12 alternative uses for coffee filters
10:20 PM | Author: siteowner
Here are some of the most interesting and practical alternative uses for coffee filters please feel free to suggest other uses in the comments below! Coffee Filters
  1. Clean windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so they don't leave behind any residue.

  2. Save a bottle of wine. Broke the cork? No problem. Just place a filter over a pitcher and carefully pour the wine into it.

  3. Line flower pots. Place a filter at the bottom of the pot to prevent soil from leaking out of the drainage hole.

  4. Protect china and non-stick cookware. Place a coffee filter between dishes or pans when storing or packing.

  5. Wipe off smudges. In a pinch, you can use to clean eyeglasses, camera lenses, televisions, and computer monitors.

  6. Keep your microwave clean. Prevent splatters by covering dishes or bowls in the microwave with coffee filters. Using another plate is your best bet, but filters are a good alternative to plastic wrap. And you can easily reuse them a few times.

  7. Make a bouquet garni. Tie up bay leaves, parsley, or other herbs in a coffee filter. Drop it in your stew or soup pot, and easily remove it when you're done cooking. Recipes often suggest cheesecloth for this process, but a coffee filter is an easy-to-find alternative.

  8. Diffuse the flash on your camera. Place a coffee filter over your flash to soften the brightness. You can also try putting coffee filters over lights or lamps to lessen the harshness of direct light when taking indoor photos.

  9. Make sachets. Tie lavender or other dried flowers and herbs in a coffee filter to make great-smelling bundles you can store in drawers and closets.

  10. Use for sewing projects. Coffee filters make a great backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics.

  11. Make tea bags. Wrap loose tea in a filter and tie with a string.

  12. Use for storage. Wrap Christmas ornaments and other rarely used fragile items before packing away. By Lori Bongiorno Read More from The Conscious Consumer blog
Green Meetings
  • Save paper on Making Announcements and Displaying agenda . Cut down on paper by using technology such as PowerPoint or a laptop to display information on a screen.Write out the agenda on one large laminated sheet that gets posted on the wall. Can write on with a dry-erase marker at every meeting, instead of using other materials, such as handouts or announcements? Keep your club’s Web site current with announcements. That way, members can review information before the meeting and those unable to attend can access the information. If your club has a newsletter, consider saving money and resources by making it available online. Many clubs e-mail their newsletters. It’s a nice way to keep in touch when some are too busy to attend meetings.
  • Try texting. Some clubs are giving up paper ballots in favor of using cell phones to text comments to members about their speeches and to submit votes to the vote counter.
  • Consider recycling. If you feel strongly in favor of having printed agendas, announcements or ballots, consider printing on both sides of the page and use recycled paper and vegetable-based inks. And bring – or ask your host venue to provide – recycling bins for paper, metal, plastic and glass. This way, you can easily recycle any leftover materials at the end of your meeting. Also, remember to reuse or recycle any signs, and take advantage of electronic bulletin boards, if provided in your meeting locale.
  • Bulk up and reuse. Encourage club members to avoid using standard water bottles and instead bring refillable plastic or eco-friendly water containers to the meeting. Toastmasters International also offers a line of eco-friendly products. To find these products, visit TI’s online store and type “eco-friendly” in the products search menu.
  • Save energy. If your club meets during the day, consider a change of scenery every so often and hold meetings outdoors – at a local park, for example. Make use of natural light whenever possible. If your club meets during the day, check to see if open curtains will provide adequate light for a safe gathering. In addition, coordinate with the meeting venue or host to ensure that lights and air conditioning will be turned off when rooms are not in use.
  • Spread the word! There are many shades of green, so take these first steps to make your meetings the deepest green possible. Once you have information and a plan on taking the steps to make your meeting more environmentally efficient, write down the plan and share it with your club. Then, promote it to guests. You can even give a speech about it.
  1. Try to use both sides of a sheet of paper for printing, copying, writing and drawing.
  2. Reuse paper that's already printed on one side by manually feeding it into copiers and printers. Use it for internal documents like drafts and short-lived items such as meeting agendas or temporary signs.
  3. Once-used paper can also be reused in plain paper fax machines — they only need one clean side.
  4. Use less paperE-mail can be used to share documents and ideas. Be sure to only print the e-mails you need to have a hard copy of. This advice goes for Internet documents as well. Instead of printing a Web page, bookmark it or save the page on your hard drive and pull it up when needed.
  5. Desktop fax, electronic references (CD-ROM databases), electronic data storage, electronic purchasing and direct deposit are all ways to use electronic media that reduce office paper waste.
  6. Help minimize misprints by posting a diagram on how to load special paper like letterhead so it will be printed correctly.
  7. Practice efficient copying — use the size reduction feature offered on many copiers. Two pages of a book or periodical can often be copied onto one standard sheet.
  8. Use two-way or send-and-return envelopes. Your outgoing envelope gets reused for its return trip.
  9. Use reusable inter- and intra-office envelopes.
  10. Reuse old paper for notepads. It can be cut to custom sizes and simply bound with a staple.
  11. Draft documents can be reviewed, edited and shared on-screen.
15 Ways to Reduce Food Packaging
9:52 PM | Author: siteowner
Manufacturers know that flashy packaging translates into increased sales, but Much of this packaging is unnecessary. There’s a ton of material we continue to schlep home when shopping — the cellophane, unrecyclable bags, plastic, and cardboard used in the packaging of many common items. A fantastic, and such an easy eco-friendly action for most of us to take is to carrying our own reusable shopping bags to the grocery store when we goes to shop

