E3 Living Newsletter Archive: Volume 1, Issue 11

Arcticle 1: Don't wait! Change your lights now.

Don't wait for your regular incandescent bulbs to burn out before you replace them. You are just throwing money away.

Did you know compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs can improve the lighting in your home and save you money? The standard incandescent bulbs currently lighting your home have changed very little from Thomas Edison's first light bulb in 1879. Only 10% of the energy used by standard bulbs actually makes light; the other 90% is wasted heat. Did you also know that electricity production is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and lighting accounts for about 25 percent of American electricity consumption.

By replacing four standard bulbs with CFLs, you can prevent the emission of 5,000 pounds of carbon dioxide and reduce your electricity bill by more than $150 over the lives of those bulbs.

If only 1,000 of us each replace four standard bulbs with CFLs, we could prevent the emission of five million pounds of carbon dioxide and reduce our electricity bills by more than $150,000 over the lives of those bulbs.

Learn more about CFLs....

Article 2: Too much junk mail? Here are a couple ways to clean it up.

In 2003 the national Do Not Call Registry opened and more than 125 million telephone numbers have been added from people that do not want their contact information sold to telemarketers. Here we are in 2006, three years later, and we still don’t have an easy, simple way to clean up the unwanted mess we receive everyday from direct mailing companies.

Now, not all junk mail is really junk. And I am sure there are a few people who enjoy receiving it everyday. But for the most part, Americans don’t enjoy getting bombarded day after day. In fact, although there are recently introduced bills in Illinois, Missouri, California and New York, there is still not a national program similar to the Do Not Call Registry.

But in the meantime, did you know that every four months, an area the size of Rocky Mountain National Park is leveled to produce the 100 million trees worth of junk mail that goes into our mailboxes. Producing and disposing of that much junk mail uses an equivalent amount of energy as 2,800,000 automobiles and costs us hundreds of millions of dollars to have it hauled away and put into dumps (and hopefully some recycling).

But you do have a couple of options if you want to get rid of some, if not a lot, of that junk mail. Green Dimes is a subscription service that for about 10 cents per day will do all the work. They’ll call, email and write these companies to make sure they leave you alone! And, every month they will plant a tree, in your name.

If you don’t want to pay to get rid of junk mail, and are willing to do a little work, there are options for you too. The Direct Marketing Association offers one option and the New American Dream offers another. The Direct Marketing Association site is pretty straight forward, while the New American Dream offers you a chance to go grassroots if your feelings are that strong about junk mail. Check them out.

Article 3: Look for The Next Wave in Lighting - LED's

Light Emitting Diodes, commonly called LEDs, are ubiquitous in our world and you probably don't even notice. They do dozens of different jobs and are found in all kinds of devices. Among other things, they form the numbers on digital clocks, transmit information from remote controls, light up watches and tell you when your appliances are turned on. Collected together, they can form images on a jumbo television screen or illuminate a traffic light.

Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs that fit easily into an electrical circuit. But unlike ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don't have a filament that will burn out, and they don't get especially hot. They are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, and they last just as long as a standard transistor. When it comes to lighting we are talking up 100,000 hours.

Down the road we will begin to see LED lights in use for home and business. Right now as an emerging technology, while available at some places, they are very expensive. But if you think incandescent lights are expensive to operate and that CFLs are the big answer, just wait. LEDs while lasting nearly 100,000 hours they use only a fraction of the energy of an incandescent, saving 90% or more on energy. Stay tuned. We will be keeping you up to date on these developments later.

Check out our Holiday LED Lights. . .