OT: The GREEN Thread!

One of the great things about Tempe is the mass transit, and the bike friendly nature of the area. I can honestly say that once I start my new gig (May 10th) I will seldom drive a car. I'm easy biking distance to work, all my favorite bars and restaurants are biking distance... and I promise, I'll take the hybrid civic over to reef culture when they finally open :)

Of course, I burn so much electricity on my tank it's probably not offsetting that, but I do my best ;)
 
Its all about doing what you can! :thumbsup: for the bike riding! My job takes me all over the valley so no bike for me. I plan to go look at the new Nissan Leaf here in the next few days.
 
going back to being green: people should bring in their own containers when buying fish and corals, that would save lots of bags from being thrown away after you put the fish/coral in your tank. Kind of like a reusable bag when you go shopping at grocery stores. it would be cool if LFS would market a container with their logo on it, and if you bring it in, you get like 5% off or something.
 
I'll just stick with my 45 year old car and call it good. I'm sure the amount of waste going in to building the 4-5 cars that should have replaced it has far outweighed any emmisions that have come out of its tailpipe in the last 3-400K miles. One of these days I'm going to finish the electronic conversion still sitting in my shop. I bet I can pull better numbers out of a '66 Dodge van than most these fancy new cars. I still get 30 mpg out my Dart.
 
khaosinc said:
I'll just stick with my 45 year old car and call it good. I'm sure the amount of waste going in to building the 4-5 cars that should have replaced it has far outweighed any emmisions that have come out of its tailpipe in the last 3-400K miles. One of these days I'm going to finish the electronic conversion still sitting in my shop. I bet I can pull better numbers out of a '66 Dodge van than most these fancy new cars. I still get 30 mpg out my Dart.
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lol, your joking right?
 
khaosinc said:
I'll just stick with my 45 year old car and call it good. I'm sure the amount of waste going in to building the 4-5 cars that should have replaced it has far outweighed any emmisions that have come out of its tailpipe in the last 3-400K miles. One of these days I'm going to finish the electronic conversion still sitting in my shop. I bet I can pull better numbers out of a '66 Dodge van than most these fancy new cars. I still get 30 mpg out my Dart.
Click to expand...

I had an old '71 chevy nova years ago (till I turned it into a crushed can) that I would regularly get 25-30mpg out of (straight 6, 250ci)
 
NaClH20NMYVEIN said:
Its all about doing what you can! :thumbsup: for the bike riding! My job takes me all over the valley so no bike for me. I plan to go look at the new Nissan Leaf here in the next few days.
Click to expand...

Very kewl ideed, but I'd never be the beta tester on my own dime. I'd wait a year or two while they work out all the kinks. There's always issues with any new model, technology, etc.
 
vanillagorila said:
lol, your joking right?
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not at all. I helped build one electric car for a friend of mine a few years ago. Used a VW bug of all things. We pulled about an 80 mile range out of it, and that was just using used golf cart batteries. Frame rusted out before anything else went wrong. As far as the Dart, keeping it well tuned, and a few mods and its pretty light on gas. That old van can hold lots of batteries before I even match the weight of pulling out the 318 ci engine. Lots easier to put them in as well.
 
ynnhoj86 said:
going back to being green: people should bring in their own containers when buying fish and corals, that would save lots of bags from being thrown away after you put the fish/coral in your tank. Kind of like a reusable bag when you go shopping at grocery stores. it would be cool if LFS would market a container with their logo on it, and if you bring it in, you get like 5% off or something.
Click to expand...

You mean like this?
 
Its been over a year so a bump is in order. I will dig around and see what new green things I can come up with. Anyone care to share any new ideas?
 
