Top 5 Ways to Go Green!

Have you ever had a discussion with your child about going green? If your child watches any TV, listens to the radio, goes to school, or has friends with parents, chances are they are fully aware of "Going green".

I thought it would be prudent to help the omnipresent environmental movement with some thoughts from a lifetime of experiences of the effectiveness of going green. Of course I am not a scientist, not even a wanna be scientist. I have no formal education on the vital benefits of protecting the planet, yet like you I read and hear about it everywhere, and so do my children . . . everywhere!

I have a hard time getting my son to take out the garbage once a week, nevertheless convincing him to separate the trash into two or three varied colored receptacles. Truth is, I am a little old school when it comes to the environmental movement, and admittedly a little "green" at it. Like all children from the good old days, I learned how to save energy and respect the planet solely from my parents.

I was taught by my mother not to litter, so I am proud to say I faithfully refuse to let my kids litter. We "close" the lights when we leave a room, though every time I remind my kids, they laugh at me for using the word "close". (NJ term?)  "Close" by the way means to turn off the lights. Why? Because they cost us money! Oh, and I also freak when the faucet drips or a toilet runs. Not so much due to the waste of H20, but mainly because I am terrified of floods. It is a recent quirk. I find myself checking all water sources ie potential leaks in a Adrian Monk kind of way.

Actually, I guess it is this new found fear of floods, that leads me to the first of my top five ways to go green.

So in the tradition with keeping up with the green Joneses here are my
                            TOP FIVE WAYS TO GO GREEN:

1) If you buy an old house, make sure to change all your toilets out for the one gallon flusher type. Why waste precious water by using the older toilets that use three, even six gallons each time you pull down the handle. A one gallon per flush, green approved, toilet is a no brainer if you want to go green.
THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH THAT IS... our "older" water waisting toilet finally broke a few years back and we had no choice but to replace it with the new kind. Instead of one flush it took two or three flushes to do the same job. With seven people in the family, it did not take long for the need of a permanent plunger to sit real pretty next to the new green jewel. One day I forgot to check the water saver john and since it was clogged (it was usually clogged) and subsequently flushed, a small leak rained down from its brand new porcelain sides onto the floor, into the AC vent, throughout the floorboards, which eventually damaged our ceiling in the middle level of our two story house. Consequently, a massive flood ruined our kitchen and family room with hundreds of gallons of dirty smelly pee water. It ended up costing $20,000 in ceiling, drywall, floor, and cabinet repairs to rectify the disaster. Oh and swapping to the so called Eco friendly water saver green toilet -ended up waisting a ton of precious water as well!

2) Make sure to buy an Eco friendly washer machine because if you wash a lot of clothes, its important to do whatever you can to use less soap, less water, and of course less energy.
THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH THAT IS . . . When our kitchen got destroyed by our Eco friendly upstairs toilet, as part of the renovation we also purchased new appliances. We decided to add a new washer and dryer to the second mortgage while we were at it! Why Not? Unfortunately, unlike my old washer that actually cleaned clothes, this shiny new green friendly washer turns out less than desirable results. Gone is the need for lots of water and that useless agitator thing in the middle! My new Maytag has one huge hollow basket by which I can do less loads by filling it up even more! I just put the small cup of special more expensive HE detergent on the bottom and then I fill up the mega basket, set the dials, and push the start button which locks the door. Loud, strange, weird, non- cleaning kind of noises soon follow. One day a sock "flew out of the basket" (words from the repair guy) and got caught between it and the side of the washer. I noticed that the next load did not drain properly and eventually it would not lock or work at all. Being one day out of warranty I hesitated to call a repairman. It cost us $450 dollars and 10 days waiting for the special Eco friendly part. The icing on the cake was when the guy banged off the basket, removed it and carried it to my bathroom to empty it in the bathtub - dripping the whole way! Funny, my old washer did not have a spot for socks to mysteriously jump out and cause damage. I also was able to simply set the dial to drain so that I could DRAIN THE WATER WITHOUT REMOVING THE ENTIRE MEGA TUB WITH A CROWBAR! On top of all of this, the clothes never really smell clean with my new Eco friendly washer so I finally decided to double the amount of more expensive HE soap to have some resemblance of fresh laundry. You know like the good ole days, the days before the new Eco friendly toilet flood! 

3) Nothing like a brand new dishwasher. Even if you have to pay a little more,  make sure yours meets all the green standards!
THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH THAT IS ... Eco friendly dishwashers suck! There really is no other way to describe them. Since phosphorus hurts the environment by harming some fish, my kids have to eat off of dirty plates unless you do several preventative things. First you have to buy non phosphorous, non effective cascade or the like. But dare not use it unless you also buy the expensive rinse aide. Once a month you also have to buy the gook out product because there is just not enough power and not enough water going through that thing to clean the pipes or your dishes. And don't forget to fully wash everything first, and turn on the hot water in your sink for a while before you turn the Eco friendly dishwasher on. I was also told by a repairman to always use the highest setting with all the other buttons pushed to the max setting, hold my breath and hope it works.
I remember a time when I basically threw in everything, food remains and all, into my old dishwasher and it never ever ever gave me a problem. Amazing how much water you save when you do dishes the old fashion way... once, by using a real, non green, dishwasher!

