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Buying Clothing with the Environment in Mind

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Most people just buy the clothing that they like, and they don’t give any thought to where it came from, who made it, or what it took to create it. While that makes sense, it’s important that you also pay attention to the environment. One person changing his or her clothes-buying habits isn’t going to change the world, but great things will happen if enough people start showing their concern for the environment and only buying things that aren’t going to harm it in any way. Of course, that’s often easier said than done because you might not be sure about the clothing you own and whether it’s environmentally friendly or not.

You can’t do anything about the clothes that you already have, but you can stop buying any future clothing that’s unhealthy for the planet. Consider clothing like Apple Bottoms, that aren’t going to be harmful to mother earth and that also fit well and look great. It’s hard to get more than that from clothing, and you can be proud to wear something that isn’t destroying the planet – and that you can look and feel sexy in, too. Women are fashion conscious, and they are also interested in being comfortable and protecting natural resources. When they can do all of those things at once, it’s a winning situation for everyone involved.

The future of the clothing industry will have to change, too, because there are so many people today who are becoming interested in caring for the planet. If they stop buying clothes from companies that are hurting the planet, the industry will be forced to change or there will be companies that will go under due to their business practices. It’s just the nature of society, and what the market will bear. Consider that the next time you make a clothing purchase.

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How to Save the Environment When Purchasing Jewelry

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A lot of people are going green and doing everything that they can to help the environment, including using natural ingredients. When purchasing jewelry, you can continue to help the environment by purchasing all of your jewelry in gold, platinum, or palladium.

A fine jewelry maker, Louis-Ulysse Chopard created the Chopard watch collection in 1869. This metal can be easily cleaned without the use of hazardous jewelry cleaner. In fact, you can use vinegar to clean the diamonds. All you need to do is to place your diamond ring in a small jar and let it soak for at least 20 minutes. Then, rinse the ring under hot water. If it isn’t entirely clean, repeat the process.

Fine jewelry, such as Chopard can be melted down and sold. There are a lot of companies that buy real jewelry and recycle it. Therefore, if you are interested in protecting the environment, and have a piece of Chopard jewelry that you don’t want anymore, you can send it to a company that will buy it from you. In fact, the money that you receive from the company may be enough for you to purchase another piece of fine jewelry.

When you invest in high quality jewelry, you don’t have to be concerned with throwing out metals that rust easily which can pollute the environment. Cheap jewelry doesn’t last long at all. For instance, if a cheap ring breaks, a person can actually leave the ring on the ground which may flow into the water and contaminate our drinking water.

By investing in platinum, gold, or palladium, you don’t have to worry about contaminating the Earth. These metals can easily be recycled or used for safe environmental purposes. There also will not be any small fragments left on the ground because metals are heavy-duty and never leave small particles behind.

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Businesses Don’t have to Be Enemies of the Environment

It is a preconceived notion that businesses are an enemy of the environment. This is not true. Businesses can join the efforts of the individuals to lessen the carbon footprint, save water, energy and in this way improve the environment of the planet.

Make sure that businesses use Energy Star rated appliances and products as they save energy. Look for Energy Star logo on computers, printers and copy machines as they save energy. Do not keep computers or electronic appliances in sleep mode as while in the sleep mode they consume a little energy. Switch it off completely. Printers and monitors consume a large amount of energy. So keep individual monitors and shut down when kept idle. This will help save a lot of energy. Try to use laptops in office as they consume 90 percent less energy than desktops.

Very few businesses can do without lights. Instead of using incandescent lights, use CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) or LED (light emitting diode). These lights save about 75 to 90 percent energy. When not in the room, use automatic sensors to shut off the lights and save energy. Use as much daylight as possible.

