Guest Column by Beth and Todd Harrison: A Greener Rockville Starts at Home — Eight Steps to a More Environmentally Responsible Home in 2008 (Pt.2)

>Part Two of a three-part series by Rockville Central friends Beth and Todd Harrison. (Part One is here.)This week we continue our three part series, A Greener Rockville Starts at Home, with three additional steps you can take to create a more environmentally responsible home in 2008. Each of this week’s steps cover things you can do related to the kitchen and cleaning within the home: shopping bags, cleaning rags, and clothing drying racks.

#3: Bring Reusable Bags When ShoppingEver walk out of the grocery store with about twenty of those little plastic grocery bags? Not only are they hard to handle, they are made from petroleum, take hundreds of years to degrade in our landfills, and contribute to litter all over our neighborhoods. Over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks, and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year. That means residents of Rockville use approximately 70 million plastic bags a year—just Rockville! The simple solution is to bring your own reusable bags when you go shopping.A local store, My Organic Market, offers great reusable grocery bags that are strong and durable. They sell them for only $0.99 each, and they give you a $0.10 credit every time you use one. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s also offer reusable bags. We’ve found it helps to keep several bags in the trunk of your car, so no matter where you are, you always have reusable bags handy.In the past, we found ourselves going through at least one roll of paper towels each week just cleaning up around the house. We decided to start using old t-shirts to make cloth rags for cleaning instead. We use old plain white t-shirts and cut them up into squares about 6” by 6”.Cloth rags are better than paper towels in many respects. They hold together when wet, and they are softer and less likely to scratch sensitive surfaces. But the main advantage is they are reusable—no waste! Beth recently persuaded her co-workers to start using cloth towels in the office kitchen instead of paper towels. They take turns bringing them home to wash them.We purchased two basic drying racks from Linens and Things for $9.99 each. We’re not saying go without a dryer altogether—there are some things that just don’t work well on a drying rack. We typically wash two or three loads of clothes each weekend. We are able to pull out enough items to put on the drying rack that we only have to run one load in the dryer. Things that work well on the drying rack are t-shirts, pajamas, sweaters, sweatshirts, etc. Use the dryer for dress shirts, dress pants, blue jeans, and little things like socks. You may find that clothes dried on a drying rack are a little stiff. Give them a good shake when folding and the stiffness comes right out. And unlike clotheslines, drying racks work year round, rain or shine.

#4: Use Cloth Rags for Cleaning

#5: Use a Drying Rack for Clothes

Appliances account for about 20% of a home’s energy consumption, and clothes dryers are among the most power hungry appliances (with refrigerators and washing machines). Clothes dryers don’t even come with an Energy Star rating like most appliances, because all dryers use about the same amount of energy. However, there is an alternative: using a drying rack.

Next week we will conclude the series with the last three steps of our eight simple steps for making a more environmentally responsible home in 2008. If you have any questions or comments, please post them in the comments section of this article and we will do our best to follow up.

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