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How Green are you?

Sak01

Sak01

Android Expert
How environmentally conscious are you? Do you recycle, monitor your carbon footprint or drive a Prius? Do you limit your toilet flushes, use energy saving lightbulbs or have a kitchen compost bin? Let me know.

Personally, I use energy saving bulbs and I'm considering solar powering my house as well as driving an electric vehicle. But that is purely for economic reasons NOT for any environmental concerns.
 
Sak01 said:
How environmentally conscious are you? Do you recycle, monitor your carbon footprint or drive a Prius? Do you limit your toilet flushes, use energy saving lightbulbs or have a kitchen compost bin? Let me know.

Personally, I use energy saving bulbs and I'm considering solar powering my house as well as driving an electric vehicle. But that is purely for economic reasons NOT for any environmental concerns.
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Same here, I would like to switch to a hybrid vehicle for economic reasons, and also a geothermal powered home. Other than that I'm not very green. I don't recycle, or have a compost bin. I do use energy saving bulbs, but that goes for the same reasons up above.

Maybe I should make a little more effort to care for the world I live in. (I definitely don't do as much as I should.)
 
I bought a new car this year and fuel economy was a major factor. It was as you say, more an economic than environmental decision. I will replace our incandescent bulbs with CF as they burn out, but not before. We recycle because a.) we are charged by the township for the service whether we use it or not and b.) we pay private trash hauling so any reduction in household waste is a good thing. We have low flush toilets because they were required by code when the house was built, but i think they are a good idea anyway. We have timers on our thermostat to conserve energy and never set the heat high or the air conditioning low.

I am aware of the "green" benefits of some of it, but it's primarily an economic motivation. I also find it ironic that most people look for "recycled" on their paper products and believe they are benefiting the environment where a properly managed forest using virgin wood fibers can have a much lower environmental impact than recycling existing paper when you factor in the energy and water consumption necessary.
 
I am conscious but I HATE environmentalism with a passion! I abhor what it has become.

Today it is nothing but a front for taxation and little else.

We have diesel VWs and I enjoy the average mileage(41-42) and the knowledge of knowing there is nothing else to go wrong or to buy. And the torquey engines! They will last longer than any gas engine and certainly longer than a battery.
We do not recycle but our landfill does. Win, win. No bull crap to deal with.
I DO NOT buy anything that has anything "green" on it's label!!
We have some florescent lights but NO LED lights. $25 for light bulb? Are you nuts?

Our planet is strong. Much stronger than it is made out to be. And Global Warming? What friggen idiots! If you believed in that you are naive as he%%!
 
I do recycle. I have to in the town I live in but probably would *try* to even if I didn't have to. I don't compost but am going to get barrels for my yard waste instead of using paper (the town picks it up).
I use some CFL bulbs but actually don't like them. I have had some burn out way too fast and there was a black scorch looking mark thing on the base. I have never had that with regular bulbs. I may try LED's though.
I have a low-flow toilet as well.
Not so good on the temperature though, I keep reptiles and can't let the house get too cold or too hot. They all have their own heat source but the house temps have to stay semi-consistent too. If it was just me and the dog it would not be so warm in here all the time. They are my big 'energy waster'.
 
I feel like I'm pretty green.

Living in Manhattan, I can only take public transportation. I use the subway and public bus a lot if I can't simply walk.

I recycle bottles (which is rare since I just use my own filtered water bottle), reuse cardboard boxes that I get from Amazon or recycle if they're piling up, and recycle other things like paper and cans. I have two bins at home so it makes it easy. I also have my own strong fabric bags for grocery shopping. If I don't have them at hand (like if I do a spontaneous trip to Trader Joe's), then I'll always get paper and then just reuse the paper bags for other purposes.

Energy-wise, I don't really use my LCD TV much so it takes up little energy. I only have energy saving lightbulbs in my apartment and always make sure to turn off lights that I'm not using. I can't control the heat to my apartment so unfortunately, I can't regulate how warm or how long I want it on. It just turns on and I actually have to open a window or else it'll get way too hot (such a waste).
 
bigbadwulff said:
Our planet is strong. Much stronger than it is made out to be. And Global Warming? What friggen idiots! If you believed in that you are naive as he%%!
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I'd say that's pretty naive in itself. Earth doesn't have unlimited resources to provide for the exponentially increasing population.
 
Sak01 said:
How environmentally conscious are you? Do you recycle, monitor your carbon footprint or drive a Prius? Do you limit your toilet flushes, use energy saving lightbulbs or have a kitchen compost bin? Let me know.

Personally, I use energy saving bulbs and I'm considering solar powering my house as well as driving an electric vehicle. But that is purely for economic reasons NOT for any environmental concerns.
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We found out several years ago that just by being sensible about such things as turning off lights in rooms not occupied, running the dishwasher only when full, riding bikes on short jaunts to the store or to a friend's house, etc, saves a lot of money and of course uses much less energy/water/resources.

As far as "green" in other ways, I admit that it's easier now with no kids in the house. ;)
 
Being a Canadian living in the good ol' province of Ontario, you're kind of force to be green...unless you're rich. So, my family is pretty green.

