Solar power installation has benefited homeowners by cutting their power bills and saving money. But do the savings that you get from using solar power outweigh the initial cost of installing a system?

Solar power installation fees also depend on whether you opt to use a ready-made solar panel or use a DIY one. Pre-made solar panels could cost you about $12 per watt which could add up up to $900 per panel. With this kind up front expense, the cost of powering a small or energy efficient home could reach to $25, 000 for a medium sized system. While large houses that uses solar power would require a budget of up to $50,000 for the installation of solar panels.  With government subsidies, however,  installation of small-scale sustainable electricity alternatives like the solar, hydro and wind electricity systems become much more affordable. A list of current schemes supporting the installation of solar power for homes and business is available from the website for The Office of Renewable Energy Regulator.

Alternatively you may consider making your very own solar panel! Many people think that a DIY solar panel is difficult to construct but actually it isn’t. Building one on your own would only need a few common tools and a bit of effort. Knowledge and step-by-step guides on how to build a solar panel can be found almost everywhere and there are a number of video tutorials available online as well as books and other resource materials s that will make your project easier.

Usually, people go for solar power thinking that it is more energy efficient than commercial electricity. While that may be correct, the reality is that moving to a renewable power source is only part of the solution: you still need to make your home as energy efficient as possible in order to reduce the amount of energy that you need. In this way not only is the initial cost of solar power installation reduced, but, if your home is energy efficient, it will require less electricity and therefore a smaller solar power system. Generally speaking, saving electricity is cheaper than generating it so invest in making your home energy efficient and install solar power system for you to maximise the benefits of saving energy.

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As technology rapidly advances, the gadgets we once recognized become obsolete in just a short period of time. And as the technological demands of people changes and increases, previous models of phones, ipods, cameras, computers and other electronics are thrown away into the garbage bin even if they are still in a good working condition. Doing that is a big waste of money and a hazard to the environment’s well-being. As a responsible and mature citizen, there are countless ways to make these gadgets and electronics efficient and functional. Here are some environment-friendly tips on how to recycle or sell your old electronics:

• Turn your “trash” to cash. There are several companies that would buy your out dated gadgets. Gather all your phones, ipods, cameras, computer or other electronics that you would want to sell. Then search the internet for the companies on whose criteria your merchandise would fit. Set your price per gadget by searching it in the internet or electronic shops and comparing its current value. We think the best service for recycling phones is Mobile Muster: www.mobilemuster.com.au

• Repair and refurbish your computers for a cause. You can donate surplus computers and other information and communication technologies to schools, city libraries, and other charities that will need it most. Not only are you able to help save the environment, you can also take part in providing these individuals and institutions a better future.

• Reuse your gadgets especially if they are still in good condition. Although they may be quite behind the new models, there may be several applications, hardware and programs that you can install to your gadgets to keep it as modern as its fresh counterparts.
You can make a big difference when you get involved and take your part in e-cycling. Advocate for it now and become conscious of the welfare of the environment and others. Support Australia’s government campaign for the control and elimination of toxic electronic waste.

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Man was made to rule over and take care of His creations. But religion is not the only aspect in our life that calls us to be concerned of the welfare of the environment. Our health, happiness and the future generations likewise depend on how we use and manage the Earth at present.

Caring for the environment begins from the basic unit of society, the family. It is through the awareness of the responsibility of each member of the household to protect and nurture the planet that you are able to globally participate towards the achievement of a better life. It doesn’t require much labor for you to be earth-friendly. There are so many simple ways that when done consistently the right way, can make a significant and huge difference. Here are some suggestions on easy ways to make a greener home and living:

1.       Replace appliances to energy-efficient models. Check for the “Energy Star” logo when you use or purchase appliances and gadgets because they consume up to 10%-50% lesser energy and water compared to typical ones. Use energy-efficient lights. Standard incandescent light bulbs consume more energy compare to Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFL). The latter can last 10x longer and consumes about 66% lesser than the former.

