Living April 22, 2010

Bring Earth Day into your home

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. How will you spend the day? Here are a few simple ideas to save energy and reduce your impact on the earth.

Create your own Earth Hour
During Earth Hour, people around the world turn off the lights. Even famous places such as the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building go dark.  Re-create your own Earth Hour tonight by turning off the lights and the TV. Play a board game, have dinner or read a book by candlelight.

Adjust your thermostat
Spring is slowly heating up into summer. Check that your heating and cooling settings are appropriate for the new season.

Use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)
If you haven’t already made the switch, think about replacing old light bulbs with CFLs. According to EnergyStar, if each home in America replaced just one light with an ENERGY STAR light, the energy saved would light more than 3 million homes for a year and save about $700 million in annual energy costs.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Upcycle
Upcycling is the art of taking something that could be seen as garbage and turning into something useful. Do you have a basement full of items that you're thinking about throwing away? Next time you want to run to the store to buy something new, head down to your stash and envision if there’s anything there that you could use instead, like this pair of rubber boots that became a flower pot.