We have a great recycling program in place. We recycle glass/cans/plastics and papers (blue bins) and decompose (green bins). Most towns/cities have maximum requirement for garbage and only take them BI-WEEKLY. In Toronto, you pay an annual fee for the garbage bin size (bigger bins are more expensive). I live outside of Toronto and in my area, it's 4 garbage bags max and an additiona $1.5/bag (you are required to buy a tag and placed on additional garage bags). I'm in charge of the recycling and garbage collection in the house and my family recycles 70% of our wastes. We have only 2 garbage bags every 2 weeks. My objective is to get it to 1 garbage bag every 2 weeks with a 85%-90% recycling percentage. I'm not sure if sis likes the idea of having a green bin in every room XD

All of the light bulbs in my house are the CF energy efficient ones. Out thermostat are sensored and the temperature is ALWAYS 2 degrees above (summer) or below (winter) what we set them in the 90s. At night, the temperature is quite low (house is cold) and each family member will turn on their energy efficient heater fan in the winter. In the summer nights, the temperature would be set to 24/25 and every family member has a programmable tower fan.

We only do our laundry and run the dishwasher on non peak hours (weekends and 10pm-7am on weekdays). Electricity price is double the amount at peak hours compared to non peak hours.

Our two showers have those water efficient water heads and during the summer, bro lowers the water heater temperature. Not the best when he forgets in the late fall to reset that -_-;;

We take all of our old electronics and batteries to Best Buy to be environmentally recycle.
 
Sorry I can't afford being green. Cost too much to be part of that club. As far as hybrids go I laugh when I see one. 40mpg for the work of 2 engines? Not very good in my view. Heck my moms old 86 or something Honda civic stationwagon would get 50 easily. So your hybrid isn't very economical and there was a study between a hummer and a prius and when it came down to it the hummer was cheaper to operate than the prius. Heck my accord with a 3.0 v6 vtec gets 35 mph hwy only 5 less than a prius.
 
I've gone as green as it is possible to go as far as cars are concerned -- I bought a 20-year-old Corolla.

The sheer amount of pollution that comes as a by-product of manufacturing a single Prius makes my Corolla a much greener alternative. And besides, I don't look like a douchebag.

Just a quick reply to bigbadwulff's comment, or rather an elaboration -- I won't go so far as to say that global warming is complete B.S., but a lot of people seem to forget that it is not, by any means, fact -- though it is fashionable to consider it such. It is a theory, and remains unproven.

Additionally, a lot of the whole "green" thing is good marketing. It's a fact. "Green" things are nearly always more expensive -- because they're fashionable. The reason you see so many celebrities and such driving Priuses (?) about is that they're essentially fashion accessories for those who want to make it painfully clear to everybody else that they're just so terribly environmentally conscious.
 
After seeing what the oil spill did to the Gulf of Mexico, I decided to get a muscle car that would convert that nasty oil into air that would patch the holes in the atmosphere that environmentalists were complaining about in the 90's. That's green, right? :)

Joking aside, I do try to conserve when I can. This next bit was supposed to be short, but turned into a bit of a rant, so I put hide tags around it.

But I don't follow all of this global warming debates. As a kid growing up, they did nothing but confuse me. We can't use aerosol cans, because they deplete the O-zone! But we need to drive less, because of green house gasses. Seriously...they've flip-flopped more than a republican presidential canidate to the point where I don't pay attention to them.

I don't purposely try to pollute, but it's actually kinda moot to try to be green in the US. The excuses I hear don't make sense. 'If everyone does their part and buys an electric car, imagine how much less CO2 we'd produce': If by we, you mean the average consumer, then yes. But we get our power through coal burning plants. You using more electricity means they have to burn more coal. More coal being burned means more CO2 in the air.

Diesel also had a significant part of your car being built and shipped to you, too. Especially a Prius, because they're only built in Japan, the last I knew. That's a lot of diesel. Plus putting it on a truck and shipping it to wherever you are.

If people want to get serious about being green, we need to re-evaluate how and where we get our energy from. Make a bio fuel that can power a ship across the ocean for the same price as oil and find some other way of generating enough electricity to meet demand without burning coal, and you've made real progress.

But if you can generate enough electricity off of solar power where you get a check from the electric company instead of a bill, more power to you! Seriously, I would do it if I owned a home and could power what I needed.
 
We are bot trying to conserve it. We are trying to stretch it out as long as possible. Even with oil prices as they are now. It still a cheaper form of fuel than alternative measures. Between the initial coats of making ethenol and putting a premium price on it as its a green fuel. So yeah its all marketing of how to squeeze the most money out of it. Just like organic foods compared to regular foods of the same. Only difference is the organic Costa more. People are told and looked down on as of you don't buy green then you don't love your planet. I remember you always saw in the news in the 70 and 80 acid rain. Now you don't hear nothing about it.

Everyone call for cleaner fuels and so on and so on and when you look at it in 20 to 30 years we haven't advanced to much. It still costs to much to go green and not very efficient. Heck I seen cities stop their recycling programs because they said the costs of operating it was more than what they brought in from it. Maybe if we stop talking about going green and actually do it and make it cost effective then we would solve our energy crisis. Sadly people are more in to making money.
 
