Planet Earth:
Handle With Care Did you know that residential energy use produces more than 20% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions? And those greenhouse gasses come from literally thousands of different types of activities. So it’s not going to be one thing you do that makes a difference. It’s the cumulative effect of little things you change about your everyday life.

What is CO2 and why is it bad?
Carbon dioxide is a gas that is widely believed to contribute to global warming…and it happens to be a byproduct of many of our daily activities such as driving a car, turning on the lights, or washing our clothes. While Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is essential to life – plants, for example, absorb it from the atmosphere through photosynthesis – it can be classified as a pollutant when present in large quantities. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have increased more than 30% since the beginning of the industrial revolution, predominantly from burning fossil fuels and deforestation (burning fossil fuels creates CO2 and deforestation gets rid of the trees that help absorb it).

Why is this concept so controversial?
Some people believe that this cycle of global warming is part of a natural cycle of warming and cooling that the Earth has experienced since the beginning of time. Although there is ongoing political and public debate, most people agree that there are still significant benefits to combating greenhouse gas emissions. Two of the biggest indisputable benefits are conservationism and cleaner air. And if we happen to save a glacier from melting or a species from becoming extinct in the process, all the better!

Green kids!!

Remember when we played outside as kids? There was nothing better than playing at the creek on a lazy summer morning, or sledding down a snowy hill on a brisk winter's day. Things are a little different today; kids needn't leave the comfort of their own home (or their friends' homes) for entertainment. The advent and rise of the computer and television is both a blessing and a curse. While convenient tools for learning, shopping and communicating, they can also be a substitute for good clean outdoor fun. Striking a balance for the health of our children and the future of our planet begins with you, the parent. Children look to you when developing their own habits and attitudes toward the earth, creatures, and cohabitants. Setting an example for them is the first step. Here are some earth friendly activities you can do together:

Plant a tree ...or a garden, or a flower pot, or a seed. Watching something grow from a seed or plantling is not only fun to watch and track, but it helps kids connect to the earth. Suddenly their food comes from the earth, not the grocer. Suddenly the tree commands awe and respect, instead of being just another fixture in the lawn.

Pesticide 101 Take a glass of tap water and add a few drops of blue food coloring. Explain to your child that the blue color represents chemicals and pesticides that are often found in the water we use in our gardens. Cut a stalk of celery and place it in the water. Within a few days, you'll see how chemicals are systemically absorbed in our veggies - and are not something you can just wash off!

For the birds If you don't have an outdoor cat, a bird feeder is a great way to watch nature. There are many great organic seeds that will attract a variety to your back yard. Even squirrels provide ample entertainment (although some can be pesky). Keep a set of child-sized binoculars by the window, and your child will naturally be curious to observe the birds. If your child is artistic, keep a pad of paper nearby and encourage sketching.

Recycling Sometimes it can be tempting to just let the recycling go out with the trash. What a bother to rinse, separate, and drag those recycled goods to the curb. But what may be a chore to you is a great way for a kid to learn about the value of recycling for the future of our planet. And if you offer a penny, nickel, or dime per can/bottle, it will also place a positive value on the act of recycling while teaching about saving.Do you have any fun kid-friendly activities that will promote a healthy green outlook?

Here are 10 highly effective ways to go greener with your dishwasher:

1. Go for the full loadBefore running the dishwasher, wait until you have a full load (same rule of thumb for the clothes washer). This will help make the most of the energy, water, and detergent the machine uses.

2. Choose your washer wisely Choose a dishwasher that is rated for energy and water efficiency. In the U.S., you can start by looking for Energy Star rated appliances, which use 25% less energy than the mandated minimum. Also, know how to read the yellow EnergyGuide sticker you’ll find on all new dishwashers--as well as other appliances.

3. Join the clean plate club Go for dishwashing liquid and powder that is natural, biodegradable, and free of petroleum and phosphates. Also look for products sold in bulk to save on packaging. Powdered detergents are lighter and so require less energy to ship. For more, see How to Green Your Cleaning. If you are running into spotting problems using phosphate-free detergents, try using a natural residue eliminator like Wave Jet.

4. Skip the pre-rinse Most dishwashers today are powerful enough to get the all the gunk off, so a lot of pre-rinsing by hand is often just a waste of water and time. Plus, if you rinse all of the dirt off, your dog will have nothing to lick while you’re throwing those plates in.

