Chi's Tips to Save Green This Summer!

So here are a few of my favorite ideas for the summer savings on money and your carbon footprint. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle everyday in every way you can! It saves lives!

1. Turn off lights every time you leave the room/the house.

2. Put 2 pitchers of water for human drinking and for pet bowls in the refrigerator to have super cool water at hand without running the tap and wasting the runoff.

3. Make sure all your laundry loads are full or if not, at least choose a lower water fill level on the machine for small delicate loads. And only use cold/cold and warm/cold cycles for normal laundry, never hot/hot, as it is a huge waste of heating energy unless REALLY necessary for germ-killing in a certain load. Double check all controls to make sure its washing and drying in the most efficient way and choose the shortest cycles possible. Just hang-dry delicates .

4. Keep a stash of either permanent grocery bags in your car or grab last trip's bundle as you go out the door to the store again and reuse those until they are worn. You will save SO many bags and those ones everyone has you don't really travel with but love to keep can have a second life as store bags for all your errands. Just don't let mom or dad forget to say, "I have my own bag, thank you..." before the eager checker stuffs their precious stuff in a new bag.

5. Scrape plates clean right after eating and put in dishwasher, skip the sink rinse to save a ton of tap water. Most dishwashers will get off small amounts of food if you don't let it dry on for days! Make loads as full as possible, but cycle regularly to ensure clean dishes.

6. Try not to open the oven to peek! It can lower internal cooking temp by 25 degrees and lengthen or change expected cook time and results on baked goods. Repair that broken light bulb and just use the internal light to see how things are cooking!

7. Don't use the oven at all for small meals or if you are cooking light alone...try the microwave to steam veggies or cook other dishes. Use the internet for modern and tasty, realistic micro recipes that you may actually eat. Or just use up those frozen meals taking up room in your freezer and scrape out the ice and lower the setting a bit...your frozen things won't get so icy and your bill may reflect a savings over the month and year.

8. Make sure your tires are properly and evenly inflated to save gasoline in your car.

9. Ask mom and dad to save up old plastic bread, chip, cereal and other plastic bags to use for doggie doo-doo pick up. If some have holes or are thin, double or triple up and use anyway...at least you are giving them one more life and saving the money spent on doo bags at the pet store and ones at the beach for those who don't save theirs or when your baby decides to have a bigger than normal emergency! Most food related bags are a great fit for smaller hands, so have the kids pitch in and save their foil lined snack bags in their lunch box each day and use for help with pet cleanup after school!

10. Don't forget to switch your fan blade directional switch to summer mode to make sure that cool air is flowing to the pets and people in your home that will be panting as the planet warms up for the season. Keep Cool!

There are so many ways we can all save the planet and some money at the same time. Just think, with all the green you save, all the pets can have new eco safe toys and natural treats this summer!

xoxo Chi