Tag Archive for eco

Safe, cheap weed control

Here’s a safe, cheap, earth-friendly weed control: Spray those bad guys with a mixture of a gallon of white vinegar and an ounce of bio-degradable dish soap.

[For more easy, money-saving, Earth-friendly tips, get a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/view/7000 or your favorite e-book seller and load it onto your computer or e-book device. Totally free, with no strings attached.]

Cheap, Clean Weed-Control

Here’s a cheap, earth-friendly weed control: Spray those bad guys with a mixture of a gallon of white vinegar and an ounce of bio-degradable dish soap.

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[For more easy, money-saving, Earth-friendly tips, get a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/view/7000 or your favorite e-book seller and load it onto your computer or e-book device. Totally free, with no strings attached.]

I’m Feeling Earthy

April is a very earthy month, with Earth Day (today) and National Arbor Day (Friday the 26th).  PLUS, we’re in the midst of the season of renewed life, Easter.  It’s a marvelous time to think about what we can do for our home, the Earth.  No room in your yard for another tree?  In my area we have Our City Forest—you probably have such an organization in your area, too.  Sign up with them to help with planting projects in your city.  Stroll along the banks of a local river, lake, or pond, carrying tools to pick up trash.  Spend time around your home, building a birdhouse, creating a habitat in that unused corner of the yard, or planting non-thirsty plants.  Take your family to an Earth Day event, or follow up on an eco-activity you learned when attending one.  This month, begin a new habit: at least once a day get out of the house and smell the roses and the fresh air, listen to bird-songs, feel cool clean lake water on your toes, bite into a mouth-pleasing, messy orange, watch cloud-swans glide through clear, blue skies.  Then, determine to keep all these available for future generations.

New Computer? Check this Out

Doing some last-minute shopping for a computer for your college student?  Look for an eco-friendly one that saves money.  Buy one of the new energy-efficient models with a fan that doesn’t run constantly.  If just a moderate number of us did this we’d cut computer energy use in half and save $5.5 billion.

[For more easy, money-saving, Earth-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/view/7000 or your favorite e-book seller and download to your computer or e-book device. Totally free, with no strings attached.]

How Eco-Savvy are You?

Think you know a lot about protecting the environment?  Take this short quiz.  You might learn something new.

Quiz: How Eco Savvy are You?

 

 

Clean Up Safely and Cheaply

 

Time for Summer house and garden clean-up projects.  Do something different.  Instead of spending a bundle on weed-killers and preventatives or cleaning products, make your own.  Search the Web for “non-toxic weed (or insect) control” and “homemade cleaners.”  Or send me an email at [email protected] and I’ll email you back a whole bunch of alternatives and recipes to do those jobs more cheaply and with far more earth-friendly substances.

Leaf 6

[For more easy, money-saving, Eco-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/ view/7000, choose a format, and download to your computer or e-book device. Or download a free copy from your favorite e-tailer.]

How About “Earth Month”?

April is a very earthy month, with Earth Day (today) and National Arbor Day (Friday the 25th).  PLUS, we’re in the midst of the season of renewed life, Easter.  It’s a marvelous time to think about what we can do for our home, the Earth.  No room in your yard for another tree?  In my area we have Our City Forest—you probably have such an organization in your area, too.  Sign up with them to help with planting projects in your city.  Stroll along the banks of a local river, lake, or pond, carrying tools to pick up trash.  Spend time around your home, building a birdhouse, creating a habitat in that unused corner of the yard, or planting non-thirsty plants.  Take your family to an Earth Day event, or follow up on an eco-activity you learned at one.  This month, begin a new habit: at least once a day get out of the house and smell the roses and the fresh air, listen to birdsongs, feel cool clean lake water on your toes, bite into a mouth-pleasing, messy orange, watch cloud-swans glide through clear, blue skies.  Then, determine to keep all these available for future generations.

 

Poisoned Lawns: An Eco-Terrorist’s Stupidity

I’m very, very pro-environment, but I’m disgusted by our local eco-terrorists.  Sometimes their actions seem minor, affecting only a few people–like their recent poisoning of lawns in my hometown of San Jose, CA.  Some thirty homeowners watched as their front lawns died away.

Okay, so there’s no proof that it’s the work of eco-terrorists.  But some people in this area of town have had this happen several times, and the large portions of dead lawns, with some areas still living, exclude a dog with an overactive bladder or the result of the drought.  Teens just having fun?  All the teens I know would have been bored by the second hit and have moved onto some other game.  On the other hand, eco-terrorists believe that all lawns are bad (ecologically speaking, they are NOT wrong) and that it’s their duty to teach lawn-freaks a lesson (there they ARE wrong).

I don’t see the perpetrators stepping up and saying, “Now that you’ve learned your lesson we’ll help you dig up and haul away the contaminated grass, bring in soil that will   sustain plant life, and work with you to design and plant a more eco-friendly garden.”  Nor do I hear them say that they’ll chip in to pay the $5,000 it will cost one homeowner to fix what they did.  Now that I think of it, I also don’t hear them volunteering to put the contaminated soil into their own yards rather than the dump or elsewhere, maybe because they know they can’t grow veggies in it or plant suitable habitat-plants.

They’re not making a point; they’re just being childish, selfish, unthinking, and criminal.  Plus, they’re defeating their supposed purpose by removing oxygen-producers and contaminating the Earth they claim to defend.

 

 

Valuable Old Sneakers (Smelly or Not)

Get new sneakers for Christmas? Don’t toss out your old ones.  Donate outgrown but good ones by going to www.shoe4africa.org or to http://oneworldrunning.blogspot.com.  Nike even takes those disgusting ones (any brand) and makes Nike Grind,  used for surfacing basketball courts and running tracks.  Drop them off at the Gilroy Outlets (408-847-4300) or contact Nike for other locations near you.

Leaf 6

[For more easy, Eco-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/ view/7000, choose a format, and download to your computer or e-book device. Or download a free copy from your favorite e-tailer.]

 

 

More Economic Travel

Help air quality and your wallet when traveling by leaving unnecessary weight at home.  Ask if your hotel or the people you’re visiting have hair dryers, clothes steamers, etc.  Or share such items among those in your traveling group.  Take along travel sized toiletries rather than heavier large sized containers. Pack it all in lightweight, soft luggage. Saved weight in your luggage often means less cost per checked bag at the airlines and always means better fuel-mileage for the airplane.

Leaf 6

[For more easy, money-saving, Eco-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/ view/7000, choose a format, and download to your computer or e-book device. Or download a free copy from your favorite e-tailer.]