How Do You Go Green? Share Your Video Tips with TreeHugger!
by Chris Tackett, Fayetteville, Arkansas on 06.25.08
If there's one thing the Internet is great for, it's pooling the collective wisdom of the masses. And if there's one thing we want to do at TreeHugger, it's bring all that insight together. Since being green means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and since there are myriad facets to living an eco-savvy lifestyle, we're asking readers to tell us how they do what they do.
Do you flush your toilets with rainwater runoff? Make your own biodiesel from fried turkey grease? Bring your own containers for takeout? Maybe you've just begun carrying a canvas bag or growing your own veggies. From the banal to the extreme, we want you to lay it on us, so we can share it with the world. (Okay, the blogosphere.) We'll be posting all the great tips for going green here.
We're looking for any and all your tips, but especially those that fit into one of the following categories:
Green Habits These are things you do regularly to reduce your impact on the environment, like composting, hypermiling, or getting your jeans tailored instead of buying new.
Green Hacks Have you tweaked your house, vehicle, appliances, or other possessions to increase sustainability? If you've created a rainwater garden, built a solar hot water collector, or tweaked your stereo setup sweetly, we want to hear from you.
Green How Tos Are you a natural at leading your friends down the path of eco-consciousness? Whether you're a crackerjack bicycle repairman, an eco-laundry expert, or an organic cooking fiend, channel your inner teacher, and bring those how-to tips to the head of the class.
Ready to get started?
Of course, lots of tips will fit into more than one category, so don't worry about that too much. This one from TreeHugger founder Graham Hill, in which he demonstrates how he modified a $2 meat hook to hang his folding bike in the closet could really fit in all three, since he is showing how to hack something that he now uses habitually, but I digress. Big or small, common or extreme, we want to hear how you are doing things to help make a difference.
Graham Hill demo'ing his $2 folding bike hanger.
Instructions for Sharing your Eco Tip:
Shoot a short and simple video (less than :60 seconds, if possible) and upload it to your preferred video hosting site - Youtube, Vimeo, Viddler, Flickr, etc.
Title your video with Treehugger Green Tips: (and quick explanation of the tip). For example "Treehugger Green Tip: How-to Hang Your Folding Bike" would be a good one for Graham's video above.
Once your video is up and viewable,email a link to: video-tips AT treehugger DOT com and each week we'll post our favorite submissions. And if you're reading this later, we'll be posting all the great tips for going green here.
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Not sure if this falls into your "hack" category, but we began with the "Reduce" approach. After paying off the house decided to start making things more sustainable. Our first step was replacement windows and siding. This is suppose to save us 50% in energy usage.
Next up will be roofing - perhaps solar? These upgrades are not cheap.
Dan
Can Graham on one of his next videos talk about his folding bike and how he likes it. I ride a road bike and live someplace that I can easily store it, but I do know people who live in downtown studios that have bikes at the end of their beds or where ever they could fit.
I am curious how the bike rides and where does Graham go riding.
Check out TitanGreens.com for cool videos about green news and tips for green living!
GREEN HABITS- 1. unplug any electrical item not in use or turn off the power strip.
2. Composting I do not really have a pile. I just thro it in our flower beds. I am in the process of getting a compost bin. My first one I created did not wokr out to well.
3. Using cloth napkins and dish towels/cloths. This was the hardest for me b/c I was a huge paper towel waster and just never thought of using a cloth instead, but have finally done it. What a difference in taking out the trash, not narly as frequenlty.
4. Recycle
GREEN HACKS- We are in the process of redoing the kitchen and chose recycled glass countertops by Icestone, all of the appliaces are energy star except cooking b/c they do not rate them currently. We replaced the windows in the kitchen with energy star.
My boyfriend traded his carin for a motorcycle. I am currently in the process of getting a hyprid if i can get one quick (waitlists are a little long right now- 3 mo.) or a used car. A used to be a leaser, I am 26 and on my 5th car. I thought I would always lease until I realized it is not the best for the environment. So I am making a change I thought I never would and am going to buy and keep it for awhile.
