Green Tips for April

1. Make your own Soap. Learn to make your own soap, chemical residues from non-natural soap go down our drains and impact the environment. Making an all natural soap can be fun and will be better for the environment. Check out TeachSoap.com to learn how to make homemade soap.  

2. Reduce your use of Styrofoam cups and take out-containers. Some studies show that Styrofoam will take thousands of years to break down. Instead of using it, try using paper cups and plates. These are recyclable.

3. Eat what you buy, buy what you need. Many people buy more than what they will eat and waste money and food. Plan out meals a head of time and only buy what you are planning on serving/eating. If you have leftovers use them for tomorrow's lunch or freeze them for another day.

4. Turn down your stove element. When the water starts boiling turn down the element. The water that is roaring boiling is the same temperature as light boiling water. It only requires a small amount of energy to keep water boiling.

5. Switch to digtial music. Not only is it easier to download digital music, but it also saves on plastics, packaging and transport costs, materials and Green House Gas emissions.

6. Reuse office materials. Keep bubble wrap and Styrofoam "peanuts" that can be reused. They may be helpful if you are moving, or doing arts and crafts with kids!

7. Steam clean the microwave. Instead of using chemical cleaners place a mug of water in the microwave and boil on high for three to four minutes. The steam will soften stuck on food, then it will be easy to wipe up with a reusable cloth.

8. Practice green financial planning. When it comes to planning future spending, use your money to buy into green energy investments.

9. Bookworms - try reading e-books! Book-sized digital readers are becoming more affordable, these are easy to carry around and contain dozens of books. This reduces the use of paper, packaging and transport of traditional book publishing.

10. Plan a low carbon wedding. If you are planning on tying the knot, plan for a low-carbon or carbon neutral wedding. For ideas on how to do that, Google "low-carbon wedding".

11. Visit your local recycling centre. Even if you have curbside recycling, visit your local centre and see if they take additional materials such as solvents and paints or reusable building supplies.

12. Wash bottles, cans and jars before recycling. Leaving food remnants in recyclables risks contaminating the rest of the recycling. This could force the entire lot to be thrown out.