2.       Water conservation. It doesn’t require products for you to implement the wise use of water rather it only needs some behavioral change on your part. Simply turning off the faucet every time that it’s not used can make a great difference. Installing a low-flow toilet or adjusting its float bulb can greatly minimize 2 liters of water used to flush the toilet. Save up to 80 liters of water when you use the broom instead of using the garden hose every time you clean the driveway. .

3.       Use less paper. Paper comes from trees. Whenever we recycle or use a post-consumer paper, we save money, trees and the environment.

4.       Minimize plastic use. Polyethylene plastic is usually found in grocery, trash and sandwich bags. Throwing plastics away to the landfill increases greenhouse gasses which in turn contribute to the occurrence of global warning. Additionally, burning and processing plastics is a major contributor to global warming since they are made from petroleum.

5.       Organic gardening. Instead of using fertilizers and other chemicals to grow plants at home, use compost. Not only does it contain the right amount of nutrients, but also a good degree of soil organism is present to keep the soil fertile and healthy for plant growth.

It’s a cliché but as a matter of fact, recycling and cutting down on what you consume are the basic means for living a green and earth friendly life.

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While cultivating soil can be a tedious and messy job it gives you the opportunity to transform your yard into a prolific home garden. Aside from the nutritional benefits you get from eating fresh and naturally grown fruits and vegetables from your own backyard, maintaining a vegetable garden at home can also be a good physical activity to help you stay in shape. Calories are burned when you plant the garden, sow seeds, water the plants, remove weeds, mow the lawn and, of course, it also saves you money that would otherwise be spent buying fruit, vegetables and even flowers from stores and markets.

Beginning a home garden requires a lot of planning. First, you have to decide what plants you would like to grow in your home or backyard. The next thing to do is to prepare the soil which is an essential factor to the survival of outdoor and container plants. To determine a healthy and safe soil, have it checked for water, nitrogen and phosphorus content as well as its alkalinity and acidity. In addition to that, you need to have an excellent mixture of clay, sand and silt. You can test its quality by compressing it and assessing if it can hold its shape or whether it falls apart easily when an external force is applied to it. You can then be certain that you’re close to the standards of a good soil composition. But if you think it lacks one ingredient or another you can remedy that. Peat moss or compost is used for soil that contains too much silk or sand. For too much clay, a mix of peat moss and sand should do the trick.

If your soil is deficient in nutrients you can add fertilizers one to two weeks prior to planting your seeds. Continue adding the same amount of fertilizer a week after the seeds have been sown to be certain that there is an adequate supply of the nutrients that are essential for the plants’ growth.

Garden pests can be your number one enemy in home gardening. Eliminating them totally will be close to impossible but there are ways of controlling their existence in the garden. Planting herbs like chives, coriander, basil and mint can help you with pest control. Insects are deterred by eliminating weeds, leaves and decaying matter where they could possibly reside.

There are so many things that a gardener should consider in home gardening. Spare some time and effort in learning about it and you’ll see that even without a green thumb, you can grow a garden of abundance and freshness.

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Even things as simple as washing your clothes can create a huge impact on our environment. The power that washing machines and dryers use produce carbon dioxide that we know is harmful to the environment. On top of this detergents used when washing clothes contain chemicals which may remain behind within waste water as it is washed through our water system. But, even if it sounds like the negative effects of washing clothes outweigh the positive ones, it doesn’t entirely mean that we have have to have limited access to clean and fresh clothes!

Here are some sustainable and environmentally friendly things that you can do when washing your clothes.

