26 Nov
This cyber monday save money on hundreds of eco-friendly goods with Sustainable Supply! Not sure what you need? No problem, click through to sustainablesupply.com and browse clearly labeled eco-concious options to find the right ones for you and family. Enjoy huge savings on products that will save you money on your energy bills, water bills, and more! Order these sustainable products and get the gifts that keep on giving this holiday season.
26 Oct
Green living and saving money go hand in hand more often than you may think! We love this 4 minute video on eco friendly home products, and you can get them all at sustainablesply.com! Inhabitat shows how you can potentially knock hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off your annual energy bill. On top of that, a home that is energy efficient can also dramatically transform how you and your family live by creating a comfortable space that promotes both health and well-being.
17 Oct
There’s a reason why LED lights are taking over the lighting industry. Long story short, LED stands for Light-Emitting Diode and emits light in a process called electroluminescence. Here’s where the environmentally-friendly part comes in- they last up to 10 times longer than regular incandescent bulbs and are four times more energy efficient. The benefit of LED lighting is clear to see: LED lights use nearly 80 percent less energy, LED is cleaner for the environment, and LED lighting translates to financial savings for you. Sustainable Supply makes it super easy to stuck up and save on LED lights. Check out a great selection of RoHS compliant and Energy Star rated LED lamps. Take advantage of Sustainable Supply’s fast shipping on Lumapro, GE Lighting, Lithonia, and many other LED lighting manufacturers. Go green the easy way and switch to LED lighting from Sustainable Supply today!
Shop a great selection of LED Lamps at Sustainable Supply!
10 Sep
We all have a few bad habits. Some of us bite our nails, crack our knuckles, or even twirl our hair. But, what if our bad habits were exposed…on Facebook?
From the article “Bad Trash Habits Posted to Facebook” by Alex Petru, computer scientists at Newcastle University in northern England are planning on doing just that. The computer scientists plan on testing the theory that if you’re publicly shamed, you’ll change your bad habits. The plan is to monitor the trash that is used in student households by planting a camera phone in the kitchen trash bin that will catch a picture of the contents that were tossed out every time the lid shuts. The pictures will then be uploaded to the program’s Facebook page where they can see what they and other households are throwing away. The plan also “aims at a friendly competition between the households” in hopes that the comments left on the pictures and activity on the Facebook page will encourage recycling all over campus.
Researchers, according to Petru’s article, state that the plan is already working. It has been reported that “after two weeks, students were emptying trash cans less because they were recycling more.”
20 Aug
With the economy currently in a recession and gas prices hitting record breaking highs, many people have decided to cut back on their spending and vacation time for the summer of 2011.
From the article ‘Tips for saving on home energy use’ by Dan Serra, Serra states that in a recent survey taken, “fewer than 50 percent of business owners plan to take a vacation this year, down from more than 60 percent last summer.” Noted in Serra’s article and in ‘Smart Ways To Cut Energy Costs At Home’ by Elizabeth Alterman, both authors state that if you want to reduce energy costs, start with improvements to the common areas of your home, such as “sealing window leaks, adding insulation and having your air conditioning unit tuned up.”
Another way to keep the energy costs low in your home is through your appliances. Serra states that you should check and make sure that your refrigerator is at about 37 degrees and that your freezer is at about 3 degrees and to only run washing machines if they have full loads.
Alterman references in her article that cutting down on energy costs starts with buying energy efficient appliances, such as ‘ENERGY STAR’. ENERGY STAR “offers thousands of models on products in 60 different categories for the home and office.” And, in 2010 alone, with the help of ENERGY STAR products, “Americans saved $18 billion and greenhouse-gas-emissions equivalent to that of 33 million cars, according to the program.” So take that extra vacation time and dig out your swimming suit, because while temperatures are rising, your home energy costs won’t be.
28 Jul
“Are you paying to cool the outdoors?” Many of us have heard this phrase when leaving a window or door open while the air conditioner is on in the summer. Leaving a window or door open isn’t the only way we waste our money and efforts to cool down our home. Hidden places all around your home are wasting energy and your money. The good news is, the U.S. Department of Energy Website has some eco-friendly instructions for an energy-efficient home. Follow these Do-It-Yourself Tips for how to green your home, and save money!
As the heat rises this summer, we’re all trying to cool down without sending our energy bill through the roof (Literally, that air could be leaking through your roof). Strategic placement of fans in combination with air conditioning is an electric bill nightmare! You can hire a professional to perform an energy assessment in your home, but for those green-conscious individuals on a budget, here are some tips for how to save money and make less of an impact on the environment.
The U.S. Department of Energy site states, “You can easily conduct a do-it-yourself home energy assessment (also known as a home energy audit). With a simple but diligent walk-through, you can spot many problems in any type of house. When assessing your home, keep a checklist of areas you have inspected and problems you found.” Here is a list to help you prioritize your energy assessment:
This may seem like a lot, but the U.S. Dept. of Energy Website has details on just how to conduct this checklist. Go green this summer, and don’t pay to cool down the outdoors! Conduct an in-home energy assessment yourself, and make your summer more sustainable!
17 Jul
Eco-friendly gardening is any easy, chemical-free way to grow a healthy green garden! Here are 4 tips for how to maintain a sustainable garden:
Use Companion Planting
Protect your green garden from pesky bugs and animals without using chemicals! Companion planting is an eco-friendly way to protect your garden, by maximizing plant diversity. Planting veggies like broccoli or cabbage alone makes an easy target for insects, like the cabbage moth. But if you companion plant, you mask the scent of the favored food and confuse the pest. Try surrounding the bed with carrots and onions! Other plants that improve the health of their neighbors include garlic, chives, and pole beans. Set garlic around roses or apples to prevent scab, and plant pole beans around lettuce or spinach during summer’s heat, to provide shade! Sprinkling a little bit of cayenne pepper around your crops deters hungry rabbits from feasting on your veggies too!
Use Cover Crops
Cover crops are also known as “green manure”. At the end of a growing season, planting cover crops is an all-natural way to revitalize the soil, and help soil tilth and subsequent plant growth. Cover crops are planted when your garden is empty. Once the crops grow, you work them into the soil instead of eating them. As their leaves, stems and roots begin to decompose, they provide 100% organic matter, which serves as food for a host of soil-dwelling creatures that reprocess those nutrients into a plant-friendly food source for your garden plants. For examples of cover crops, check out this helpful cover crop chart.
Try Composting
Composting is another eco-safe fertilizer. Composting turns biodegradable yard and kitchen wastes into a nutrient-rich, soil-like substances through a combination of biological and chemical processes. Sheet composting is an easy do-it-yourself way to compost in an idle garden bed or area. Just spread your kitchen wastes in a 2- to 4-inch layer, cover with soil, and leave to decompose between growing seasons.
Try Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of replacing the type of plant grown in a certain area of your garden, with a plant belonging to a different family. This rotation helps keep soil healthy, ward off pests and reduce the risk of soil-borne diseases. Ideally crops are rotated on a two- or three-year schedule. You can also rotate crops based on their nutrient needs. Heavy feeders like corn or squash can be followed up by a light feeder such as carrots. Legumes such as beans or peas are light feeders that add nitrogen back to the soil. Mixing up your garden keeps it healthy and nutrition-rich!
