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 Common dish liquids as well as most “natural” dish liquids include toxic ingredients, while diluted castile soap makes an effective and inexpensive alternative.
For further information, see http://www.gimmethegoodstuff.org/dish-soap/ Don’t throw out that leftover or spoiled milk—dilute it with water and spray in your garden, for potent fertilizing and fungus fighting.
 Consider the humble Clothesline to lower your carbon footprint. An old-fashioned clothesline hung between trees is all you need to dry your clothes in the summer sun and cooler, drier autumn.
Here’s a simple, affordable “technology” that’s making a comeback–the clothesline. It can save you as much as $200 a year (less for those with gas dryers) in energy costs and creates no global warming gases or air pollution. Automatic clothes dryers were once hailed as a miracle of modern housekeeping, but that convenience came with a price: namely, 6% of total electricity consumed by American homes, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. Taking advantage of the sun and breeze is free for all, and sunlight is an excellent disinfectant. Clothing also lasts longer and smells great when it’s line-dried. Not only that, standing in the fresh air, feeling the wind on your face, and hearing the birds sing is therapeutic. In conjunction with the humble clothesline, a wall drying rack in the laundry area can handle small items such as underwear and socks. National Hanging Out Day, April 19th, is a day to hang your clothes out to dry. It was created by Project Laundry List, which joins together with other organizations to educate communities about energy consumption. A computer set to “screen saver” mode uses nearly as much energy as when it is being used, so switch off your screen when you leave your desk. It is a myth that screen savers reduce energy use.
Screen savers were developed to mitigate a problem called “screen burn-in” that can occur in both cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) computer monitors and TV screens. Burn-in occurs when a given image, such as a logo or a menu bar for a computer program, appears on a monitor for a long period of time. The mechanics are different for CRT and LCD displays, but the result is essentially the same over time, these long-duration images can get “burned” into the screen so that the viewer sees a “ghost” of these images even when they’re not supposed to be there. By using a screen saver, you prevent any specific images from being displayed in the same location when your computer is dormant for a long period of time, thus preventing burn-in. But it takes just as much energy to display a screen saver on your screen as it does to display any other program. To save energy, adjust your computer’s power management settings to automatically shut the monitor down after a specified period of idle time, and simply turn off the monitor if you are not going to be using it for 15 minutes or more.  Plant a tree in honor of the birth of your child or grandchild, and compare their growth over time.
People plant trees in honor of births, deaths, weddings, and housewarmings. Planting a tree in celebration of a birth is perhaps the most poignant of occasions because this is a gift that will grow alongside the child, year by year maturing and flourishing. Another great idea is to donate to The National Arbor Day Foundation. They will plant a tree in a national forest devastated by fires and other disasters. No matter how you approach it, choosing to plant a tree to welcome a child to the world is a wonderful, unique idea. This is a gift that will benefit not only the baby, but the world as a whole. |
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