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?

Last week I wrote about how I wanted to get involved in green initiatives in my hometown, but had no idea how to get started.

Lucky for me, some others in our church had a similar idea. We’re starting small — washing dishes after Wednesday night meals, instead of using disposable styrofoam plates and plastic utensils.

We are new at this church, and I was surprised at the church’s willingness to go green. At our other church, one of the pastors constantly talked about how global warming was a hoax and there was no need to recycle or do anything green. I assumed this was the belief held by most church leaders, and was thrilled to find that wasn’t the case at our new church.

A few months ago, I read an article in one of my mom’s magazines about several religious leaders — from a variety of religions and countries — and their work to go green. The motive for most was that the Bible teaches us to take care of the earth. Many also mentioned the financial benefits of going green.

I was very encouraged by that article.

We are starting small at our church, but I’m hoping to be able to implement more green initiatives — not having paper bulletins every Sunday, emailing the Church’s weekly correspondence to the people who have email accounts, switching to CFLs, etc.

I realize that washing dishes on Wednesday night is a small start, but I’m hopeful that our effort will cause ripples throughout the church population and our community.

Have any of you started a green initiatives in your community? Did you start small?

When I started becoming more of a health nut, I stopped drinking coffee in the morning and started drinking tea more frequently.  I am a a little emphatic about it now because I loved that they combined taste with health benefits.  I had echinacea  tea, detox tea, ginger tea, and others that I can barely remember.  At one point I had 8 different varieties (yes, I was that obsessed!) 

I usually like to buy Yogi Teas because I like their tastes and health options.  My favorite one is Skin Detox, because it helps clear up my skin.  But once I bought some Celestial Seasonings tea, and noticed the difference in packaging.  Each Yogi Tea bag had a wrapper, a string, and a tag.  Celestial seasonings only had the small pouch that carried the tea; there was no tag or string or wrapping.  Yogi Tea I have only found at natural food stores (or in the organic section of the grocery store if they have any), while Celestial seasonings seems to be widely available at any grocery store.  I read the side of their box and realized the reason there is less packaging is because the company wanted to be more sustainable.  I think it’s a bit odd that Yogi Tea, which is usually mostly organic, would be wasteful with unnecessary packaging.

Anyway, being the “GreenMinded” person that I am, I started to read into options to be more sustainable in my tea-drinking habit.  I never even flirted the thought of buying myself loose leaf tea and using my own metal “infuser”, similar to what I found here.  That uses virtually no packaging, which is the “greenest” of the options.  Of course, you can also buy teas similar to those of Celestial Seasonings: no wrapping, no strings, no tags. 

Next time you’re at the grocery store or natural food store, look in the bulk section.  Last time I visited my favorite organic store, I found that they had loose leaf tea that was way less expensive than the packaged loose leaf tea, even though it was also organic.

I must say, I still do enjoy a couple of my Yogi Teas.  I haven’t been able to find certain benefits in any other brands (i.e., my Skin Detox tea).  So the way I try to make it “greener” is by using a trick my thrifty Polish grandmother taught me: reusing tea bags!  I usually drink my Skin Detox tea in the morning, and then store it in an airtight container.  I usually stick the container in the fridge because I am paranoid about bacteria growth in the “danger zone.”  Another tip I should mention is the first time you use the tea bag, make sure that you do not brew your tea for too long-maybe 3 minutes maximum.  I know that I like my tea stronger; however, if I brewed my first tea bag as long as I generally do, the next time around my tea would be very weak.  This reusing tea technique also helps save money, because my box of tea will last me 3 or 4 weeks instead of 2 (depending on how much of the tea I drink in one day).

Now that the schoolyear has begun (at least in our neck of the woods,) my thoughts have started to turn to ways I can spread the word about being greenminded.

