We are in the market for new checks, and I was surprised to see a green option. What makes them green? They are printed on recycled paper.

 The company I found is called Check Gallery. I’m glad they offer green checks, although I’m not so sure the need for checks will be around that much longer.

I have several friends who use online checks, which sounds greener, but banks then print those checks and mail them out. And I doubt they use recycled paper.

What do you think? Still use old-timey checks? Prefer e-checks? Thinks checks will soon be obsolete?

The holidays are officially upon us, and many of us will be shipping some of our holiday presents. And even the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been getting in on the green movement!

The USPS has a Cradle to Cradle Certification for the environmentally friendly design of its stamps, Priority Mail and Express Mail supplies, as well as many of its ReadyPost products.

The Postal Service also has 43,000  alternative fuel-capable vehicles, including 3-wheeled electric vehicles with zero gas emissions that cost 2 cents per mile. They haven’t my area yet, but I know my 3-year-old would love to see that puttering around our street.

USPS has secure recycle bins in more than 10,000 of its lobbies. This makes it very easy for people with P.O. boxes to recycle their junk mail. Last year the post office helped keep 56,000 tons of paper out of landfills last year. 

I’ve always shipped with the post office for the convenience, but it’s cool to know about their green shipping practices.

America Recycles Day is Monday, November 15th. This event, which began in 1997, is a  nationally recognized day to promote recycling programs across the United States.

Do you have any big plans for this upcoming Monday? Is something going on in your community?

This year’s theme is “I Recycle.”

Keep America Beautiful’s website has a spot about organizing events that allows you to organize an event or find one to join in your community.

You can also sign the America Recycles Day pledge.

There aren’t any events in my area. Recycling is fairly new and several people don’t participate. I’m going to download the PDF files to send a letter about RecycleBank to the local garbage company. RecycleBank is a program that gives you points based on the weight of what you recycle. The points can be traded in for gift cards, coupons, etc. That might be a good incentive to encourage others to recycle more.

Today marks the second annual Blog Action Day. It’s an event to unite bloggers across the world to post about the same issue on the same day.

This year’s issue is water.

Living in the United States, it’s hard to imagine that 1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water.

It’s hard to imagine that people die just because of a lack of access to clean drinking water.

In honor of Blog Action Day 2010, I’m going to try to be extremely vigilant about not wasting water. How will you save water today?

Here’s an easy way to go a little green and save a little money at the same time — adjust your ink and paper usage while printing.

A few months ago, The University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, found that it could save thousands of dollars switching from Arial font to Century Gothic, which uses 30 percent less ink.

But, when switching fonts, you may also want to adjust your font size. Century Gothic is wider than Arial. This means that it can use more paper.

If you really want to cut down on the ink used while printing, download Ecofont. This free program shoots tiny holes into letters during printing, and reduces ink use by 25 percent.

While switching your font and font size, you might also look into changing the printer settings on your computer. Switch to gray-scale as the default and check the lower quality resolution.

Another easy way to cut down on ink and paper usage when printing is to hit the print friendly option when printing from the internet or your inbox.

If that’s not an option, copy the text that you want to print into Notepad, then print from there. This way you don’t end up printing pictures, ads and internet addresses. It’s not pretty, but it uses a lot less paper.

If you are printing coupons and have to print in color and can’t copy the text, save the extra pages that come out with only a web address along the top. Put those pages back in your printer so you can use them again.

Do you have any other suggestions for cutting down on ink and paper usage while printing?

A while back I did a piece on green dry cleaning, trying to find as green an option as possible.

I received an email after the piece went up about Solvair. This cleaning process uses a biodegradable cleaning fluid and recycled carbon dioxide (CO2) to rinse and dry your clothes.

The cleaning fluid contains dipropylene glycol n-butyl ether (DPnB), which is environmentally friendly and found in many green cleaning products. This fluid is purified and re-used several times by the system, which means it creates half as much waste as traditional dry cleaning systems. And the CO2 is reclaimed from other sources.

Since the process doesn’t involve heat, it’s gentler on your clothes.

Not only does is it more gentle on your clothes, the system also cuts down on the hazardous waste and waste water created by traditional dry cleaners.

Sounds like a win/win solution, doesn’t it? In 2010, the Sierra Club recommended that if you must dry clean, find a cleaner that uses Solvair technology.

This process is offered at several dry cleaners nationwide. The price varies by cleaners.

We’ve been talking about ways to help out the Gulf Coast, and one big way to help is to cut down on our dependence on oil.

Every president since Richard Nixon has pledged to cut the nation’s dependence on oil, but it hasn’t yet happened.

Now you can help encourage President Obama to cut our nation’s dependence on oil by signing this letter from the Environmental Defense Action Fund.

It only takes a minute, and could help encourage our leaders to really make an effort to switch to cleaner energies.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill continues to gush into the Gulf Coast, killing sea creatures and wildlife and damaging the area.

Last week we wrote about how you should keep up with what lawmakers are doing to remedy the situation. You should also write your representatives and senators, and local lawmakers as well.

Last week, the Gulf Coast Relief Telethon raised more than $1.8 million to repair the coast.

You can call the Deepwater Horizon Response Volunteer Request Line at 1-866-448-5816.

There are two websites for people who want to volunteer in Louisiana —  Louisiana Gulf Response Volunteer Program and Volunteer Louisiana. In Mississippi try Volunteer Mississippi. There’s also a Volunteer Florida and a Serve Alabama.

There are lots of environmental groups and organizations that welcome donations for their efforts on the coast. Please be careful when making donations. Make sure that the organization you pick is legitimate.

I’ve been frugal (ahem, cheap) most of my life. When we started to put an effort into going green several years ago, I realized that some of my cheap practices were also good for the environment.

The discovery came at a good time for us. We had recently moved to a big city where most of our neighbors and co-workers were decidedly not thrifty. Having money, or more realistically, acting like you have lots of money was de riguer.

Times have certainly changed, haven’t they? I read the most interesting article in the July/August edition of AARP The Magazine this weekend titled “The Leap to Cheap.”

Author Jeff Yeager interviewed several cheapskates that would put my thriftiness to shame. The gist of the article was that the more money we try to make, and more things we buy, the less time we spend enjoying life.

One of the most interesting things I learned from the article is that the U.S. used to have a national “Thrift Week.” It began in 1916 and ran through 1966.

Thanks to our current economic crisis, frugality and thrift have come back in a big, big way. 

What’s green about being frugal? People are buying less stuff, which means less waste is generated. People aren’t buying gas-guzzlers and driving them all over the place. People are eating out less. More of us are growing our own gardens and spending more time with each other.

This newfound thrift has even spurred a movement to bring back Thrift Week. They even have a facebook page.

I think this is all great, but Yeager warns in his article, once the economy improves, many of us will drop our newfound thriftiness and go back to our regular way of consuming. What do you think? Do you think thriftiness will go back out of style?

Begreenminded now has an easier, and shorter facebook address! It’s www.facebook.com/BeGreenMinded.