Archive for May, 2009

Today, we are going to take a closer look at the fifth tip from 5 Eco Tips for Summer and go over using natural bug sprays, lotions and herbals. One of the main reasons that it is a good idea to treat yourself and those you love with natural organic bug repellent is due to health.

The main ingredient in most commercial bug repellents is called DEET. People tend to use DEET because it works but it is also a toxic chemical that you are putting your body in contact with. Essentially, when you use a product with DEET you are poisoning yourself.

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Technorati Tags: green bug repellents, green ways to get rid of bugs, organic bug spray

The third item under our previous 5 Eco Tips for Summer, is that of utilizing your local Farmer’s Markets. It’s not only what we eat collectively that has an environmental impact but also in how our food is processed and transported that leaves a carbon trail.

Eating as local as you can, just really makes sense. The less your food has to travel to get to the store, the less chemical processing it will have to go through. The further a food has to travel the more chemicals are used to keep the food “fresh” and the more oil, gasoline and manpower is extended in the transportation process.

For example, while I was living in Maine I noticed that at the local grocery store had blueberries being sold that were from Guatemala. Why the store did not carry locally grown blueberries, I have no idea but the implication of purchasing those store bought blueberries was that they would certainly be chemically treated and they also had traveled part of the world to get to the produce section of my local store.

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Technorati Tags: eat local, eat organic, farmers markets, green food tips, how to find local food

Summer is upon us and that means outdoor cooking. Whether you throw a big BBQ bash or just grill in the backyard there are a few things you can do to keep your cookout’s as green as possible. We previously mentioned that one way to have a greener Summer was to kick the charcoal to the curb and grill with propane instead, well now we’re going to explore why grilling this way is better.

First let’s take a look at what is wrong with using charcoal for your outdoor cooking. Charcoal grills contribute to ground-level ozone, spurred on when the nitrogen oxides enter the warmer seasoned weather. Now, you may not think that your little charcoal grill can have much of an impact and in theory it doesn’t but when you take the estimated 60 million Americans that grill throughout the Summer the carbon impact is much greater. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, charcoal grilling alone in the United States on the 4th of July causes the same impact as if 2,300 acres of forest land had been burned while adding 225,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Using charcoal to grill also release soot and particulate matter into your lungs and the environment.

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Technorati Tags: cooking outdoors, green grilling, propane instead of charcoal, summer BBQ

Many people choose to keep their A/C running as much as possible during the Summer months. They may leave it on when they leave the house just to have a nice cool place to come home to after work but leaving the A/C on all the time is just not a good idea. You burn excess energy, hike up your power bill and lower your body’s ability to deal with the heat outside of the home. What need to do to have a positive impact on the aforementioned issues is to turn up the heat on the unit.

One of the reasons that many A/C units run so often, is due to their temperature setting being set to low. Try setting the A/C unit temperature at around 75 degrees. This could save you up to ten dollars on your power bill. You can also try playing with the temperature setting, going even higher depending on your location and the environments weather.

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Technorati Tags: greener cooling, save money by adjusting ac, turn up ac

The sunrise wakes us earlier and the weather is heating up, making this an excellent time to choose greener ways to celebrate the coming of Summer. From lowering your cooling bill to throwing BBQ’s there are many ways to start moving towards an environmentally friendly lifestyle. Here we are going to take a look at 5 easy ways you get closer to a green season.

• Turn the A/C up a few degrees. Keeping the house cool can be a good way to beat the heat but by setting the temp a few degrees higher, you’ll save on your energy bill and keep your body at a better temperature to handle the heat when you leave the house.
• Switch to Propane. Try giving the charcoal a break and use the cleaner burning propane when you grill outdoors.
• Get your produce at the Farmer’s Market. This time of year many local framer’s markets are stocked with fresh fruit and veggies. Buy local and fresh to have a positive impact for health and the environment.
• Use natural bug sprays. Chemically laden bugs sprays can wreck havoc with your skin, nose and lungs so this year switch to an all natural bug spray to keep the pests off.
• Use natural sunscreens. Again, using a mix of chemicals that need to be reapplied every 20-30 mins can harm more than it protects. Switch to using organic sunscreens that can keep your skin healthier while helping to stave off the sunburn.