1. Lower your washing temperature! Many detergents nowadays work well with lower temperature settings. You can save about 40% on your electricity use  if you switch from 40 to 30 degrees and you still get the same results!
2. Wash in bulk! Don’t do small loads of washing but wait until you get a full load of laundry before washing it. Although it may sound like a huge job, it can save you a lot of power, detergent and water. If you can’t wait for it to be full, hand wash smaller washes.
3. Never leave the machine on standby. This does not only apply to washing machines but to every appliance you own. Even on standby appliances continues to draw power so turn it off and unplug your washing machine and other appliances when not in use.
4. Use a washing machine that has an energy saver feature. Look for the energy saving labels and do some research to identify recommended models. Energy efficiency not only lowers your energy consumption, but it also emits less carbon dioxide making them more eco-friendly.
5. Replace chlorine bleach. Choose environment friendly detergents. As an alternative to bleach, you can use ½ cup of baking soda as an ordinary or eco-friendly detergent. It produces similar whitening and cleaning effects to your clothes. You can also try soaking your clothes overnight in a mixture of 1 part white vinegar and 6 parts warm water. The sour odor of the vinegar will just evaporate and leave unnoticed. Another alternative is oxygen bleach. Although it works slower than chlorine bleach, it has gentler effects on your clothes and environment as well.

As much as we want to keep our clothes clean and fresh, we should not forget to protect our environment too. Utilise these environmentally friendly washing tips and see how far they go in saving you money and the environment.

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One concern that we have to address when managing our homes is how we can save and use energy efficiently. As technology advances and the population continues to grow, total energy consumption will continue to increase.  Although there are many new cost-effective and energy-efficient appliances available our dependence on technology will continue to put pressure on our energy use, especially at home.

Aside from the fact that home electricity bills have risen dramatically over the last two years, there is the unavoidable impact of our rising energy consumption on climate change since carbon dioxide emitted by the process of energy production is the cause global warming.  While reducing energy consumption at home won’t reverse global warming we can employ some tips and techniques to reduce the impact on the environment and save some money at the same time.

1. Install energy saving improvements at home. Using your central heating controls wisely can get your bills down as well as reduce wasted energy. Install thermostats and timers to manage your heating energy use.
2. Use renewable energy sources where possible. Natural energy sources such as solar power produces environmental friendly and sustainable energy for your home through the process of microgeneration. With the use of solar panels or even wind turbines to create energy, heat or electricity, carbon dioxide emissions are  can be reduced dramatically.
3. Buy energy efficient appliances. These appliances require less energy and need not be any more expensive or offer less quality and functionality. Look for the energy saving labels to ensure that your appliance is one of the top 20 percent most energy efficient products in the market.

Although the above tips are applicable for today, the traditional energy saving techniques (such as turning off appliances when not in use, maintaining an accurate electric meter, covering pans and pots when cooking, drying clothes outdoors, replacing light bulbs at home with energy saving ones, etc.) remain  effective means of saving energy. Being conscious and mindful of your energy consumption will not only create a big impact on your budget and will benefit the environment as well.

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Protecting the environment and saving money at the same time through recycling non-biodegradable materials is a fun and easy task to do. You can get the your friends and family involved in this project and become advocates for living green. Exercise your creativity and resourcefulness by turning garbage into something functional!

Here are some simple recycling tips that you can do to start reducing your “carbon footprint”:

1. Look for areas where you commonly find recyclable items. The kitchen and garage are the usual places where you can find them. Pick a certain area where you can use it as your recycling center.

2. Sort out and classify the recyclable materials. Get your storage bins and baskets out and label them according to the items that it will contain like newspapers, plastic, aluminum, bottles, etc. Avoid using glass jars or empty carton boxes since they can easily get broken.

3. Do not throw away plastic bags used from the stores. You can reuse it for your next trip to the shops to reduce the use of plastic bags. Ultimately, the use of plastic bags can be eliminated by using wooden baskets, paper bags, cloth bags (available from both Coles and Woolworths if you shop there) or biodegradable plastic bags.