I drive a 600HP supercharged V-8 Mustang with an off-road ( no catilitic converters) X-pipe. Depending on how heavy my foot is depends on how much 93 octane she guzzles in a week.
Other than that however I try to be enviromentally friendly. :)
 
Roze said:
We have a great recycling program in place. We recycle glass/cans/plastics and papers (blue bins) and decompose (green bins). Most towns/cities have maximum requirement for garbage and only take them BI-WEEKLY. In Toronto, you pay an annual fee for the garbage bin size (bigger bins are more expensive). I live outside of Toronto and in my area, it's 4 garbage bags max and an additiona $1.5/bag (you are required to buy a tag and placed on additional garage bags). I'm in charge of the recycling and garbage collection in the house and my family recycles 70% of our wastes. We have only 2 garbage bags every 2 weeks. My objective is to get it to 1 garbage bag every 2 weeks with a 85%-90% recycling percentage. I'm not sure if sis likes the idea of having a green bin in every room XD
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Our local council have given everyone a free recycling bin to go along with the standard one.

Both the standard and recycled rubbish collection is free, however, while we recycle a bit we don't do it anywhere near as much as we should and the same is probably true for most people in the borough.

I guess it's down to laziness, not caring that much, lack of education and no financial incentive. If they limited the free collection to a max number of rubbish bags, as they do in your area, it would motivate people to take recycling more seriously (myself included).
 
i'm not very green at all in a lot of traditional senses, I drive a car thats horrible on gas (19mpg on 93 octane) MY house has a lot of always on electronics, although we do have low usage bulbs and are slowly converting to LED bulbs. But one thing I do to help out is volunteer at a local nature park picking up trash and such. I hate when people just thro their trash anywhere, it's not hard to wait a few minutes to throw your trash in your own dumpster instead of out the window.
 
Those big neighborhood recycling bins made of heavy gauge steel must have quite the carbon footprint.
 
Sak01 said:
Our local council have given everyone a free recycling bin to go along with the standard one.

Both the standard and recycled rubbish collection is free, however, while we recycle a bit we don't do it anywhere near as much as we should and the same is probably true for most people in the borough.

I guess it's down to laziness, not caring that much, lack of education and no financial incentive. If they limited the free collection to a max number of rubbish bags, as they do in your area, it would motivate people to take recycling more seriously (myself included).
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Each household gets a free green bin and a free blue bin here. :)

Heck I seen cities stop their recycling programs because they said the costs of operating it was more than what they brought in from it. Maybe if we stop talking about going green and actually do it and make it cost effective then we would solve our energy crisis. Sadly people are more in to making money.
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I read that NYC tried to recycle and its program failed as they weren't able to cover their cost.

Most or all municipalities that have recycling programs get the deposit money from cans/bottles that they collect. That money is used to pay for the rest of the recycling costs. If you don't have or make people to recycle, then you won't have enough cans/bottles to offset your cost. Thus recycling will become expensive.
 
I don't consider myself "environmentally conscious" I consider myself "logical".

On one hand I do have an understanding and respect for the fact that we have limited resources and I am a firm believer in reducing the amount of waste I as a person put out.

A few years ago when I had the option of getting a truck or a car, I choose a car that gets 39 highway MPG (toyota yaris) because it was cheaper than a prius, looked better, and got great mileage. Benefits me in the form of being cheaper, benefits the environment by being easier on our resources. A great symbiotic relationship!

When I was disposing of 2 computers about a year ago, I took them to best buy hoping they would be recycled. The guy at bestbuy said I had to pay 10$ each to have them recycled and I would receive 20$ back in the form of a best buy gift card.

I was perfectly willing to put for my own gas money to drive to best buy, spend 30 minutes to an hour of my time to recycle and receive nothing in return for my efforts in order to do the right thing and recycle those products.

I am not willing to spend my own money to receive a gift card I can't use to pay my bills just to do the "right thing".

Since best buy wouldn't take them, and I heard of no other recycling place I just threw the computers right in the garbage.

I am willing to do the right thing up to a point. However, I am a firm believer that there are a lot of voltures out there who want to capitolize on your good intentions..

EX: a hipster friend I had who was all pro environment only ate organic food because it is "better for the environment" then turned around and bought an suv because "I wanted to take advantage of low gas prices while I can".. (When she was considering her vehicle.. gas prices dipped a lot due to the recession)
 
Clementine_3 said:
I use some CFL bulbs but actually don't like them. I have had some burn out way too fast and there was a black scorch looking mark thing on the base. I have never had that with regular bulbs. I may try LED's though.
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They also have toxic mercury and electronics, and no doubt many will end up in landfill. Also I bet it takes much more energy to make a CFL than a traditional light bulb, maybe more energy than the things are supposed to save in their lifetime.

We have massive wind farms here, a huge project. But I'm wondering how much energy they're actually going to produce, compared to the amount of energy it took to construct and erect those wind turbines.
 
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