The Price Family's Top Ten Tips for Taking Care of our Earth and Going Green

1. Recycle: Many medium and large cities offer voluntary recycling from your curb. If your city does not participate, write a letter to the mayor and the city council urging them to recycle to reduce waste in landfills and temper the need to consume more trees and generate new plastic, aluminum, and glass products. If city-sponsored recycling is still not an option, numerous communities have centrally-located recycling centers where you can drop off plastics, aluminum, paper, cardboard, and other recyclables. Buy a big trash can, paint it blue, and draw the universal symbol for recycling on it. Make it your family's dedicated recycling bin.

2. When you go shopping, use reusable grocery bags. Many stores carry them. If you go to a local fair during Earth Day, you can probably get them for free. Millions of plastic grocery bags are produced every day. They have to wind up somewhere... usually a landfill! Remember the big bag purses from the 80's? We bought five reusable grocery bags that were that size (just not gaudy or made from naugahyde), and they work great! Even during our "big haul" of groceries for a pay period, they work well.

3. Replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. A 13-watt CFL produces as much light as a 60-watt regular bulb. You save a whopping 78% of electricity used for lighting your home just by switching to CFLs! With the exception of our dimmable and bathroom vanity lights, all bulbs in our home are CFLs. While you're at it, change your habits! Turn off lights when not in use. Pull open the blinds during the day instead of keeping them drawn and turning on lights.

4. If you're not in a room, TURN OFF the ceiling fan running in there. Ceiling fans do not "cool the house". They make a room feel 5-7 degrees cooler because they move the air around. If you're not in the room to feel the breeze, it is doing nothing but wasting electricity.

5. Minimize your use of the air conditioner. For most of the spring and early summer, A/C use isn't even necessary. Open the windows for the first few hours of the day to completely cool off the house. Then, as the outside warms up around 80 and above, shut all the windows and blinds. Even here in San Antonio (where spring lasts about three weeks), the house stays cool until around 3:00 p.m. Then, you only have to use the A/C until around 8:00. While you're at it, install a digital thermostat and set it to 78 degrees. Every degree you drop the thermostat adds another 10% to your electric bill.

6. Turn off your computer when not in use. Computers left on (and monitors are even more notorious for this) continue to sap electricity needlessly. If you're that tied to e-mail that you must know the instant one arrives, you need to go outside and start planting flowers or take up a hobby like reading. :) Many computers offer a "Hibernate" feature. This is NOT the same as Standby (which still draws electricity). Hibernate stores the entire state of your session on the hard drive and then shuts the computer off. You can unplug it even and you won't lose anything. When you start it back up, it starts quicker than a complete power down, and whatever you were working on is still there... no need to reopen everything!

7. Unplug appliances when not in use. Many appliances and electronics draw some amount of current even when they're not in use. Ever seen those thick black boxes surrounding the plugs of many electronics, they contain a transformer and an AC-to-DC converter that draws energy when plugged in regardless of whether the electronic device is operating.

8. Ride your bike or walk to places close by. Not only will you put less carbon monoxide in the air and decrease your gasoline consumption, but you will also enjoy the physical benefits of the exercise and spend less money on gas (and who wants to spend any more than they have to on gas?!?). You will get DOUBLE the benefits! If you live too far away from places you frequent (like work, grocery store, library, playground, etc.), try regularly sharing a ride. It still benefits you, the earth, and your pocketbook!

9. (This one is solely the input of Windy... snicker, snicker!) REUSE... shop at Goodwill! You would be amazed at how many different things there are to be found that satisfy a need or a want without undue strain on the pocketbook. While you're at it, give back to these great organizations by DONATING your clean, well-maintained, unused items. You never did use that post-hole digger did you? Now you live in a condo. Why are you hanging on to it?

10. Plant a garden. This may seem like a monumental task in your mind. Or, if you're like me, you think back to those days as a kid when you had to pull weeds in the family garden. I never even liked cantelope growing up, so why did I have to pick out all the dang weeds?!? Nevertheless, a small garden with a few key crops can promote health and lessen the grocery bill, all while teaching yourself and your children to appreciate all that Mother Earth has to give us. We recommend you start SMALL and use ORGANIC seeds and soil. Organic methods of pest control are available (who wants poison on their food anyway??). Talk to your local nursery or co-op about organic options that work well in your area. With respect to "starting small", we recommend a couple of square foot planters. Make sure they are at least 18"-24" deep, so the roots have plenty of room to grow. Pick one or two of your favorite veggies, and cut your teeth on the whole gardening thing with no more than a couple of planters. Try a tomato plant and some carrots. Avoid plants that don't grow well in your climate, or the endeavor will end up taking more time than you anticipated and will reap less than you expected.

These are our top ten tips. What are yours?

- The Price Family