Easy Ways to Save Energy and Help the Environment

Computer Use

1. Enable the "sleep mode" feature on your computer, allowing it to use less power during periods of inactivity. In Windows, the Power Management settings are found on your Control Panel. Mac users, look for Energy Saving settings under System Preferences in the Apple menu.

2. Configure your computer to "hibernate" automatically after thirty minutes or so of inactivity. The "hibernate mode" turns the computer off in a way that doesn't require you to reload everything when you switch it back on. Allowing your computer to hibernate saves energy and is more time-efficient than shutting down and restarting your computer from scratch.

3. Turn off computer monitors. Monitors use a lot of energy so switching them off makes a big difference even if you can’t turn off the rest of the computer.

Around The House

1. Turn off the lights! It really makes a difference. If you're not using a light, turn it off. If you leave a room, turn the lights off behind you. You may have heard that you should leave lights on if you're only gone a short while, because turning them back on uses a lot of energy. That's not true with today's lights, always turn them off when they're not being used.

2. Turn off the faucet! A leaky faucet can waste up to twenty gallons of water a day, enough to fill more than 200 soda cans! Why not try the following? Don't let the water run when you're not actually using it. For instance, when you wash your hands, you really only need running water to wet them and then to rinse the soap off. Keep the faucet off while you're lathering up.

3. Calculate how much water a dripping faucet wastes. Check out WaterWiser Drip Calculator to see how much water is wasted when a fixture drips. Enter the number of drips per minute, then see how much it adds up to each day, month or year. You'll be amazed!

Lunch Time

1. Make a trash-free lunch.  Re-usable food containers and beverage bottles help reduce waste on a daily basis. 

2. Recycle as much as possible.  If you don’t have re-usable containers take a minute to separate your trash according to your school's recycling rules. (These will depend on the rules in your community.) Materials that are often recycled include paper, cardboard, milk cartons, aluminum cans and plastic and glass bottles. If it's clean, aluminum foil can be recycled, too

3. Learn the rules on recycling. What materials are recycled in your community? How should they be sorted? To find out, check with your local sanitation department. Or visit Earth 911, where you can enter your zip code to receive information on local recycling efforts. Then find out how your school participates in community recycling.

Other

1. Reducing Junk Mail. Don’t throw it away.  Recycle it or better yet go to http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm to remove your name from some of the major mailing databases.

Think about this. The average American will produce 90,000 pounds of trash during a lifetime.  Try to minimize this by re-using or recycling as much as you can.

Local Recycling Centers

Thursday, Friday and Saturday
8:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M.

Accepts the Following:
Paint and solvents; used motor oil and filters, anti-freeze, and other automotive fluids; cleaning products; pool and garden chemicals; aerosol cans; all medicine; auto batteries; household batteries.

The Following are Accepted on Saturdays Only:
Computers, monitors, printers, network equipment, cables, telephones, televisions, microwaves, video games, cell phones, radios, stereos, VCRs, and electronic toys.

Any Staples store will take the same items listed above for recycling.

A Special Note on Batteries…

Batteries are essential to our portable lifestyle. Cars, phones, music, cameras, toys, game players and even our daily planners make our lives convenient and instant because of power supplied by batteries. As we continue to enhance our lives with portable amenities, battery disposal is becoming an environmental challenge.

Batteries are a unique product comprised of heavy metals and other elements that make things “portable”. Some of these toxic heavy metals include nickel cadmium, alkaline, mercury, nickel metal hydride and lead acid. It is these elements that can threaten our environment if not properly discarded.  A number of resources are available to reduce battery waste, such as the sites listed above.  We hope you will consider making battery recycling part of your daily, monthly and yearly routine.