Lindsey, a student at the University of Maine, hosts this week’s Deans List and shares not only her Top 10 Music Videos but her Top 10 Green Tips as well.
Lindsey’s Top 10 Green Tips
1) Become a “localvore” and start going to your local farmer’s market to find fresh and delicious foods! Eating locally means that less gas is used and less exhaust is created in getting the food from the farm to your table. Eating locally also supports local farms and businesses, and, in my opinion, food I buy at the farmer’s market is better quality than the same food I could buy at the grocery store.
2) Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth! You can save up to 8 gallons of water a day by not running water while you brush in the morning and at night.
3) Don’t flush your old prescriptions! Eighty percent of U.S. streams contain small amounts of human medicines because of citizens flushing their unused prescription medications. This means that very small amounts of medicine can get into your drinking water! If you don’t want it to end up in someone’s glass, throw it away instead.
4) Bring reusable bags to the grocery store and the mall. This reduces the amount of plastic and paper bags used and produced.
5) Take the bus! Public transportation use saves the U.S. 11 million gallons of gas a day-that’s 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline a year! (www.apta.com/gap/policyresearch/…/facts_environment_09.pdf)
6) Replace incandescent lightbulbs with fluorescent bulbs and save yourself $6 a year on your electricity bill. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or CFLs, also use 75% less energy and produce 75% less heat than traditional lightbulbs (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=LB).
8) Take a trip to Goodwill! Buying secondhand clothes saves you money, helps to reduce waste that could otherwise end up in a landfill, and I’ve nabbed some amazing vintage finds at secondhand stores! (The dress I’m wearing for mtvU’s Dean’s List was $8 at a consignment shop!)
9) Your refrigerator is the single biggest power consumer in your house. You can save energy by adjusting your fridge’s temperature settings for different seasons, making sure that the seal on the door is working properly, waiting until food has cooled down before putting it in the fridge, and putting food that you want defrosted in the fridge the night before you want to use it.
10) Ditch the treadmill and go for a run or a walk outside instead. You’ll get some fresh air and save the electricity that you would have been expending while using an exercise machine.