Besides, energy conservation, businesses should also stress on water conservation. This is a very important aspect of human life. Check out for leaks frequently as this waste gallon of water and energy. Tank less water heaters reduce storage costs and wastes in businesses without a great need for hot water, while lowering a water heater’s temperature setting also saves energy. If installing faucets and urinals in toilets, go in for water saving equipments. If you use landscaping in your business, then you can go in for xeriscaping. Xeriscaping recommended by Environmental Protection Agency. This involves using native plants that require less watering and maintenance. You can also use gray water for irrigation of plants.

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Keep Your Office Environment Green

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Being a small business owner, you may be fascinated about the fact that you keep your business surroundings environment friendly. If you follow the below guidelines, apart from cutting down on energy costs, you can also keep your environment green.
Instead of having a single printer, opt for two printers. Use one printer for two sided papers, whereas use the other for taking routine printouts. Advise your employees to dump in the used papers in a separate box, rather than throwing those away into a waste bin. At times, additional or draft sheets that are printed can still good for re- usage. Print outs can be taken on the other side of such sheets.
Ensure that you place an empty box next to the Xerox machine so that your employees can dump in additional copies that are not required. These kinds of sheets can incise into halves or quarters, which later can use as note papers.
Enforce a mandatory rule that every employee should switch off devices such as computers, printers, Xerox machines and other office devices that are not used every moment or at the end of the day.
In storage or break rooms, use automatic light switches so that they turn off after office hours.
Do not allow employees to have their own electrical appliances such as toasters, ovens, coffee maker etc. Instead, these kind of devices should be switched off and stored away during nighttime, when not in use.
Offering a mug with a spoon as a present to your employees can reduce or completely get rid paper cups.
Make sure that you buy only environment friendly paper items for office usage
To retain the heat or coldness in your office, instruct your staff to open and close blinds as and when necessary.
Switch off lights used unnecessarily so that you can cut down on energy costs.

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Tips to Save Money and Help the Environment

During the cold wintertime, to keep yourself and your home warm, energy bills can go high and leave you financially wretched. So listed here are some tips that will help you save energy and money that goes out on your bills.

Seal the drafts of your doors and windows.
Make sure that there are no drafts in the doors and windows of your house. If there is any, seal them using extra layer of transparent sheet on the glass windows. This will make your house energy efficient.

Insulate your house.
Add insulation in your room to prevent heat loss and preserve the heat. Check throughout the house and prevent heat loss.

Seal the ducts that distributes heat
Clean and change the heating filters of your heating system regularly to avoid leakage of ducts. This makes the total process of heating and cooling more energy efficient.

Use of energy efficient gadgets
Make sure to use Energy Star qualified gadgets as they reduce the energy consumed and hence the bills reduce drastically.

Use energy efficient bulbs
Replace your old incandescent lights with CFL bulbs. CFL bulbs is very much energy efficient and saves you a lot of money compared to incandescent lights.

Save bills on water
You can save bills on water by reducing the temperature of water slightly, using warm water instead of hot for your shower and washing clothes.

Get tax credits
If you use energy efficient appliances and products for your home, then you can earn tax credits up to $1500.

However, do not overuse than what is required. Studies have shown that people who have shifted to use of energy efficient products end up using more energy than needed. Make sure that you do not fall into this category. Use only the amount that is necessary for you.

Filed Under: Energy Saving Appliances, Environment Tagged With: , ,

Live a Green Lifestyle by Supporting Environmentally Friendly Businesses

If you are trying to improve the environment, then being a consumer of eco friendly products is the best way to live a greener lifestyle. Switch to the purchase of products offered by companies that practice green business. This way you can support the green business initiative.

A way to switch to eco friendly purchases may start from Fair Trade coffee and tea. When an eco friendly product, which worked under fair labor practice, given fair price, and used for growth and development of the environment, then the product certify as Fair Trade.

These eco friendly products such as coffee, tea, chocolates may be a little expensive than the regular products, but this additional expense made by the consumers is contributed to the improvement of the environment and those who worked towards achieving this eco friendly product.

Studies have shown that the textile industry uses 132 million tons of coal per year. This can affect the environment miserably. Traditionally water and chemicals used to grow cotton and the energy used to create synthetic fabrics can be very harmful to the environment. The huge amount of water used for finishing the process makes a lot of waste.