5. Turn down the heat Most modern dishwashers have booster heaters to heat the water that comes from your home’s water tank. Seems pretty redundant, right? Turning the water tank’s thermostat down to 120 degrees results in additional energy savings without compromising on cleanliness.

6. Air dry Instead of letting your washer use electric heat or a fan to dry the dishes, just open the door at the end of the washing cycle and let them air dry. Leave the dishes to dry overnight and they’ll be ready for you when you wake up.

7. Pick the right size Choose the size model that fits your needs. A compact model is more efficient than a large one unless you have to run it several times a day. For a single person, this might be just right.

8. One glass fewer Using fewer dishes and utensils over the course of the day means doing fewer loads in the dishwasher, saving energy, water, and detergent.

9. Keep those large appliances away from each other Putting your dishwasher next to your refrigerator will make the fridge have to work harder due to the heat coming off the washer.

10. Wash off-peak Delay the start of your dishwasher for off-peak utility hours (some units have timers that will start the cycle at a programmed time). Some utilities even offer reduced rates for energy used during this period, and this is likely to become more and more common in the U.S.

Are you living in a healthy home?
You know that good, healthy feeling you get when you've just cleaned house? Sorry to spoil it, but you may have just made your home dirtier.
Think of it this way. You wouldn't let your kids play with toxicchemicals, so why would you let the baby crawl over a floor that's just been wiped with them? That's much more dangerous than the orange juice that was just there.
How dangerous? Just take a look at these statistics.
Over 90% of poison exposures happen at home.
Common bleach is the #1 household chemical involvedin poisoning.
Organic pollutants, found in many common cleaners andeven air fresheners, are 2 to 5 times higher inside your home than out.
A person who spends 15 minutes cleaning scale off shower walls could inhale three times the "acute one-hour exposure limit" for glycol ether-containing products set by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
Common cleaners give off fumes that have been linked toincreasing the risk of your kids developing asthma, the most common serious chronic childhood disease.
1 in 13 school-aged children has asthma. Rates in children under five have increased more than 160% from 1980 – 1994.
Children are highly vulnerable to chemical toxicants. Pound for pound of body weight, children drink more water, eat more food and breathe more air than adults. The implication of this is that children will have substantially heavier exposures than adults to any toxicants that are present in water, food or air.
If your home is anything like the average U.S. home, yougenerate more than 20 pounds of household hazardous waste each year (the EPA designates toilet cleaners, tub and tile cleaners, oven cleaners, and bleach as hazardous waste).

Dos and Don'ts of Recycling
Every community has its own guidelines for what should and should not be recycled, and how the process should take place. Take a few moments to find out these details. Call your local public works department or recycling organization. That way you can be sure you're doing your part, and doing it right. In general, here are a few things to keep in mind: Cleanliness counts Rinsing cans and keeping boxes out of the weather makes them easier to process. That keeps costs down. If supplied with a bin, pay attention to what goes in Take it upon yourself to be an accurate recycler. A cereal box is probably great, but a greasy pizza box may not be. Maybe milk jugs are good, but not the caps. Check the lid of your recycling bin for guidelines, or make a call or visit your municipal Web site to find out the rules. Then, follow them. Good bets Steel cans, aluminum cans, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, junk mail, plastic beverage bottles, milk jugs, glass bottles and jars, cereal boxes, other clean and dry cardboard boxes. Probably not Plastic grocery bags, styrofoam, lightbulbs, food-soiled paper, wax paper, ceramics.
DO Recycle ElectronicsRecycle your old computers and cell phones. Check out Dell, Staples, and Waste Management/Recycle America websites for information on how you can recycle these items.Hazardous wastes have their place Household hazardous wastes like paint cans, motor oil, antifreeze, car batteries, pesticides, pool chemicals, etc., usually need to be disposed of separately. Again, check your community resources and guidelines.

