[FAREWELL, MY SUBARU]

REDUCING YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

Easy ways to go green without becoming an organic goat rancher

• Unplug your appliances when not in use. Did you know that you TV and computer draw electricity even when turned off? Take the plug out of the wall and stop that phantom flow!
• Compost your kitchen scraps under your sink. It's easy to compost your kitchen scraps right under your sink with earthworms. Check out this tutorial on how to make you own worm bin.
• Use your compost to grow some food Even if you don't have access to a patch of dirt, it's easy to start a balcony container garden or even grow veggies indoors.
• What you don't grow, buy locally. Food Miles: Background and Marketing, a report written in 2008 by an NCAT research specialist, says that "Of all the energy consumed by the [US] food system, only about 20% goes towards production; the remaining 80% is associated with processing, transport, home refrigeration and preparation." Help cut down on fossil fuel use and support your local farmers by buying local produce. Ask for local produce in your grocery, or visitlocalharvest.org to find a local farmer's market.
• Make your own grocery bags. Every where I go, I see reusable shopping bags for sale. At first, I thought, "Great! No more icky plastic grocery bags for me!" Now my thoughts turn to all of the energy used to make them. What if we made our own out of reclaimed materials? How cool would that be? Check out this tutorial on how to make one from an old t-shirt or this one on how to make one from a bird seed bag.
• Conserve water. Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth or wash your hands. Save the bath water you waste while waiting for it to heat up by letting it run into a bucket, and use it to water your plants. Install a low flush toilet. Install a water catchment system for your garden or lawn watering needs. Take a nave shower. There are so many ways to easily conserve water. Check out wateruseitwisely.com for 100 ways to do just that.
• Get to know baking soda. Non toxic baking soda makes a great substitute for many nasty household cleaning agents. Reader's Digest has on online list of seven pages worth of things to do with the stuff. Did you know that baking soda can help you make a fluffy omelet? Neither did I.
• Wash your clothes in cold water Something like 85 percent of the power used to wash clothes is for heating the water. Wash in cold water whenever possible, then hang your clothes to dry for even further energy savings. Don't have a clothes line or live in a place that doesn't allow you to hang clothes outside? Try setting up a laundry drying rack in your bathtub.
• Green your yard. Choose native plants that don't require extra watering. Grow clover in you lawn; it's a nitrogen fixer and it requires less maintenance than grass. Plant (native) deciduous trees on the south side of your house. During the winter when they are bare, they let sunlight through to warm your house. In the summer their leaves shade the house, helping to keep it cool. Learn about low water lawn alternatives, such as xeriscaping. Contact your local extension service for more ideas.
• Check out your local library What could be greener than sharing your favorite books, movies and magazines with your entire neighborhood? The library is a great resource to not only learn about going green, but to actually live it!