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Green Your Home Today
By Mellenie Runion, Marketing

According to the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. generates about 208 million tons of municipal solid waste a year. That's more than 4 pounds per person, per day.

Recycle, Donate, and Reuse. The biggest thing you can start doing is reduce the amount of your weekly trash. Recycle as much as your area will accept. Recycling just one glass bottle saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb for 4 hours. If you have items that could be used by someone else donate them. I am amazed at how quickly things will be picked up when I place something outside marked as "FREE". Why send something to the landfill when someone else could actually use it. Don't forget to reuse items. Wine bottles make great slow release watering cans for plants. Just fill with water and push in the dirt upside down. Glass jars make wonderful drinking glasses and the lids keep drinks from getting sand in them at the beach.

Update Appliances. Appliance use comprises about 18% of a typical home’s total energy bill. If your appliances are beyond 10 years old, the EPA suggests replacing them with energy-efficient models that bear their "Energy Star" logo. Energy Star-qualified appliances use 10%-50% less energy and water than standard models. According to the Energy Star site, if just one in 10 homes used energy-efficient appliances, it would be equivalent to planting 1.7 million new acres of trees.

Once you have your new energy-efficient refrigerator, consider buying local organic foods. Pesticides, transportation and packaging are all things to consider when stocking up in the kitchen. Buying local cuts down on the fossil fuels burned to get the food to you while organic foods are produced without potentially harmful pesticides and fertilizers.

Watch the Temps. Almost half a home's energy consumption is heating and cooling. 

• Turn down the thermostat in cold weather and keep it higher in warm weather. Each degree below 68°F (20°C) during colder weather saves 3%-5% more heating energy, while keeping your thermostat at 78°F in warmer weather will save you energy and money.

• Clean your furnace's air filter monthly during heavy usage.

• Consider a new furnace. Today's furnaces are about 25% more efficient than they were in the 1980s.

• To keep your home cool in warmer weather, shade your south and west windows and delay heat-generating activities such as dishwashing until evening.

• Use ceiling fans instead of air conditioners.

Save Water.

• Put an aerator on all household faucets and cut your annual water consumption by 50%. 
  
• Install a rain barrel at the end of your gutters.
   
• Capture the water you run while heating up the piles in a container, this can be as much as 2 gallons everyday.
  
• Install a low-flow toilet. They use only 1.6 gallons per flush, compared to 3.5 gallons per flush for pre-1994 models. If you have an older model, adjust your float valve to admit less water into the toilet's tank. 

You don't need new products to save water, behavioral changes also add up quickly: using a broom instead of the garden hose to clean your driveway can save 80 gallons of water and turning the water off when you brush your teeth will save 4.5 gallons each time.

Clean Green. Stop buying household cleaners that are potentially toxic to both you and the environment. Buy green cleaning products or make your own cleaning products. Use simple ingredients such as plain soap, water, baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), vinegar, washing soda (sodium carbonate), lemon juice and borax and save money at the same time.

Change the Light. Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) use 66% less energy than a standard incandescent bulb and last up to 10 times longer. Replacing a 100-watt incandescent bulb with a 32-watt CFL can save $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb. **Please recycle your CFL's at the local hardware store, as they contain toxic mercury.

Save Trees. You can buy "tree-free" 100% post-consumer recycled paper for everything from greeting cards to toilet paper. Paper with a high post-consumer waste content uses less virgin pulp and keeps more waste paper out of landfills. Other paper reduction tips:

• Remove yourself from junk mail lists. Each person will receive almost 560 pieces of junk mail this year, which adds up nationally to 4.5 million tons, according to the Native Forest Network. About 44% of all junk mail is thrown in the trash, unopened and unread, and ends up in a landfill. To stem the flow into your own home, contact the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service at P.O. Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512, or download the online form. Opt out of credit card or insurance offers at OptOutPrescreen.com or by calling 888-567-8688, a single automated phone line maintained by the major credit bureaus.

• Buy unbleached paper. Many paper products, including some made from recycled fibers, are bleached with chlorine. The bleaching process can create harmful byproducts, including dioxins, which accumulate in our air, water and soil over time.
  
