Green Ideas
Reducing global warming, one meal at a time
November 9, 2011We want your table scraps! A recent food-waste disposal study has found that using an in-sink garbage disposer can help reduce global warming. According to a write-up about the study, “a community of 30,000 households could avoid the equivalent of more than 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions if most of its food scraps went…
Check for a toilet leak on the cheap
October 24, 2011Did you know that a leaking toilet can waste up to 200 gallons a day? That’s an expensive problem! Fortunately, fixing it can cost as little as $8. To find out if a toilet is flushing your money down the drain, remove the lid and add a few drops of food coloring — dark colors work…
Turning trash into treasure
September 17, 2011Waste is a fact of life. In the kitchen, it doesn’t matter whether you’re slicing a tomato or cutting up a cucumber, peeling an apple or paring a pear, there are leftover skins and seeds to scrap. There are coffee grounds to contend with; eggshells to eliminate; paper towels to pitch. Then there’s all the…
Keeping it clean (and green)
August 19, 2011If you want to lead a more “green” lifestyle, one of the easiest places to start is the cabinet where you keep cleaning supplies. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, many household cleaners contain highly toxic substances. Examples include formaldehyde, which can be found in furniture polish and is considered a carcinogen by the World Health…
Garden overflowing? Freeze that food!
August 11, 2011Harvest time is, arguably, the best part of growing your own fruits and vegetables. You’ve used compost to enrich the soil; kept weeds down by mulching, and used your rain barrels to irrigate the plants. Now it’s time reap what you’ve sown. But when everything starts turning ripe around the same time, a trip to…
Lawn brown? Don’t let it get you down
August 2, 2011With summer heat making even your thermometer break a sweat, many homeowners are taking to watering their lawns more frequently. The trouble is, that’s not always the best thing for it. For starters, frequent watering encourages grass to develop shallow roots – not the deep-reaching roots that help to create a healthy lawn capable of…
Source Water Protection is everyone’s job
July 19, 2011On Thursday, June 23, Lehigh County Authority and the City of Allentown hosted a joint presentation to explain our respective plans to protect our drinking water supplies from contamination. The presentation summed up an exhaustive study of where our water comes from and how it can be affected by any number of factors, including runoff…
Water conservation makes good cents
July 11, 2011Wasting water is like flushing money down the drain. So if you’re looking for ways to save some cash, one of the simplest solutions is to save some water. Start by checking faucets and toilets for leaks. Those little drips coming from your tap can, according to Earth Easy, waste 20 gallons of water daily…
Next stop: The buffer zone
June 28, 2011When it comes to protecting our rivers and streams, there’s one option that’s easy to accomplish yet can work wonders: a buffer zone. What’s a buffer zone? It’s an area that catches, slows and filters water runoff before it enters a stream or river. It can remove chemicals, excess nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen…
Landscaping? Go native!
June 1, 2011Now that Spring’s here, it’s a perfect time to consider using native plants for your next landscaping project. What are native plants? In short, they’re plants that grow naturally in an area; species that have evolved to fit their ecosystem. Their growth is controlled by the length of the seasons, by the amount of rainfall…