4. Determine which type of plastic can be recycled. Look at the bottom of plastic containers and see if you find numbers that identify the kind of plastic they are:

• Number 1 contains polyethylene terephthalate which can be recycled into fiberfill for bean bags, winter coats, tennis ball felt and other plastic bottles.
• Number 2 indicates high density polyethylene which is usually the type of plastic used in shampoo bottles, bleach and milk jugs. These number 2 plastics can be recycled to make piping and toys.
• Number 3 means Poly vinyl chloride and can be usually found in plastics used for baby bottle nipples, meat wraps, linoleum, cooking oil containers, vinyl siding in the house and vinyl dashboards and seat covers. They are difficult to recycle and are hazardous to the environment.
• Sandwich and grocery bags have a low density polyethylene type which is classified as number 4 and they are not usually recyclable.
• Number 5 stands for polypropylene and it has a low recyclability rate, examples of plastics with number 5 are diapers, syrup bottles, Tupperware, and some baby bottles, plastic cups and plates.
• Styrofoam is under number 6 and other types are classified under number 7. The latter is usually compose of polycarbonate like 10 litre water bottles and are the most difficult to recycle.

5. Junk mail and bond papers can be recycled by using it as a scratch paper or note pad.

6. Recycle and reuse electronics. Some manufacturers of mobile phones, televisions, computers and electronic retailers sponsor recycling events and provide a take back program.

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Statistics issued to The Age show the 907,851 new cars, utes, vans and four-wheel-drives sold last year had average emissions of 218.5 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven.

That was a fall of 1.8 per cent from the 222.4 grams per kilometre emitted by vehicles sold in 2008, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries reports.

The statistics show the biggest improvement was among luxury four-wheel-drives, where average emissions fell by 5.8 per cent. Other significant improvements were recorded by medium-sized four-wheel-drives and ”upper large” passenger vehicles which are increasingly using cylinder deactivation technology in their eight-cylinder engines.

But the environmental performance of the popular people-mover category was not as good, with average carbon emissions rising 1 per cent to 246.2 grams.

Vehicles contribute about one-tenth of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and the federal government is considering introducing mandatory carbon emission standards for new cars.

- with Fairfax Newspapers

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Interestingly, there is an association in Australia called the Australian Electric Vehicle Association.

The association says on its website that most of its members have or are interested in buying or converting petrol powered cars to high efficiency, zero emission electric cars.

For $130,000 you can go on a long waiting list, for a 200kmph imported car, that can accelerate from 0-100km in less than 5 seconds and travel more than 300km for less $10 . 00 of electricity.

Or, at the lower end of the scale, for approximately $15,000 you can convert a petrol powered car to an electric car that can accelerate from 0-100kmph in less than 10 seconds and travel more than 50km daily for less than $2 of electricity.

Electric cars have been around since 1837 but it hasn’t been taken too seriously until recently.

In LA, where smog is a problem, it has forced the world’s major car makers to switch to an electric option.

Electric cars produce no exhaust gases and can greatly help the noise levels of our cities. More importantly for the green fans, they use 50 to 60 per cent less energy than conventional cars.

Vehicle importer Ateco Automotive told brisbanetimes.com.au that it plans to have an electric car on sale in Australia by 2011.

The Chinese electric car looks set to go on sale in Australia by next year, likely to join Mitsubishi and Nissan in the race for emissions free motoring.

The Australian importer of Chinese brands Great Wall Motors and Chery, Ateco, says it expects to be selling an electric car here by 2011.

“I think we’ll have an electric car in 011 – I can’t comment any further,” says Ateco governing director Neville Crichton to the Brisbane Times.
“I’ll be surprised if the Chinese makers don’t come out with an electric car in a very short period of time.”

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The government are looking for a family to live rent free while blogging their thoughts on this three bedroom house in Newington that comes with solar roof top panels, a fuel cell that converts natural gas into electricity, water saving appliances, state-of-the-art lighting and a worm farm.

An electric car is an added bonus.

Sydney Water and Energy Australia are asking for applications for those who wish to trial the green way of life in this smart home.

They are hoping for tenants by around mid year.

“This is a groundbreaking project that will help us see what works and what doesn’t for a real family so that we can plan for the households of the future,” Energy Minister John Robertson said in a statement.

- with AAP

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