Friday Five.

Every Friday I'm posting a list of 5 things either directly or loosely connected.

Today, I'm going to share with you 5 ways I'm trying to be "green":

1. Recycling - I was the catalyst for the recycling bins you'll now see all over the Del Sol Church office. I started off by buying a recycling can for my office and for the Firehouse, and by asking others "Gee, we sure do go through lots of paper, huh? I bet we could fill up a recycling bin pretty quick." And now about a year later, we have a recycling bin on the back lot, blue recycling cans in pretty much every office, and large recycling cans throughout the campus.

2. Water conservation - Ok I'm still working on this, but I've been trying to remember to turn off the water when I'm brushing my teeth, when I wash dishes, or when I'm lathering up in the shower.

3. Fluorescent light bulbs - I've slowly but surely replaced almost every light bulb in my house with those squiggly little compact fluorescent light bulbs. It's amazing how many light bulbs a house has, and how much energy you can save when you go from using 60 watt bulbs to using 13 watt bulbs (the CFL equivalent of regular 60 watt tungsten bulbs).

4. Unplugging - I've long known about how much energy can be saved by unplugging electronics when not in use but it wasn't until recently that I started unplugging my cell phone and laptop chargers from the outlets when I'm not using them.

5. Ceiling fans - Did you know that by using ceiling fans with your air conditioning, you can save tons of energy? I've heard that you can reduce the air conditioner's energy consumption by 40% just by turning on a ceiling fan. I'm sure you use a small bit of energy with the ceiling fans but I doubt that it's the same as the 40% that you save by using them.

So what about you - how are you going green?