in them is released into the ground water. Then there is the NPPD wind farm that will cost $69 million to build, provide energy for 38,000 homes and return an annual profit of $300,000. I'm sorry, but the only thing "green" in this project is the green ($$$) that will line the pockets of the turbine builders. Use common sense, turn of your lights and tv's when not using them, drive a bit slower, set your thermostat a degree or two higher or lower and you can make a difference in small ways.

My Saturn (SL1) gets 40mpg highway, and my wife's Hyundai (Accent) gets about 37 (check out www.fueleconomy.gov if you think I'm joking). I have to just snicker at some folks driving their big Truck/SUV who pay upwards of $50 or more when they fill up and I'm paying at most $30 to fill my tank (which usually lasts me about 2 weeks if I'm not doing deliveries). My Saturn has 290,000+ miles on it and running strong, once its finally ready for the bone yard I'll probably buy a VW Jetta TDI or maybe a Prius Hybird. Doesn't really matter to me if gas goes down to .99 cents a gallon, it just makes more sense to drive a more fuel efficient vehicle. As for E10, about the only thing it's good for is keeping your gas line from freezing in the winter. I'd rather buy the more expensive regular gas and just dump in a bottle of HEET. It's the same thing. We should just boycott Ethanol and use corn for what God meant it to be used for.... food.

I wish I lived outside of town, so I could burn some of the trash, I wish we had a place where we could bring glass. For now I do recycle as much as possible. We only use cold water when washing the clothes, then we put on line to dry. My wife is planting as much as we can since being in town, we also plan on canning some foods for over the winter eating, food is also to high priced! Will be buying from farmers market when it gets going again. I also collect rain water for watering everything and anything in the yard. Also dont forget to unplug things you dont have on all the time,you are using up power even though it is on. We try to buy only used items or antique furniture for the house. Turned down water heater also.

I have questions for the nay sayers..
What are you going to do when the Almighty USA pisses everybody off and the oil is gone? You don't care about the air you breath? As for the light bulbs, not significant? How many light bulbs do you have in your house? How many in Columbus? How many.......get it?
Ethanol did not cause the whole food price problem. Have you heard of Global Warming, droughts, etc.,Caused by emissions of our fossil fuels? Alternative fuel is going to take time and money to start up, improvements will come. Think, who is it that would like you to believe alternative fuels aren't the way to go? Other countries already have cars that get 50/60 miles to a gallon of gas. Why don't the we?
What's the alternative? Sit back and wait for our grandkids evolve into six legged cyclopes?
Selfish, very selfish.

Drak, I would agree that we need to do something other than fossil fuel, but we need to wait until we have that product in place, and no, corn based ethanol is not that product. We could drill for oil in our own country and replace what our consumption of middle east oil is daily, but noooo, our politicians would rather us being bound by the middle east rather than produce our own oil. How can you say the price of corn hasn't affected food prices? Rather than planting wheat, farmers are planting corn for a higher profit; beef, pork, chicken --all livestock producers are paying 3 times more for corn what they were 2 years ago. Who do you think is paying that additional cost-- yep, us as consumers! At this point, I would make a deal with the politicians to double the tax on fuel from what it is now, with the deal that our country can open up all it's oil fields, build refineries, and the government can give tax credits or incentives to companies to come up with an actual viable alternative fuel--one that won't starve the rest of the world.

As for the light bulbs, not significant?

No light bulbs really are not significant compared to things like water heaters which other countries have been going with tankless for years. Building 3,000 sq ft houses for families of 3. Someone please explain high school kids and house wives driving full sized trucks and suvs.

drak go ahead and put those twisted bulbs in, hopefully you have good isolated grounds and dedicated circuts, otherwise your electronics will have fun with the harmonics produced by those worthless bulbs.

We have subsidized the oil industry for years on the bases they would keep a stock pile for those high driving periods so the price wouldn't fluctuate.. to build more refineries. Have they? No they've been sticking our tax dollars in their pockets and manipulating the market.
The price of beef has been high because of other trade problems before ethanol came around. And feeders are paying a premium for feed now. I'd rather be paying it here and supporting our country than putting our future in the hands of foreign countries. Have you noticed it's rice that is being rationed? Did you know that wheat has been high for a few seasons because of the drought Australia has been going through?
cfls, I bet you have no problem running out and putting wads of money into the tech industries pockets for the newest toy to plug in. Give some of that to support the farmers that put food in your whining little mouth.

drak Im just trying to give the heads up to people, before they get ripped off.