Making a transition to eco friendly textiles such as using organic cotton blankets, bamboo shirts, hemp jeans, can improve the environment and reduce the wastage of the society.

You can also shift your office environment to an eco friendly environment. Instead of using the age-old ink and paper, you can shift to non-toxic inks, recycled pens and paper. These types of eco friendly products are available at online shops like Dolphin Blue, O’Bon, and The Ultimate Green Store. So go green in your workplace by making a transition towards using eco friendly products.

Therefore, the products you use in everyday life can bring about a major change to the environment. By using eco friendly products, you are supporting the green business initiatives and passively helping to improve the environment.

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Don’t Live a Part-time Green Lifestyle – Be Environmentally Friendly at Your Business

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You cannot help to improve the environment by following green business initiatives only in your personal life. If you want a greener environment, you have to adopt the policies in work place too. It may sound tough to achieve a greener environment, but it is quite easy. To begin with, offices can use eco friendly furniture, products, and accessories and so on.

When buying chairs, you may go in for Steelcase’s Think Chair. This is a recyclable product and is made of 41%-recycled materials.

When considering desks, here also go in for eco friendly products. Desks made from recyclable products like rubber, plastic or recycled newsprint, cardboard fiber or core used to achieve the greener environment. Companies like EcoWork and Dirtt offer these type of eco friendly products for office purposes. They offer a wide range of range of products to choose from and their products are very customizable to suit the office requirements.
Even in the case of electronic items, offices can go green. The motherboards and circuit boards used by the offices reuse into clipboards, binders, mouse pads and other office supplies. Hence, it says that a Green Office is the supplier of Green products. People have a preconceived notion that eco friendly are very expensive than the regular products. However, this is false. It may cost a little more than regular products, but the contribution you are doing to the environment by adopting green policies is priceless.
Finally, for some companies such as law firms and doctors, it is necessary to use papers. They cannot go electronic. In that case, these companies can then hire a recycling company who can come and recycle the papers they use. Also, when ink cartridges get empty, go in for a refill of the ink cartridge instead of buying a brand new cartridge. These can bring about a major positive change to the environment.

Filed Under: Energy Saving Appliances, Environment, Green Businesses Tagged With: , ,

Make Your Office Eco-friendly by Creatively Reusing Common Materials

A lot of paper and materials are wasted particularly when mailing gifts, packaging items and so forth. Items created from polythene such as packing tape, bubble wrap, and Styrofoam package fillers, and packing peanuts are the worst to the environment. Going green rather than using polythene and Styrofoam can decrease waste and pollution.
Even through polythene is sometimes recycled to make bubble wrap. Again, bubble wrap, if made from cardboard or crimped paper makes an eco friendly product.
Cornstarch used for making biodegradable versions of packing peanuts. Truck rental businesses, office supply shops, moving and expert packaging supplier’s supplies eco bubble wraps and peanuts.
Natural Rubber, made from rubber tree is a biodegradable product. This environmentally friendly packing tape used to seal boxes and cartons supplied from office stores.

Before going in to buy eco friendly products, seek the materials that are available and find creative ways to reuse them. Below are some ways of how you can use waste items.

If waste papers are packed densely into boxes, they can serve as good fillers.
Make a padded box using plastic shopping bags prior to recycling them.
Use towels for wrapping up materials that break away easily.
Try to use bedding to cushion electronics or Knick Knacks instead of packing pillows and blankets separately.
If you put smaller breakables inside padded items, then that will keep them more protected.
Use old newspapers instead of buying newsprint that is plain white.
It is better to utilize old sheets or use a multiuse tarp, than buying a toss away mattress bags made from plastic.

Hence, if you use household items creatively for packaging, then it can reduce waste. But if it is necessary to buy packaging materials, go in for eco friendly products that will help reduce waste and filling up of bins and landfills.

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