Live Green Twin Cities

Forget shifting around boxes to clean. These 10 easy steps from the Clean Air Choice program of the American Lung Association of Minnesota will make your garage cleaner, greener, and safer.

Headed out to the Living Green Expo this weekend? Metro Transit offers a way for you to ride to the Expo for free!  Leave your car at home and hop on a Metro Transit bus or light-rail train FREE between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. each day when you show a Go Greener Pass. Download and print your pass at livinggreenexpo.mn.

And when you get to the Expo, sign up for the the Commuter Challenge and register to win prizes at the Metro Transit booth, where you can learn  about forming carpools, resources for bicycling, assistance planning your trips, and more!

Want an easier, greener way to travel to work, school, and play? The Go-To Card from Metro Transit is a simple, easy-to-use, instant-access pass that can be used on trains and buses. Get a 31-day pass or store up to $400 in travel on the card, and get $1 back for every $10 you put on it.

Home suffering from the drafts? You're not alone. All of those cracks and holes equal a two-foot-by-two-foot hole in the middle of your home. Sealing the air leaks can save you more than $250 on your heating bill this year. All you need is some caulk, spray foam, weatherstripping, and a will to stay warm this winter.

Did you know? Food packaging waste accounts for nearly two-thirds of all packaging waste. And packaging waste total accounts for nearly one-third of all the trash accumulated every year in the United States. That's a lot of waste, only made worse by the fact that approximately $1 out of every $11 spent at the store goes to packaging.

August 11, 2009 11:25am CST

Have unwanted phone books piling up on your doorstep? Not sure what to do with them? You're not alone. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency estimates that only 12 percent of discarded phone books were recycled in 2006. That means that 11,538 tons--or 22,000 pounds of phone books-- ended up in the state's municipal landfills that year. But by taking a few simple steps you can combat the unnecessary waste and deforestation caused nationwide by the 540 million unsolicited phone books every year.

Did you know? According to a 2006 report by the United Nations, the world's livestock generate more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry. In fact, it's estimated that the livestock industry is responsible for 13.5 to 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

And there's another meaty issue tied to our love of beef: Manure from industrial farms is polluting water bodies, increasing Earth-heating nitrous oxide emissions, and having a detrimental effect on wildlife, human health, and the planet.

Did you know?: It takes about 700 pounds of coal to burn the average incandescent light bulb for one year? That amounts to about 1,800 pounds of carbon dioxide coughed into the atmosphere every year from one little bulb. By replacing those old-school energy gobblers with compact fluorescent bulbs you can reduce your energy use by up to 75 percent. And even better--replace them with LED lights and those costly carbon emissions are reduced by about 90 percent.

Your impact: If every home in America replaced their incandescent bulbs with EnergyStar-approved CFLs, in one year it would save enough energy to light three million homes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that produced by 8,000 cars....(Read more.)