• At the store, for the paper or plastic question you want neither. Carry your own cloth bag to the store and avoid using store bags. If you have 3 items, you don't need a bag.

Hardwood Floors. Opt for bamboo. Bamboo is considered an environmentally friendly flooring material due to its high yield and the relatively fast rate at which it replenishes itself. It takes just four to six years for bamboo to mature, compared to 50-100 years for typical hardwoods. Just be sure to look for sources that use formaldehyde-free glues.

Reduce Plastics. Each year, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags, from grocery, trash bags, sandwich bags, and pretty much every single thing you buy is sealed in plastic. Unfortunately, plastics are made from petroleum, the processing and burning of which is considered one of the main contributors to global warming, according to the EPA. In addition, sending plastics to the landfill also increases greenhouse gases. Reduce, re-use and recycle your plastics to combat global warming.

Paint. Conventional paints contain solvents, toxic metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can cause smog, ozone pollution and indoor air quality problems with negative health effects, according to the EPA. These unhealthy ingredients are released into the air while you’re painting, while the paint dries and even after the paints are completely dry. Opt instead for zero or low VOC paint, made by most major paint manufacturers today.

Garden Green. Compost provides a full complement of soil organisms and the balance of nutrients needed to maintain the soil’s well-being without the chemicals of synthetic fertilizers. And healthy soil minimizes weeds and is key to producing healthy plants, which in turn can prevent many pest problems from developing to begin with.

• Use native plants as much as possible. Native plants have adapted over time to the local environment and support native animals. They also use less water and require less of your attention.

• Focus on perennials. Gardening with plants that live for more than one year means you don't have to pay for new plants every year; it also saves the resources used commercially to grow annuals.

• Stop using chemical pesticides. American households use 80 million pounds of pesticides each year, according to the EPA. These toxic chemicals escape gardens and concentrate in the environment, posing threats to animals and people, especially children. A better alternative is to try a variety of organic and physical pest control methods, such as using diatomaceous earth to kill insects, pouring boiling water on weeds or using beer to bait slugs. You can find more non-chemical pest control tips at the National Audubon Society's site.
  
• Consider using a push mower and skip the trip to the gym.

Change is never easy but small change can make a real difference in the world. Make your first small change today.

Residential Phone Packages - More Than You Need?
By Patrick McGugan, VP Operations

People often purchase telecom services in bundles because that is the way they are presented. I often wonder who is really winning in this scenario?

A residential service package may consist of local service, local and long distance, local, or LD and local features.

If you are a casual user of long distance service, don’t buy a package that includes unlimited long distance because you will not use enough minutes at .03 -.04 cpm to justify the increased monthly fees for the long distance package. The equation is simply: the increased cost of the package divided by the cost per minute of LD.

Example:
$15.00 / .04 = 375 minutes, so if I average less than 375 minutes of long distance a month, I am paying for service I don’t even use.

Feature review is another savings opportunity. There is a $20.00 difference in the base monthly fee between the lowest and highest cost packages. The basic package typically does not include features such as call waiting or voicemail.  The premium package typically includes features you never use. The challenge is finding the balance between what you actually will use in an available package.

Customers are usually willing to pay $5.00 more a month for caller ID and voicemail, but may baulk at $20.00 more a month for caller ID, voicemail and call intercept.  However, in order to get call intercept in a package, you have to upgrade to the highest level which includes many features. You may save monthly by getting a basic package and adding a desired feature “a la cart”.

The bottom line is make sure you pay attention to your options and do the math before you sign a service agreement.

It's summer time - enjoy great outdoors.

Every night should be dinner out night. Forget driving to a restaurant, make dinner at home and eat outside in the middle of your yard or in the park.

Take a walk with the kids and the dog. Pitch a tent and sleep outside in your neighborhood.

This summer, enjoy all the wonderful qualities of your family, friends, neighborhood, and the warm winds of summer.

From everyone at TeleBright, have a wonderful 4th of July!

Channel Partners Conference & Expo
Boston MA
August 18 - 20, 2008
Booth #2049
Contact us for a FREE pass.

Our blog is available for your thoughts and messages. We are posting messages as news becomes available during each month. You can find our blog from the Leadership page on the left side. Or the direct link is http://www.telebright.blogspot.com.