Whenever the opportunity comes up in regular conversations, I’m quick to start talking about easy and not-so-easy ways to go green. And most people seem fairly receptive to my thoughts and ideas. I’ve only met with resistance a few times. (How can you not believe in recycling? It’s not like Santa Clause or Sasquatch…)

But I would like to try to make a green difference in our town. There are lots of areas that could use improving, and the city government is even working on a few.

That said, I would appreciate some advice on how to start and which projects I should start with.

Here are some of my current ideas:

• Talk to local restaurants about having recycling bins placed by garbage cans.
• Get schools to put recycling bins up. (I’ve been informed by teachers in my family that they tried to put recycling bins up at the high school a few years ago and the kids ignored them.)
• Talk to schools about idling buses.
• Talk to school leaders about the way that green innovations could save them money in the long run.
• Talk to city leaders about plans for bike paths. (The city planner has talked about this, but is meeting with financial and public resistance.)
• Talk to churches about recycling, cutting down on the printing of church bulletins (not likely?) and finding ways to creatively conserve energy.

I know I’ve had more ideas, but they fly in and out of my head on a regular basis. If I don’t write them down, they won’t stay with me for long.

Do you have any thoughts or better ideas? I’m a little nervous about this, and will probably start small and then try to expand my message. I would really appreciate any advice.

Ever thought about canning? It seems like lots of people are these days. Coming from the south, both sets of my grandparents grew pretty big gardens and canned lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, and beets. They also made lots of jams and jellys.

My parents and their siblings did not can. And my cousins and I never had any interest in it, either. I guess it’s a generational thing. But last year, some of my friends started talking about canning. This year, even more were looking into it.

And in the past few months I’ve read several blog posts and articles about canning and it’s growing popularity. Some cite the rising price of produce and the recession for the rise. Others cite the increase in gardening and slowfood for the cause. My interest stems from a desire to do more things for myself and my family. There’s a sense of accomplishment.

Canning seems like a pretty green practice. Yes, you have to get glass jars, but you can re-use those each season. You do have to replace the flat gum-binder seals each time, though. I have seen Ball jars at several stores this year, and many are selling canning sets.

But you don’t have to get one of those. If you have several large pots and some tongs to pick up the hot glass jars, you should be in business. There are several tomato-canning instructionals online, but I’m thinking about using one from pickyourown.org. It sounds like you have to do a good bit of boiling, but it doesn’t sound hard.

Are you canning this year? What are your reasons? Any suggestions?

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.

A study recently came out concerning household cleaners and toddlers. While the number of kids age 5 and under exposed to toxic household chemicals dropped by almost 50 percent in the last two decades, the number of injuries is still high.

Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital studied national data on 267,000 children ages 5 and under who were treated in emergency rooms for injuries with household cleaners between 1990 and 2006.

The study, found in the September issue of Pediatrics, showed that household cleaning product related injuries for kids 5 and under dropped 46 percent to almost 12,000 in 2006.

Researchers say that child-resistant packaging seems to partly responsible for the drop. But injuries from spray bottle cleaners did not drop, and the highest percentage of exposures (40 percent) came from spray bottles. The biggest reason is that spray bottles are harder to child-proof.

According to the study, cleaning products are in the top five causes of pediatric poisoning exposure, and bleach is the most common culprit.

Other than child-proof tops and keeping chemicals locked and up high, how can we keep them out of little hands and mouths?

The easiest thing to do is take them out of your home. My biggest reason for going green more than 3 years ago was the birth of our son. I was so worried that he would get into some random cleaner and get hurt. We switched to a vinegar/water cleaning solution, adding baking soda when scrubbing was needed. But we do still have some more heavy- duty cleaners in our house, like bleach.

After reading this story, I moved the bleach to the shelf over the washing machine, and plan to put a latch on our kitchen cabinet that houses the dishwashing detergent.

But if you aren’t into using those products, look for products with the Green Products Innovation Institute (GPII) seal.

The institute opened earlier this year in California and is meant to act as a clearinghouse for chemicals in the state — certifying and developing standards around chemicals.