(Give some of that to support the farmers that put food in your whining little mouth)

Born and raised on a farm, was out in the fields at a young age, Ive given more support than you think.

(I bet you have no problem running out and putting wads of money into the tech industries pockets for the newest toy to plug in)

No I spend my money feeding my family and making all my payments. I dont have extra cash for high tech junk.

This entire "going green" thing is a media-al gore invented sham, to justify increasing energy costs and to make the united nations like us. Just common sense things in daily life, that we already have been doing, is all thats needed. Don't waste electricity, conserve fuel etc is all good. Outlawing regular light bulbs and worrying about carbon footprints is ridiculous....the elite people of the world will ALWAYS have the money to do these feel good measures. Those of us in the real world can see the sham being forced upon us by the do gooders, as usual.

I cant tell you why high school kids drive SUV's but I do because of my five children and all the stuff that comes with them like car seats(3 of them), book bags, a diaper bag, some times a stroller or a bike. Most of the time I have all five when I go to the grocery store so its nice to still have room in the car for groceries.

NotBioCorn
That fuel tax you are so willing to pay double for will also double the tax the transporters of your food and goods will pay. Who does and will pay for that? We have already waited far to long. It's our arrogance and greed that have set us behind most the rest of the world in cleaning up our air and dependence.
I'm not saying ethanol hasn't effected food prices at all. I'm saying people are giving too much credit to the American farmer for the feeding of the entire world.
cfls
My apologies for making such wide assumptions. But every little bit helps.
Sounds like you need an electrition...

Drak, Back to you again--My assumption is that the price of oil would drastically drop if speculators in the market realized that the US would be pumping and refining as much fuel as we needed-thus in return, fuel prices would drop back to the $1.80-$2.00 range. I don't know of too many people that would complain about tax rates rising by 18-24 cents to offset the current price, which again would go to pay for finding a VIABLE alternative fuel.
As far as the "Sounds like you need an electrition."--must have been from cfls, but I spoke to an "electrician" about this very thing last week and was told that this is a problem that is inherent to cfls bulbs themselves, and there is nothing an "electrician" can do about it.
And yes, my kid drives a full size pickup to school--2 miles each way. So let's say it costs $10.00 a week to drive to school. So that's about $360 a year in gas. O boy, I should go out and buy a $12000 car which won't be as safe, and in about 33 years, I could make this thing pay off. No Thanks.

Drak, the problem of those taxes NotBioCorn was talking about could easily be solved by providing a reduced fuel tax for truckers/transportation companies. This would reduce the effect of that tax on food/other products.

The big picture - I am looking at the Big Picture.
What good does throwing more money at fossel fuels when we know that by using them we are endangering the planet - our lives?
Haven't had a problem or anyone else I know that switched to the floresent bulbs. Hmm.
Things have got to change. Look where what we've been doing has gotten us so far. Time to move forward, not bury our heads in the sand and try and blame somebody else later on.
kt has made some wonderful points.

(NotBioCorn- And yes, my kid drives a full size pickup to school--2 miles each way. So let's say it costs $10.00 a week to drive to school. So that's about $360 a year in gas. O boy, I should go out and buy a $12000 car which won't be as safe, and in about 33 years, I could make this thing pay off)

I lived 10 miles from school and drove a $500 dollar car, but if my parents paid for my gas and vehicals, I guess a full size pickup would have been nice.

Oh, Klem, I forgot to mention the fuel costs in growing those crops.
I love the idea of the rain barrels to water the garden. I used to have a portable washing machine that I would drain into the garden in the summer. Where do you get barrels?

The high price of oil IS a killer, but fuel for off-road vehicles (farm machinery) - somebody correct me if I'm wrong - is already tax exempt.

I was watching an article on CNN about some college students who are making bio-diesel out of used cooking oil. They're making enough for their own use plus giving some to their university for use in maintenance equipment. It burns cleaner than normal diesel. All with about a $1K investment.