Next up, here at EcoExistent we will go over each of the five steps above post-by-post and provide more information on why these easy ways can help you have an EcoSummer.

Technorati Tags: 5 tips for a green summer, eco summer, green summer

Room at green hotel the St.Julien in Boulder,CO.

Planning to take an eco-vacation can be a bit of a challenge. Of course, the greenest way to go is by staying close to home where you’ll leave the least amount of a carbon footprint. If you are going out of town though, there is a way to search for the greenest hotels around in order to stay over in an eco-friendly way.

The Green Hotels Association is an online directory made up of eco-friendly hotels. The goal of the association is to get more hotels to go green by way of getting more clientele. The greener they can get, the more people who are environmentally conscious will want to stay and the more money the hotels will bring in. The group started back in 1993 and has since gathered various sole-proprietorship’s chain hotels as well as corporate owned hotels throughout the United States. For more information and to search through the green member hotels, visit their main web site at: www.greenhotels.com

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Technorati Tags: eco hotels, green hotels, green vacation

Being able to take a green vacation is the optimum addition to creating an environmentally friendly lifestyle. The greenest choice you can make of using vacation time is to explore the local area and keep your carbon footprint low on your time off. Because not all vacations you may take are going to be the ultimate in a green vacation, there are still things that you can do to make the experience it more green.

Click here to read full article by Laura Jean Karr at BrightHub.

Technorati Tags: green travel tips, green vacations, hike, pack light, travel green, walk

Conception Plan, Babcock Ranch- Kitson & Partners.

Babcock Ranch in Florida will be the first city created to run on solar power. The project is being developed by Kitson & Partners in Southwest Florida and is slated to be open for construction in June of 2010.

The Kitson & Partners plan scales way beyond that of just a renewable energy housing community, which has begun throughout the country. No, they are building an entire city. Almost 20,000 thousand houses will built along with retail shops, office spaces and a town center.

Being that the entire source of energy for Babcock Ranch will be solar, the developers estimate that the need will create jobs to keep the energy flowing through the town. Another selling point is in dealing with the city’s economy in that the expectations of solar power collection are high enough to be able to sell their stored power back to the local electric grid.

For more information on the new city and to stay updated with advancements in building, visit the main web site at: www.babcockranchflorida.com

Technorati Tags: babcock ranch florida, kitson and partners, solar power, solar powered city

Clayton Homes is now offering the green alternative when it comes to buying a modular home.

Two green housing plans that go by both iHouse and iHome titles are on the open market giving those who cannot afford to build green from the ground up a new option in living more energy efficient.

The newer green designs are touted as being 30% more energy efficient than regular modular housing. Options for the homes include solar panels, tankless water heaters and low-flow faucets as well as coming with the standard of non-VOC paints and a butterfly roofing system for rainwater collection.

For more information on the new iHouse and how to get a rebate for purchasing one, you can check out the following links:

Eco-friendly iHouse

Green Clayton iHouse Launches at $75K

Mother Nature Network: The $75K Green Mobile Home

Technorati Tags: clayton homes, energy efficency, green mobile home, green modular home, iHome, iHouse

If you haven’t heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is also called the Eastern Garbage Patch and or the Pacific Trash Vortex, then I would say you haven’t been paying much attention to our affect on the worlds oceans. In case you haven’t heard the garbage patch is an accumulated patch of human made garbage debris floating in the ocean that is estimated to now be twice the size of the state of Texas and contain up to 6 million tons of plastic debris.

As early as 1988, the (NOAA) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States predicted that a garbage patch would be forming based on neustonic plastic measurements taken in the North Pacific Ocean. Their research estimated that all of the debris would end up in the North Pacific Gyre and they were right because that is exactly where this massive floating mecca of garbage formed.

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Technorati Tags: eastern garbage patch, great pacific garbage pacth, ocean damage, plastic soup, plastic vortex