The goal is to eliminate toxic chemicals by encouraging businesses to create products that are safe for people and the environment.

What do you do to keep chemicals out of your home?

When I temporarily became a vegetarian I quickly became aware of how valuable beans were to a diet.  Cheap, convenient, and nutritious.  I use to hate beans a few years back and there are quite a few people who also dislike beans. I discovered that my dislike of beans were usually because of texture, like kidney beans for example…Blech.  But as I matured, I discovered I didn’t mind the texture much if they had the right complementing flavors.  I wouldn’t even go near kidney beans until I went to the DC Chili Cook-Off a few years ago, where I realized that they tasted perfectly with a little bit of fiesty American flavor.  The right amount of cayenne pepper, tomatoes and beef creates a great balance of flavor: spicy, acidic and hearty.

Nearly one billion tourists travel around the globe every year – many by plane or car. Can you imagine the carbon emissions?

In an article on the website The Independent Traveler, Ed Hewitt compares car travel to airplane travel. According to the article, “… if the average American drives 10,000 – 15,000 miles each year, it takes only a trip to Europe for a West Coaster, a trip to Hawaii for an East Coaster or a couple of cross-country flights to do as much damage (or more) as you do during an entire year of commuting and cruising in your car.”

Wow. So, what do you do if you want to get away, but want to do it in a green way?

Hewitt writes about buying carbon offsetting, where you donate money to green organizations or companies to plant trees (or something along those lines) to offset the damage  your flight will do to the environment. This article is not going to get into carbon offsetting, instead we’re going to discuss greener vacation ideas.

• Stay local. This is the easiest (and possibly the least appealing) vacation idea for many. See if there are any fun events going on in your town, or in a town close by. Try something you did as a child, but haven’t done since. Get out and hike. If there’s something touristy, why not try it out and see why people travel to your area. 
• Travel to a nearby hotspot. If you don’t live in a big city, there’s usually one or two within a couple of hours’ drive.  Or, if you live in a big city, there’s usually a small, quieter town that’s not too far off the beaten path. If you do drive somewhere, look for green activities — walking around the city, hiking trails, biking, etc.
• If you do live in a more metropolitan area and would really like to get away, look into something like the BoltBus. These buses have an that cuts nitrous oxide emissions in half.  Most of the cities that have BoltBus are in the northeast – NYC, D.C., Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. The fares start at $1. The buses are also equipped with WiFi.
• Consider camping — the kind where you take a sleeping bag and build a tent. It’s a great way to experience the great outdoors, it’s cheap, and most of the activities are also pretty green — fishing, hiking, biking, exploring, etc. (If you know of a green mosquito repellent that works, please let me know!)
• If you’re going to drive somewhere and you own a gas guzzler, think about renting a hybrid. The money you save on gas will probably pay for the price of the rental.

These are just a few tips. Obviously, if you do go somewhere and stay in a hotel, put out the little sign that lets them know you don’t need new sheets and towels for everyday of your stay. And look for chains that are eco-friendly.

Any other green vacation suggestions? Please comment and let us know about them!

We’ve wanted to get a rain barrel for a while now. And last month we found one for a great price, so we somehow squeezed it into our small trunk and looked forward to our next big rain.

Installation was pretty easy. We had to put an S-connector onto a gutter, and build up a little platform with spare bricks. Shortly after we set up the barrel, we had a great rain. It was so heavy that our 50-gallon rain barrel overflowed!

We were able to water our raised beds and some planters for a week with that rain. And just as we were running low, it rained heavily again.

The water pressure the first couple of days after the rain is great. It does get low toward the end, but it still usable.

I was initially worried about mosquitoes (our backyard is full of them!) but there’s a screen on the top of the barrel that keeps mosquitoes out.

Not only is this barrel saving us money, it’s also saving our area water. Our area hasn’t issued a water notice this summer, but they usually have to every summer.