Going Green at home - saving water

Ever been camping and brushed your teeth with no running water? Why not do it that way at home? That is the reasoning behind Stop The Water While Using Me! toothpaste, shower gel and shampoo based out of Germany.

Even though the earth is 75% covered in water, only 1% is available for human consumption, and of that 70% of that goes to irrigation and 22% goes to industry. That leaves 8% of the 1% available for drinking, dishwashing, and watering your lawn. Spread evenly worldwide, that equates to 2.5 gallons per person per year. Developed countries use more than their share, however - about 100 gallons per person - and about 1 billion people currently lack access to clean drinking water.

Water conservation in developed countries can have very significant positive impacts, so if you can, stop the water!

Google is so green!

In an effort to reduce their carbon footprint, Google employs goats to mow the grass in their field at their headquarters in Mountain View, provide plug-in hybrid vehicles that get charged with a solar-powered carport to employees who use alternative transportation, and compost their organic waste.

Now they are striving for 100% water recycling from data center cooling systems. On average, two gallons of water is consumed for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. Google is working on reclaiming dirty water, filtering the water and using it for facility cooling. According to Data Center Knowledge, at least two Google data center have these water filtering plants and a third is employing a rainwater collection system to reduce reliance on the local water supply.

Joe Kava, Google's Director of Operations, said,

“Water consumption isn’t a side thought; it’s part of our larger environmental management policy. In the future this will be at the forefront of data center operations."

Save money with this cool new rain barrel

During these tough economic times, everyone is looking to save money. Coincidently, saving money can also be good for the environment! There are three main ways how we can live more green: reduce, re-use, and recycle. A rain barrel does all three!

A rain barrel not only conserves water and saves money, but the ones offered at www.gardensupermart.com are aesthetically appealing and durable.

According to a manufacturers spokesperson, Walat Yasin, "...[some] rain barrels are ugly. The concept behind this new product has been to develop a rain barrel that homeowners could proudly display, like a piece of furniture.”