Reduce: May 2008 Archives

Eleanor writes, "go paperless for things like bank statements and bills," and its true: you can cut down drastically on your paper use by choosing to get electronic bills and statements for utilities and services. Many are starting to offer incentives to make the switch like reductions in fees.

Dave writes: "Put a bucket under your shower and collect the water that would otherwise be going down the drain as you wait for the hot water to make it through the pipes. Then, take the bucket full of clean water and pour it in your washing machine. At week's end, you'll have saved your washing machine from having to fill up its first tank full!"

Another use for this otherwise wasted water is to save it to water houseplants, although its best to let it sit in the watering can for a little while so that chlorine and other chemicals introduced through municipal water purification can evaporate.

Wren writes: "Drying clothes on the line.  It only takes a few minutes and it is a huge savings.  For the more hard core, you can even do this in the winter by hanging them around your house (which is great for places that get very dry during the winter.)"

Wren writes: "Save up all the catalogs you receive for a month or two.  Then, one afternoon, call all the ones you no longer wish to receive and ask to be removed from their lists.  By not getting catalogs, you're doing two good things: saving paper and ink to have the catalogs produced and saving all the transportation costs of having them delivered. (They are surprisingly heavy)"

On the same theme, Hannah suggests: "Use an eco-friendly mail service, like greendimes which will stop your junk mail and take you off those catalog mailing services, thus saving tons and tons of paper."

Packing a lunch saves time and money, but its also been shown that people tend to eat healthier food in more appropriate portions when they pack what they have prepared at home. Invest in a few good pieces of Tupperware or other reusable food container so that you avoid sending a lot of plastic bags and paper cups to the trash bin!