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Brave New Leaf
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A green newbie trying to assess her impact and transform her lifestyle to be more sustainable. Covers green projects and products.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'footprint'
Carbon Footprint Check-In
It's time to see how I'm doing with my carbon footprint for the year 2008. As a reminder, I've set a 2008 New Year's Resolution to cut my carbon footprint in half: from 22 tons to 11 tons. On initial....
How to build your own solar-powered hot water heater
Take a look at this fellow in Florida that built his own solar-powered hot water heater for only $160 in materials. The construction is surprisingly straightforward. One note: the design that he build...
Please Participate in Earth Hour 2008
Earth Day was established almost 40 years ago, and many would argue, has outlived its usefulness. It's almost laughable to suggest that the entire world focus their environmental efforts on one partic...
Water Project: How to check your toilet for leaks
With our water supply secure until 2050 in the Pacific Northwest, we don't focus on water saving projects as much as we ought to. Fact is, a global water crisis is looming, and even those of us swimmi...
Wind or Solar? Which Renewable Energy is Right for You?
Let's say you already purchase green power from your power company, but you want to go one step further and start generating renewable electricity yourself. First off, let me shake your hand. I can no...
Scary and New: Cleaning my Fridge Coils
Today I did something I've never done before. To be perfectly honest, it was a bit scary, though I don't know why I should be nervous over something so trivial. But trying new things is always a bit s...
St. Patrick's Day: Ireland losing its Green
Happy Saint Patrick's Day! I considered celebrating by providing the obligatory look at how to green your beer (both in the literal sense, and in the environmental sense, here, here, and here), but it...
Bellevue rolls out the "Carbon Yeti" to schools
In a case of only-in-the-Pacific-Northwest, the City of Bellevue has rolled out an animated carbon footprint mascot called the "Carbon Yeti". I'm not really sure why they chose the Yeti, which is the ...
What do I do with: Printer Cartridges
My inkjet printer stopped printing colors the other day. This was pretty inconvenient since we were trying to print boarding passes at the time, and nothing came out looking right. We bought a replace...
The Green Economics of Tankless Water Heaters
In theory, a tankless water heater seems like a no-brainer. Why heat your water all day when you're not using it? Providing on-demand hot water is much more energy-efficient. It's the dominant water h...
Reader Letter: Greening Kitty Litter
Dear Brave New Leaf, Up until very recently, I always got plastic bags when I shopped so that I could scoop kitty litter into them. Now that I'm using reusable bags, I find myself turning to Glad kitc...
The Story of Stuff
If you have 20 minutes to spare today, I firmly recommend you head over to http://www.storyofstuff.com and watch the interactive movie. It's a really nice, entertaining look at the broad lifecycle of ...
The 12 kinds of environmentalists
When I first decided to go green, I didn’t really have a model for what I was trying to do. I didn’t have an environmentalist friend or relative that could show me the ropes. All I had was a pictu...
Happy Leap Day! Remember to make it Green!
Happy Leap Day! Don't forget to make like the Brits and try to celebrate by doing something green today. Something out of your comfort zone that you wouldn't ordinarily do. Check out my post for a lis...
How does recycling translate into energy?
One of the lessons we try to teach regularly at Brave New Leaf is that recycling is important for more reasons than full landfills. One of the big reasons to recycle is that it saves energy. "Meh," yo...
Is it recyclable: Cell Phones
I have a cell phone which I no longer use. In a classically klutzy move, I dropped it one day. It still works (sort of), but the LED screen on the top and the main one are cracked, so I......
5 Ways to Wake Up and Green Your Coffee
This is article 4 in a series. Read the other articles in the beverage series. Worldwide, it’s the second most consumed beverage after water. Worldwide, it’s the second most traded commodity after...
Updated repeat after me: "No more plastic bottles, or #7 plastic, or things that leach BPA or aluminum..."
Ack! This is why going green can be so difficult sometimes. You make a simple trade-off to reduce your waste, and find out that you are potentially putting your health in jeopardy. Can't anything in l...
Repeat after me: "No more plastic bottles"
This is article 2 in a series. Read the other articles in the beverage series. It’s Environment 101: don’t buy plastic bottles. Practically, it’s so difficult to do sometimes. I go to the gym an...
I'm Quitting Diet Coke to Save the World
It's getting around time to green my food and beverages. I've done the research, and now I'm ready to make some changes. I'm going to start with beverages first, because it is a much more finite unive...
New Design!
Bare with us as we tweak Brave New Leaf's design over the next few days. We've decided that as we're growing exponentially in knowledge about green living, we have that much more to share. Some of the...
The Carbon Audit: Evaluating 4 Carbon Footprint Websites
Read other articles in the Carbon Audit Series: an ongoing investigation into our carbon footprint. I admit it. After starting my energy, water, and waste audits, I’ve been delaying an audit around ...