4) Before you throw out anything stop and say to yourself, can this be recycled? What we do not need is even more non bio-degradable filth flying around the landfills of Wichita! Can I get an A-men?
THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH THAT IS . . . besides the proven effectiveness of certain metals like tin, most everything else is simply not cost efficient to use, recycle and reuse over and over. It costs more energy to actually do the recycling making the solution worse than the problem. One day we will be able to link the cancerous plastics we are told to watch for in baby bottles, microwavable plastics, etc. to this environmentally wacko notion that we must all reuse the same plastic over and over. The invention of plastic was such a great invention due to it's drastically inexpensive production. In other words its cheap to make it so go ahead and throw it out! I don't like the new water bottles that bend in your hand due to their thinness or toilet paper that crumbles apart. Although the flimsy paper may help with the AlGore clog prone toilets!
Regarding the removal of rubbish, remember the good ole days when we use to burn it to ashes! Why not use the burning technique advances that do the job while also trapping the air pollution? Yeah, we have those available! It sure would save the environment by eliminating the fumes from the plethora of garbage and recycling trucks as well as the resources it costs to bury the mounds of trash into our soil. Not to mention the toxic clean up that is eventually needed even miles away from some city land fills. If I did not trust the government and the environmental movement so much, I would think that this whole recycle thing we are all guilted into is just a HUGE money maker!  (Good planet, bad people, send money)

5) Replace all those old light bulbs with the curlycue type. It will save the environment because they last longer and use less energy to boot!
THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH THAT IS ... a little thing called mercury. The days of throwing out your light bulbs are over. This new type not only costs way more, it can not, by law, be thrown in the regular trash. It also uses way more electricity to heat up than a regular light bulb so it is better to not "close" the light when you leave a room. It is recommended to leave them on if you think you may be visiting a room again soon. In our family alone, we would need to leave the lights on  24/7 in the kitchen, living room, bathrooms, and hall. The only time it's safe that we will not "visit a room again soon" is when the kids go to sleep and turn off the light for bed. Leaving on the curly bulbs because they cost more than regular light bulbs to initially heat up just might take away from some shelf life - the very reason we are suppose to buy them! To me a pack of four old fashioned bulbs for 77 cents seems like the way to go, law or no law! Plus do you know one person that does not agree that the curlycue bulbs are UGLY?

Below are a few honorable mentions before I end this. 

Sunscreen or die!
All of a sudden the populous is in need of vitamin D supplements. Why? Maybe because we do not get enough sun because we are told to never go outside without sunscreen on every corner of our exposed body. Unless your shirt is thin, which it is then recommended that you put on sunscreen on that skin as well!
Doctors are now emphasising that men and women need to get approximately 20 minutes of sun (without any sunscreen) to ensure the body produces enough vitamin D to remain healthy. - Unbelievable.

Kill the babies, but save the whales!
Growing seal population could be the reason behind more shark sightings.
By protecting baby seals and the endangered great white, we now have many many more of both of them because with the prey plenteous, so is the predator! It is now frightening to go in the ocean. Personally, I would rather have less people maimed or eaten than extra great whites or seals ... just saying.

Wind turbines and their connection to forest fires is never mentioned in the news.
Better to blame republican smoking hunters! - Or George Bush.

Polar bears are dying off, also not true. 

Ice caps all over the planet are melting. Not!  
While the Arctic ice has retreated (as in the 20's and 50's BTW)  the Antarctic ice is growing at roughly the same pace.

Global Warming is caused by bad humans is simply not true!

As in all the facets of the Go Green movement, other sides to potential reasons behind climate change are not open for discussion in your child's classroom. They are being misled and cheated by not ever being shown the conservative side of the coin. 

If we, due to laziness, peer pressure, or lack of care, never bother to study these things to see if they are true or merely money makers, then our future will be the reward of the few at the deficit to the many.

Just because your child's school, that movie star you think is cool, or those wonderfully professional journalists who have no agenda but to report the news even though they all repeat the exact left wing talking points, does not mean it is real science.

Call me an optimist but I want to believe we are not all brainless morons who think the recent uprising in the middle east, for example, is the fault of a youtube video and not the result of Obama's blunders, apology tours, and foreign policy inexperience. 

As the world's economy and safety get increasingly worse, I would like to hope that that mindless crowd is shrinking.

Because the truth is - the all powerful, all knowing, all growing, green movement for the most part is one big fat green fraud!

I know this not because I am a published expert, but because I have personally experienced it.
My guess is you have too!


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