Reduce

Eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables is one part of living a healthy lifestyle. Eating all of those fruits and veggies produces a lot of seeds, cores, peels and husks. Some people think that leftover fruit and veggie bits are trash and don't realize what they could be - fertile, organic soil. Composting may be the perfect use for fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves, spoiled foods, yard waste and other organic materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

Fresh water is a precious, highly valuable resource, doubly so in the American Southwest. The last thing in the world we should do with it is to pour it down the drain. But outdated plumbing fixtures do just that by wasting many gallons of water when only one or two are needed. If you don't have low-flow toilets and plumbing fixtures in your house yet, then now is the time to swap them out.

How do you like your coffee?

Leading a more sustainable life makes our daily choices a bit more complex. For instance, when you have a cup of coffee have you thought about what that cup is made from? Choosing a cup seems to be a simple decision, but like good coffee it's a subject that's dark and hard to see through to the bottom.

Buy it once and make it last.

I like to save money. That's not unusual, but my desire to be frugal can lead to being cheap. Unfortunately, being cheap leads to spending more money, because cheap items often don't work well or last long. I seem to have this cheap/frugal problem any time I have to choose between two or more widgets in a store. When I look at a range of items, I tend towards the lowest price. I should know by now that the cheapest item can become the most expensive item in the long run.

This idea is so simple that it didn't occur to me until I moved in to my current house. I had used a clothes dryer for years out of habit and inertia until I moved into a home with a clothes line. After buying a package of clothes pins I was ready to dry my clothing the simplest, cheapest and best way I have found yet. Of course, my grandmother has been drying clothes on the line since before I was born, but some things are rediscovered by each generation.

The advantages to line drying clothing are straightforward and numerous.

If you are still thinking about making the switch to Compact Fluorescent Bulbs from the old and inefficient incandescent light bulbs, here are some answers that could make the change a little easier.

GE Lighting Compact Fluorescent FAQ

The Frequently Asked Questions from G.E. discusses everything from use of CFL's in dimmer and 3-way switches, electronic interference, mercury and proper disposal of CFL's, and energy efficiency.