As consumers, there are a number of items we can use or purchase in order to reduce our consumption of excess packaging here are 15 Ways to Reduce Food Packaging:

  1. Bring a travel mug whenever you go to your favorite coffee shop. Many cafes will fill your mug at no additional charge, eliminating the need for those one-use styrofoam cups with plastic lids.
  2. Use a reusable, stainless steel drinking bottle instead of individual drink boxes or bottles.
  3. Buy fresh fruits and vegetables instead of produce in cans, frozen boxes and bags.
  4. Buy in bulk, using your own containers from home to eliminate the use of can, carton, and plastic bag packaging.
  5. 5. Use cloth napkins instead of paper napkins.
  6. Buy big boxes of cereal instead of individually packaged cereals.
  7. Never buy individual “snack-sized” boxes or bags.
  8. When washing non-bagged greens, use a salad spinner. That way you won’t have to use paper towels to blot the greens dry.
  9. Buy quarts of yogurt instead of eight-ounce or smaller cups.
  10. Use cloth or a gold coffee filter rather than paper filters.
  11. Buy bulk cheese instead of individually wrapped slices.
  12. Make your own popsicles using reusable molds, rather than buying boxed popsicles. Be sure to use BPA-free molds.
  13. Use metal and ceramic baking pans instead of aluminum disposable pans.
  14. Use loose tea instead of one-use tea bags.
  15. DIY, green cleaning products instead of commercial cleaning products. Care2 is a great resource for recipes for these easy to prepare recipes, from window cleaner to furniture polish.
6 Ways to Reuse Papers At Office and Work places
9:47 PM | Author: siteowner
  • Reuse envelopes and send them through the mail again whenever possible. We understand that business do not like to send some types of mail in used envelopes for reasons of corporate image. However, many businesses conduct a fair amount of mailing of types where corporate image in not a factor. For this type of mailing, use labels to cover the old address on used envelopes. Some companies sell reuse labels for envelopes, which have a discrete message at the bottom explaining that this envelope was reused to save trees.
  • Have each staff persons set aside paper that they use on only one side, so that it can be reused for printing drafts in your printer, or glued together to make scratch pads. As staff accumulate paper, they can transfer it to a centrally located storage box, possibly next to a printer or photocopiers.
  • Use padding compound, the glue that holds paper together in tablets, to make scratch pads form your paper that was used only on one side. Padding compound is available from many office supply stores. You can clamp the edge of the paper together with blocks of wood and C-clamps, or you can invest in a small paper padding press. Several types are sold for well under $150.
  • Buy "recycled" toner cartridges, and send your spent toner cartridges to be "recycled". Commercially, this is referred to as recycling, but it is actually a form of reuse.
  • Encourage staff to use reusable coffee mugs when they pick up coffee in the morning on their way into the office. Hang a mug reuse poster in your break room.
  • Invest in rechargeable batteries and battery chargers for digital cameras, flashlights, and other small devices. If your staff can be trusted to not accidentally throw away or loose the rechargeable batteries, in the long run it would be cheaper and better for the environment. More Information.
How to Build Green Home: Green Home Design
9:44 PM | Author: siteowner
Designing of Green Home: How to Build Green HomeGreen Home means a home that is close to that nature, that nature designed to be brought without detriment. Natural resources have been used in the making that. So wherever you live, use the local natural resources to make your home. Like, if you are making home in Madhypradesh or rajasthan then all things that are used to build the house e.g. clay, bricks, rods, everything buy from their surroundings. By this you will not only save your money on truck fare, but it also save environment from being contaminated by saving the gasoline used in trucks to come and smoke coming out of the vehicle. Read More.........How to Build Green Home
office waste papersWorking in the office, often you'll feel the need to print off documents just because you can and you think you'll need them later. Copy paper, like the kind used in photocopiers, computer printers and plain-paper fax machines, is the most common type of office waste paper. We ask that you remember a few things before printing off that joke email from a colleague.
  • Proofread onscreen before printing
  • Copy & paste only what you need to print
  • Don’t print unnecessary emails
  • Reuse documents/copies if possible
Benefits of using less:
  • Storage and handling. Paper is bulky to store, in boxes or in file cabinets. By using fewer sheets, you can put storage space to more productive use. For example, Owens Corning recently made all of its offices worldwide "paperless." Having had 14,000 file cabinets around the world, the company has already saved around $30 million in lease costs.
  • Mailing costs. Fewer sheets mailed may mean reduced postage. A single-sided 10-page letter costs $0.63 to send by U.S. first class ; that same letter, copied onto both sides of the paper, uses only five sheets and requires only $0.39 in postage. The price of postage is rising, and those extra ounces can really add up.
  • Environmental benefits. By increasing double-sided copying (duplexing), U.S. offices could reduce annual paper use by 20 percent (Inform, Inc). By using and discarding less paper, you are conserving resources, reducing water and energy use, and preventing pollution.