(NAPSA)—Between car pooling, shopping and business meetings, being consumers would save as much energy as removing seven million cars from the road. Friday—Clean With Green: Cleaning solutions can introduce toxic chemicals into your home and, when poured down your drain, may put unsafe chemicals into the environment. To reduce environmentally friendly is often a low priority. While being “green” may not make our to-do lists, taking one simple step each day can have a positive environmentaleffect. Here are sometips from Green Mountain Energy Company for each day of the week that are easy to fit into an everyday routine: Sunday—Take A Walk: Walking is great exercise. For longer trips, the environmental effect, choose use masstransit. Benefits: By walking or using mass transit instead of driving, you can reduce the amount of CO:, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average passenger car uses 581 gallons of gasoline each year, and emits more than 11,500 poundsof CO:. Monday—Choose Your Power: Traditional methods of generating electricity have been one of the leading causes of industrial air pollution in the United States. But someelectricity providers use renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and water, as well as natural gas—to create electricity that is cleaner than the typical system power. Benefits: By buying cleaner electricity, your household can reduce its share of COz emissions. Cleaner electricity customers avoid contributing on average between 100 to 20,000 pounds of CO:, depending where theylive. Tuesday—Go Stargazing: When buying a new appliance, look for the Energy Star seal. These appliances may cost more up front, but the energy savings can help pay for the purchase. Separating waste and recy- cling can have a big environmental effect. Benefits: A new Energy Starlabeled refrigerator uses half the amount of energy as a 10-year-old refrigerator. Wednesday-—Recycle When Possible: Most communities have recycling centers and offer curbside pickup for used paper, plastic and aluminum products. Check your Yellow Pages for local recycling centers. Make dropping off recyclable materials part of your weekly routine. Benefits: Recycling all your home’s waste newsprint, cardboard, glass and metal can reduce your home’s CO: emissions by 850 poundsperyear. Thursday—Plug Into Preservation: Turn out lights when you are not in a room to help preserve valuable energy. Where possible, replace your regular incandescent lightbulbs with fluorescent bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs use 25 percent the electricity that incandescent lights use and generally last up to 10 times longer. Benefits: If every household replaced four incandescent lightbulbs with fluorescent lightbulbs, cleaning products that are nontoxic, biodegradable, phosphatefree and chlorine-free. Use old T-shirts, towels and washcloths to clean, instead of paper towels. Benefits: Americans generating 1.6 million tons of household hazardous waste per year. The average home accumulates as much as 100 pounds of household hazardous waste. Choosing more environmentally friendly cleaning products can reduce your share of harmful waste. Saturday—Be Water Wise: Use water only when needed. Avoid leaving the faucet running while brushing your teeth or shaving. Consider installing water-saving showerheads and low-flow toilets that reduce water usage. Benefits: By replacing standard 4.5-gallon-per-minute showerheads with 2.5-gallon-per-minute heads, a family of four can save approximately 20,000 gallons of water per year. Green Mountain Energy™ electricity is the leading brand of cleaner electricity in the states where the company does business: California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Texas. Nearly half-a-million customers in seven states use Green Mountain Energyelectricity. The Austin, Texas-based com- pany (www.greenmountain.com) was founded in 1997 to “change the way poweris made.”