I'm totally goin green man. I'm gonna smoke more pot this year then ever before. PEACE NOT WAR

What ever you do do not use E-10. It is a good idea gone wrong. You gain nothing with it unless you are a big tight wad & you want to save $0.03 . In the long run we are all better off without it . Don't hear anyone talkin about E-85 anymore, oh ya maybe that's because it like $5 a gallon no thanks!

(Haven't had a problem or anyone else I know that switched to the floresent bulbs. Hmm.)

Hopefully you dont have them on dimmer swithches or lamps, fire risks are high if you do.

I dont want to sound like I disagree on what were tring to do by saving energy, but people need to know that there is dangers with these bulbs. Everyone sees the dollar signs before the dangers.

I have LED bulbs and the old regular ones. The LEDs last a lot longer because they dont produce heat. They also run by tranformers not ballast.

My husband Ron and i have crushed over 150 cars since we watched Al Gore's movie on global warming. This also helps with Metal conservation because the US is shipping resources overseas. Every little bit helps we named our buisness act now.

My comment to Cheech,way to be green. Pot is after all, all natural.

To draks comment on barrels for water, you can get these barrels from local factories. Just make sure you know what was in the barrel before you take it.

By growing weed in my basement.

HI-ooooooooooooo

I throw my poop and fruit/vegetable shavings into a compost pile as opposed to throwing it in the trash...

I am finding this blog very entertaining and informative.
A little info on the CFL's- You CAN recycle them here in Columbus, either at the Recycle Center or at the Keep Columbus Beautiful office (located in the Columbus Family Resource Center-old hospital). CFL's last about 10,000 hours as opposed to about 1500 hours for a regular bulb. They let off way less heat than a regular bulb and are safe in lamps. The newer bulbs are smaller and fit just fine in covered fixtures, and you can get "decorative" cfl's now that look nice even in antique exposed bulb fixtures. Recently they have come up with cfl's that work on dimmer switches too. We have been using cfl's in our home for almost 10 years now, and have NEVER had an issue with them interfering with other electronics. As far as the mercury is concerned- yes, they do contain mercury, about 5 milligrams per bulb. Coal burning power plants release nearly 30 times that much mercury into the environment to power just one regular incandescent bulb. The mercury danger is negated if you recycle the bulbs when they are done, rather than putting them in the landfill. If you break a bulb in your home, you can follow a few easy steps to clean it up and avoid any real health risks to yourself or your family (cleanup steps can be found at energystar.gov) If you haven't looked at CFL's in a while, I would suggest checking them out again, the technology in them has really advanced. And yes, the LED bulbs are available, and an even better choice, but are still very expensive. If you are looking for a simple and fairly inexpensive beginner green step, the CFL's are a good place to start.

I've been beat to it by kcf. I did some more reading on the bulb thing. Leds really sound like the way to go but as said are quite expensive for overall use yet.
Where do you all shop for energy saving supplies? Like reflective window shades, flet replacements for sliding windows, stuff like that.

Being an electrician for 10 years, cfls are a money making thing. Now with the new code taking place this summer, requiring whole house gfi protection there will only be more problems. Yes there are certain ones that can be dimmed, and put in lamps, but does everyone read the warnings and making sure they got the right bulb. There are cases of houses buring down, because people put in non dimmable cfls.

Another simple way to "go green" is to use reusable cloth bags instead of plastic bags. They are available locally at the grocery stores and Wal-Mart, HyVee has insulated ones available too. They are a very inexpensive investment, costing only a buck or two per bag, an average shopper needs about half a dozen. Reusable bags hold about twice as much weight as each plastic bag and the same volume or more.It takes a couple weeks of practice to remember to take them to the store with you, but once you get into the habit it is easy! Many stores are working toward eliminating plastic bags altogether, so now is the time to start using reusable bags. I have some bags my hubby and I have been using for over fifteen years that are still in good shape- and I haven't had to use a single plastic bag yet this year!

We are going green-raising all our own food-veggies-fruits-meats so our grand kids will no longer have to eat the pesticides & herbicides put on everything.

Actually our decision isn't an Al Gore scam, it is more like a Zeitgeist issue or maybe a Aaron Russo, do a google.

for cheech just wqanted to remind you there are still police in this community and im sure they will catch you later but sooner i hope...