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Every little bit helps.
We've got an uphill battle trying to green our lives with so little time but—oh, you handy adage you—where there's a will there's a way. Even if you've got only 5 minutes to do your greenest, it must be stressed that every little bit really does help. So while last week we tackled the truly time-starved, this week we're branching out a bit: to a full ten minutes. Yes, if you have just 10 minutes to spare, you can do some real green good. Here's how.
Switch over to clean energy.
Many of us can already buy alternative energy from our local power providers. And it doesn't require any technical know-how or complex rewiring or anything like that?it just requires that you have 10 minutes to head over to the DOE website to see if your provider's got alternative energy, and making a phone call to your power provider. Sure, it'll cost you a couple extra bucks a month, but it's worth it to support clean energy companies. Steering our nation away from dependence on coal fired power plants is one of the most important things we can do to combat global warming. So buy renewable energy —haven't you heard? We're in the beginning of a revolution here
Do a quick DIY project.
Say you've got ten minutes to kill, and you've got a box full of clothes you've deemed ready to hock at a garage sale. Why not whip up a brand new?and probably more fashionable garment by recycling and altering your old threads. These are some quick green projects that'll reinvigorate your wardrobe with a few simple cuts. Or, do some green redecorating by arranging or creating art out of found objects For more ideas, check out the top 10 sites for DIY projects.
Seal a leak—insulate.
This is probably the easiest and quickest way to green your home heating ?there are likely a number of places in your home where heat escapes during the winter, and creeps in during the summer. Which of course inevitably drives us to crank the heat or the A/C respectively—but it doesn't have to. Insulating at least a couple of the leaks shouldn't take longer than 10 minutes, and it will save you a ton of energy in the long run. Insulating your home is good for your health, too. So you'll just need a tube of some exterior silicone caulk or some insulation strips, which you can place on your doors, windows, and so on to draftproof them. How to find the spots that need insulating? One way is to light some incense on a breezy day and wander around your house: where ever you see the smoke blow, you've got yourself a case of poor insulation. Insulate away?and make sure to use green insulation. If you've got a little more time on your hands, and you've whipped yourself into an insulatin' mood, head for your attic—arguably the most important place to insulate.
Hit up the 4th R.
Yes, it doesn't end with Recycle. While important, along with reduce and reuse, there's an [url='http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/recession-ready-repair.html']equally significant fourth R{/url] that doesn't get nearly enough attention: Repair. It's a simple concept, but also one that we've drifted away from over here in the ol' US of A?so often these days it's been cheaper to just buy new stuff instead of repairing the old. But that of course leads to more crap in the landfill, and an ever-exacerbating waste problem. And with tons of repair projects that you can do in under 10 minutes, and a recession making everyone pinch their pennies, why not learn a few quick repair tricks? For instance, this repair idea can spruce up scratched CDs. This trick will help you mend your clothes with ease, and this one will fix umbrellas. And here are some ways to repair an iPod and a digital camera. For more ideas on how to get fixing stuff, take a peek into Planet Green's Repairs archives.
Stop the drips.
Have a leaky faucet—or worse, a leaky toilet? Though you may barely notice either, they're extremely common. And they're a huge waste of water. A leaky faucet often leads to 20 gallons of lost water a day—and a leaky toilet? It can use up 90,000 gallons of water a month. No joke. With so many water-starved areas of the world, and the water scarcity problem coming more and more into focus, it's high time we started thinking about greening our water use. The combination of the growing stresses of climate change and greater water demand (read: more and more people) is leading to droughts and longer, hotter summers all over. So what can you do to help in 10 minutes? Simple. Take a wrench and change the washers on your sink and showers, and ditch the drips. Here's a simple step by step guide on how to do this. You could consider an upgrade to more efficient washer-less faucets, but it's easiest (and greenest) to take of the ones you've got. And call the plumber if you suspect you've got a leaky toilet.