GREEN HOW TOS
I am an independent distributor for Shaklee and through selling there amazing environmentally friendly products I am starting to host GREEN parties. I also just received my EcoBroker® Certification certifying that I am a licensed real estate professional that understands the energy and environmental issues that may affect real
estate transactions. I try to spread the word with GREEN tips to family and friends through a once a week email.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Ghandi
GREEN HABITS- 1. unplug any electrical item not in use or turn off the power strip.
2. Composting I do not really have a pile. I just thro it in our flower beds. I am in the process of getting a compost bin. My first one I created did not wokr out to well.
3. Using cloth napkins and dish towels/cloths. This was the hardest for me b/c I was a huge paper towel waster and just never thought of using a cloth instead, but have finally done it. What a difference in taking out the trash, not narly as frequenlty.
4. Recycle
GREEN HACKS- We are in the process of redoing the kitchen and chose recycled glass countertops by Icestone, all of the appliaces are energy star except cooking b/c they do not rate them currently. We replaced the windows in the kitchen with energy star.
My boyfriend traded his carin for a motorcycle. I am currently in the process of getting a hyprid if i can get one quick (waitlists are a little long right now- 3 mo.) or a used car. A used to be a leaser, I am 26 and on my 5th car. I thought I would always lease until I realized it is not the best for the environment. So I am making a change I thought I never would and am going to buy and keep it for awhile.
GREEN HOW TOS
I am an independent distributor for Shaklee and through selling there amazing environmentally friendly products I am starting to host GREEN parties. I also just received my EcoBroker® Certification certifying that I am a licensed real estate professional that understands the energy and environmental issues that may affect real
estate transactions. I try to spread the word with GREEN tips to family and friends through a once a week email.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Ghandi
Those of us who accept being green as an ethical obligation are already here. We know our ecological, water, and carbon footprints, and we are working to reduce them constantly. For the friends we are supposedly trying to teach, we may need different approaches. Sure, parents might be convinced by a "you're robbing from your children" argument, but for a more general appeal, I think the best bet is making the argument for going green an economic one.
Getting light bulbs changed is a good start. Ask people to change to CFL's and they may say that although it is clearly cheaper in the long run (the packages show how much you can save, after all, the lighting isn't warm enough and/or they have mercury concerns. First of all, you should explain that the mercury in the CFL's is less than that released by burning the additional coal needed to power an incandescent. For the "warm lighting" concern, try this one: when the friend is not around, replace all the lights in a room with the opposite type (CFL's if there ahd been incandescents, and vice versa). See if they notice. Odds are they won't. That can win people over
Disposable plates and cups, plasticware, and bottled water are another option. All you have to do is compute how much the person spends on disposables versus how much it costs to buy and repeatedly wash reusables.
In other words, prove to them that going green will, relatively quickly, get them a lot more money. Small steps are a good place to start practicing for the bigger steps you can convince them to take later on. Few people can or will do a complete lifestyle turnaround all at once. In our own lives, we should invest the money saved from green improvements into more money-saving green improvements- insulation, home power generation, efficient cars, etc. And when we have done as many of these as possible, we can be able to afford the few green changes that actually are more expensive than their "conventional" counterparts. Show that going green allows you to maintain a higher, not a lower, standard of living as well as a higher quality of life and better health.
Great Tips, Living a greener life is getting better every single day... I'm amazed to think just 3-4 years ago and compare it to now... the green movement has definitely exploded and sites like this are definitely a huge reason why...
Sharing green tips exposes people to a lot of different things they can try to do their part for the environment :) I'll definitely will be visiting more often... There is a huge list of green tips (http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/category/daily-green-tips/) here, check them out if you can and remember spread the green word.
Bart
AboutMyPlanet.com
Go Green - Top Green Tips