I can probably give you some! lol my girlfriend owns a company that actually measures the efficiency of your house and makes suggestions for fixes... a lot of that is paid for by SRP/APS and your tax dollars.. but not going into that, I will just say as tests we have done a lot to our house.

the #2 energy consuming item in az is pool pump, so about 2 months ago we switched to a variable speed pool pump, SRP has a rebate of about $250 (if I remember right, can ask GF when she gets home) pump installed is around $950 so you get for about $700. but the draw for us dropped from 1400 to 328 watts, our first bill drop was about $44 (hard to tell because it was a lot hotter this month) but should pay for itself in just over a year.
 
relaxednature said:
I can probably give you some! lol my girlfriend owns a company that actually measures the efficiency of your house and makes suggestions for fixes... a lot of that is paid for by SRP/APS and your tax dollars.. but not going into that, I will just say as tests we have done a lot to our house.

the #2 energy consuming item in az is pool pump, so about 2 months ago we switched to a variable speed pool pump, SRP has a rebate of about $250 (if I remember right, can ask GF when she gets home) pump installed is around $950 so you get for about $700. but the draw for us dropped from 1400 to 328 watts, our first bill drop was about $44 (hard to tell because it was a lot hotter this month) but should pay for itself in just over a year.
Click to expand...

I have heard of companies like this offering this service. Many of them are covered partially or fully by SRP/APS and so do a $99 inspection but if you have them fix any of the trouble areas found they will waive the $99 inspection. It seems like a great deal to find out where you can save the most money.
Your also right on the pool pump. They are energy hogs! I hope to replace mine this winter with a Pentair whisperflo.

Another somewhat green fact I found last week on a trip to the dump. You can buy compost at the dump. Not sure the cost but it's there for sale. They have the landscapers dump their plant material separate from the rest of the trash and they grind it up and compost it. This location is at 27th Ave and Lower Buckeye.

Rain Barrels are another great green option. Most people dont go for them as water is so cheap that they will take for ever to pay for themselves. I installed a 550G rain barrel on the side of my house and it covers about 1/4 of my roof. If we get an inch of rain it gets filled, then I water my poted plants for about the next month or so. I hope to bury one in my back yard this winter that holds about 2000G. It will feed my sprinklers and when empty the sprinklers will run off the tap.

Fake grass is also a nice option. Again not the best return on investment but it does not need to watered and is very easy to maintain, cuts down on landscapers costs. They look pretty real now as well. I will try to get a picture of mine up asap.
 
we got the Hayward Ecostar, but the Pentair is also Highly recomended, we just chose hayword becuase all our automation for waterfall and such is controlled by a hayword controller. the installer actually liked the Pentair better because it had a higher range of adjustability pre programmed.

Fake grass is a good call for water consumption but takes forever to recover because water is so cheap.. we went from 19k gallons a month to 8k when we switched.. the lawn always looking green is nice, but we don't have cool decking around our pool so when its hot people always hop on the grass thinking it will be cooler but it's actually even hotter. (so one drawback)
 
Time for the annual bump. I just found a place that will pay you .05 per lb for your plastic salt buckets. They will also take chlorine buckets and that type of clean rigid plastic. I always thought these buckets were recyclable with the city pick up but I called and asked and they said no. Here is the place to get paid for your old buckets.

Arizona Pacific Plastics
Arizona Pacific Pulp & Paper
3209 S. 36th St.
Phoenix, AZ 85040
602-220-9200
www.azpacificplastics.com
www.azpacificpaper.com
 
OK, I just heard back from the above company and they accept Stryofoam for recycling as well. This is the ONLY place in the valley I have found that does this. Stryofaom is very important to recycle as it just gets smaller and smaller and ends up in the ocean where fish end up eating it. I save all my stryofoam up and will now take it here every 3-6 months once I get a good pile of it.
 
Think I'll bump along and add this:

If it's not already somewhere in this thread, there is a large computer recyling center just outside of downtown that will take your old computers, printers, monitors, etc. Unlike some places, there is no charge. Just make sure you destroy your hard drive. Just Google computer recycling in AZ and the place is the first thing to pop up.
 
Just found out yesterday that lowes will take your old florescent bulbs free of charge and recycle them. No more T5's and VHO's in the trash everyone!
 
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