Why It's Important
Why Recycling Is Important
As stewards of the environment, we are responsible for preserving and protecting our resources for ourselves and for future generations. Getting Back to BasicsRecycling is really just common sense, and until the “modern era,” it was a common household activity. Before the 1920s, 70% of U.S. cities ran programs to recycle certain materials. During World War II, industry recycled and reused about 25% of the waste stream. Because of concern for the environment, recycling is again on the upswing. The nation's composting and recycling rate rose from 7.7% of the waste stream in 1960 to 17% in 1990. It's currently up to around 33%.The Garbage CrisisThe world has changed a lot in the past century. From individually packaged food servings to disposable diapers, more garbage is generated now than ever before. The average American discards 7.5 pounds of garbage every day. This garbage, the solid waste stream, goes mostly to landfills, where it's compacted and buried. As the waste stream continues to grow, so will pressure on our landfills, our resources and our environment.Recycling—An Important Part of the SolutionRecycling is one of the easiest ways you can help slow climate change and global warming. By recycling at home, you help significantly lower carbon emissions associated with extracting virgin materials, manufacturing products and waste disposal.

Avoid harmful ingredients.

Though they might not bear a warning label, many household cleansers contain ingredients that pose problems for the environment and public health.

Petroleum: Many conventional detergents (“surfactants”), solvents, and polishes contain paraffin, mineral oil, diethylene glycol, perchloroethylene, or butyl cellosolve—all of which are derived from petroleum. Extraction and refinement of this nonrenewable resource contribute to air and water pollution.

Phosphates/EDTA: Phosphates, which have traditionally been used in detergents to soften water and increase cleaning power, encourage algae growth in waterways, depriving marine life of oxygen. EDTA, a common substitute for phosphates, degrades slowly in the environment.
Phthalates: Manufacturers of many cleaning products use phthalates to prolong their products’ scent. However, these chemicals have been linked to cancer and disease of the reproductive system in laboratory animals.

Antibacterial agents: The use of cleansers containing antibacterials such as triclosan and benzalkonium chloride could be contributing to an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, resulting in human illnesses that are more difficult to treat.

Chlorine bleach: This popular whitener and disinfectant can harm the environment by contributing to the formation of organochlorines (chlorine-carbon compounds) such as the chlorofluorocarbons that damage Earth’s ozone layer.

Choose “greener” alternatives. It’s possible to give your house an adequate cleaning without harmful chemicals. Look for products that contain environmentally friendly ingredients such as:

Citrus- and plant-based oils. Natural oils can be used as degreasers (orange, lemon), disinfectants (tea tree, eucalyptus), and polishes (olive). They also freshen the air at the same time.

Sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium citrate, and sodium silicate. These compounds work like phosphates and EDTA to soften water, but without the harmful impact.

Enzymes. Natural drain openers use digesting bacteria and enzymes to eat through most clogs.
Non-chlorine bleach. These products use oxygen to whiten and brighten clothes.

Bag Facts!!

Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute.

According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion.)

Californians throw away 294,000,000 pounds of plastic bags every year, or 147,000 tons - enough waste to circle the planet over 250 times.

In the State of California, 600 plastic bags are thrown away every second.

Some estimate a plastic bag may take one thousand years to decompose. That means a bag thrown away during the crusades, the birth of Constantine, or at the signing of the Magna Carta would just be finishing its decomposition now.

86% of all known species of sea turtles have had reported problems of entanglement or ingestion of marine debris.

In the North Pacific Gyre, the mass of plastic is 6 times greater than the mass of plankton.

If Californians cut their plastic bag waste in half, it would save over two thousand barrels of oil a day( over 800,000 barrels a year) and keep 73,000 tons of rubbish out of our landfills.

In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans.

Only 10 to 15 percent of paper bags and 1 to 3 percent of plastic bags are recycled.

Paper bags take up more than twice the landfill space than plastic varietals do. Also, their greater weight and volume requires more trucks and gasoline for hauling than plastic.

Tree regrowth cannot keep up with the current logging rate.

It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

Paper sacks generate 70% more air pollutants than plastic bags.

It is estimated that between one to three percent of plastic bags produced worldwide end up as litter. Remember, generation numbers are estimated between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year.

In the 1980s it was estimated that plastic rubbish caused the deaths of over 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles a year in the North Pacific alone.

Less than 5 percent of US shoppers use canvas, cotton or mesh bags. Please change that number by choosing reusable when you shop.

Did You Know...

~Globally, nine of the 10 hottest years in recorded history have occurred since 1990.

~Today's atmosphere contains 32 per cent more carbon dioxide than it did at the start of the industrial era.

~Global warming increases severe weather conditions, leading to melting glaciers, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires.