The business of greening your home can seem complicated at times. But with refrigerators and freezers it’s simple. These appliances are likely consuming 9% to 15% of your household energy, and the newest ones are models of efficiency. Don’t put up with an old energy hog.

Top Tips

At home

• Use your settings. Does your your refrigerator have an energy-saving setting? If so, use it–unless you’re having problems with condensation on the outside of the fridge.

• Cover food. Excess moisture inside the fridge increases energy use.
• Take care of the condenser coils. To help keep your refrigerator working efficiently, vacuum or brush off the condenser coils at least once a year, unless the owner’s manual says it’s a no-clean model. And leave space between the refrigerator or freezer and the wall or cabinets so that air can circulate around the coils.
• Set the right temperature. Keep your refrigerator between 36 and 38 degrees F. and the freezer between 0 and 5 degrees F. To check the temperature, buy an appliance thermometer meant for refrigerators and freezers-it’s available at hardware stores.
• Say goodbye. If your refrigerator is more than about 12 years old, it’s probably time to replace it with an energy saver that can cut your food-chilling bills in half. But don’t forget to recycle it! Check out www.recyclemyoldfridge.com for more information.

When shopping, look for

• Energy efficiency. When shopping for a new refrigerator, make sure you’re only looking at models with the Energy Star label. They use 20% less energy than non-Energy Star models. But even among Energy Star products there’s a wide range of efficiencies, depending on size, configuration of compartments, amount of insulation, quality of motors, and how many extra doo-dads–such as automatic icemakers and through-door water and ice dispensers–are included. So when comparing refrigerators, it’s important to look at their actual electricity consumption (in kilowatt-hours per year, or kWh/yr). Find this data on the yellow EnergyGuide label that’s on every new refrigerator. You can also look it up on the manufacturer’s website or on the Energy Star website.
• Freezer on top. Refrigerator/freezers with side-by-side doors use more electricity than models with the freezer on the top or bottom. In general, models with the freezer on top use somewhat less energy than models with the freezer on the bottom.
• Extras only if you really need them. Automatic icemakers and through-door water and ice dispensers increase energy consumption by as much as 20%.

Other Considerations

• If you need a separate freezer, a chest freezer is 10% to 25% more efficient than an upright freezer.
• Refrigerators and freezers built before 1995 usually contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are ozone-depleting substances. Refrigerators manufactured since 1995 contain hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), refrigerants that don’t damage the ozone layer but are greenhouse gases. To prevent leakage of these gases during disposal, unwanted refrigerators should be recycled by trained professionals. Check with your local utility, recycling department, or public works department for safe disposal options.

Benefits…

…to you and your wallet
In addition to significantly reducing your energy bills, a new Energy Star refrigerator often gives you better value in other ways, too, with more efficient motors and compressors, better insulation, tighter door seals, and improved temperature controls. Sometimes these advantages cost more up front, but sometimes not.

…to the Earth
Those big energy savings translate into significantly reduced emissions of greenhouse gases.

Common Mistakes

• Supersizing. In general, larger refrigerators and freezers use more energy than smaller ones. The most energy-efficient refrigerators are 16 to 20 cubic feet. But keep in mind that you’ll usually use less electricity running one larger refrigerator than multiple smaller ones.
• Keeping the old fridge in your garage. The average refrigerator contains 123 pounds of recyclable steel. In some communities, the local utility will not only pick up your old refrigerator for free, it will pay money for it. For recycling options, check with your utility, town recycling department, or www.recyclemyoldfridge.com.
• Hot spots. If possible, keep the refrigerator out of direct sunlight, and don’t position it adjacent to heating vents, ovens, or dishwashers. The added heat makes the refrigerator work harder to maintain its temperature.

Getting Started

• To find out how much you’ll save by recycling your old fridge and replacing it with an Energy Star model, use Energy Star’s Refrigerator Retirement Savings Calculator.
• Some utilities offer rebates to customers who buy energy-efficient refrigerators, and some offer tiered rebates–the higher the efficiency of the model you buy, the bigger the rebate. Check with your utility or search DSIRE, a national online database of incentives for energy-efficiency improvements and renewable-energy systems.

Vacuuming regularly is one of the simplest and most effective ways to keep your home healthier. That’s because household dust is a nasty mix of insect parts and feces, molds, hair and skin flakes from people and pets, and lots of other tiny particles you’d probably rather not think about. Keeping dust levels down is particularly important for people who are allergic to dust mites and mold, and for the 20 million Americans–including 6.3 million children–who have asthma.

If you’re in the market for a new vacuum, there’s a lot to choose from: traditional uprights and canisters, stick vacs and hand vacs, wet/dry vacs, central vacuums, and even robotic devices that do the work for you. But for thorough, deep cleaning, uprights, canisters, or vacuums built right into the walls of your home are the way to go.

Top Tips

At home

• Use doormats. As much as two thirds of the dust and dirt in our homes is tracked in on our feet. Make sure you have doormats inside and outside your doors, ideally long enough to come in contact with your shoes for several footsteps. Vacuum the mats frequently.
• Shoes off, please! Taking your shoes off as you enter your home is even more effective than doormats at keeping dirt out. Make shoe removal convenient by putting a bench or chair near the door.
• Dodge the dust. It’s best if asthmatics and people with dust allergies not be in the home while it’s being vacuumed. If you’re bothered by dust and have to do the vacuuming, wear a dust mask.
• Check the bag and the filter. If your vacuum has a bag, check it regularly and change it as soon as it’s full. Check the manufacturer’s recommendations on the frequency with which to clean or change the filter. When it comes time to change it, protect your indoor air by taking the vacuum outside if it’s portable.
• Spare the landfill. If your vacuum breaks and it’s less than seven or eight years old, have it fixed rather than replacing it, assuming you’re satisfied with its performance.

When shopping, look for

• Quality. Well-made machines require fewer repairs and have longer lives. That saves you money and hassles and keeps broken vacuums out of landfills. You may also want to look for a machine no louder than 85 decibels to protect your hearing and keep stress levels down.
• Strong suction. A good vacuum is all about strong airflow–to extract embedded dust and dirt, keep your home healthier, and extend the life of carpet and other flooring surfaces.
• Low emissions. Top-quality vacuums reduce the amount of fine particles spewed back into the air while you’re vacuuming. Look for machines with the Carpet and Rug Institute’s new Seal of Approval/Green Label, which have been independently tested to meet CRI’s standards for soil removal and dust containment.

Other Considerations

• Bagless vacuums mean no bags wind up in the trash, but these machines can kick up a lot of dust and other allergens when you empty their bin. Also, most of them have a filter that needs to be cleaned and periodically replaced, and doing so can cost more than buying the bags you’d need with a different machine. Another advantage of a bag is that it acts as prefilter, extending the life of the vacuum’s filter.
• To keep fine particles from escaping out of the vacuum and back into your home, you’ll want a high quality filter bag, a separate prefilter, or both. High efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters and filter bags are supposed to do the best job of filtering fine particles. Brands with microfiltration are generally the second-best option. But a little brand research on emissions can pay off, because vacuums’ performances vary. In fact, Consumer Reports says that certain models with standard filters do just as good a job as those with HEPA filters for less money.
• If you’re building a new house or doing a major remodel, think about having a central vacuum installed. They cost somewhere between $800 and $2,000–significantly more than portable machines. But they are convenient to use. Rather than hauling the whole vacuum around your house, you just plug a long hose into outlets in different rooms. And they’re quiet and great for indoor air quality. Dust and dirt get sucked through tubes inside your home’s walls and collect in a central vacuum unit that’s usually located in the garage or basement, so there’s no re-emission of dust into your living spaces while you’re vacuuming.

Benefits…

…to your health
Quieter vacuums protect your ears. Low-emission vacuums protect your lungs, and are particularly important if anyone in your home is allergic to dust or has asthma. Good filters are essential for maintaining indoor air quality.

…to the Earth
Energy consumption is not a big issue when comparing vacuums. For one thing, you use them only for a short while each week. And the machines’ efficiencies are all similar.

Common Mistakes

Soot busting. If you use a regular vacuum to clean soot out of a fireplace, you may clog the motor. The soot can also be reemitted into the air when you vacuum other areas of the house.

Getting Started

• If you’re buying a new vacuum and the old one still works fine, donate it to a local thrift store or charitable group rather than tossing it.
• Test vacuums in the store before you buy. And make sure the store has a good return policy so that you can get your money back if you’re unhappy with the vacuum once you get it home.

It’s not the tools, but how you use them

Whether you want them to boil water or make a feast, most new ovens and cooktops (together called “ranges”) use about the same amount of energy. Gas ranges are a tad more efficient than electric ones, but not enough to make much of a difference in your utility bill. You may want to consider scrapping your old range because it has, say, an energy-hogging pilot light. But the biggest driver of your future energy use will not be which range you select, but the way you cook. Below are some easy ways to become a model of efficiency.

Top Tips

At home

• Match pan size to burner. If the pan is much smaller than the electric element or if gas flames are licking up the side of the pan, you’re wasting energy.
• Keep a lid on. Lids help retain heat, allowing you to lower the temperature setting.
• Keep plates clean. If the plates under the cooktop’s burners have grown black, they won’t reflect heat as well. If they’re still black after a good scrubbing, line them with aluminum foil or replace them.
• Boil with care. Put only as much water as you need in the pan. When the water reaches the boiling point, turn down the heat. Keeping it on high just wastes energy.
• Size appropriately. When possible, use toaster ovens or microwaves rather than the full oven. Smaller appliances use less energy.
• Preheat only when necessary. Cakes, bread, and other baked goods that need to rise quickly should go into a hot oven. But most dishes don’t need a preheated oven.
• Coast to completion. With many dishes, you can turn off the burners and oven a few minutes before the dish finishes cooking. The heat retained in the oven and in the food itself will finish cooking the dish.
• Use the oven light to check on food rather than opening the oven door, which can lower the oven’s temperature as much as 25 degrees.

When shopping, look for

• Electronic ignition. Replacing an older appliance that has a continually burning pilot light can reduce the appliance’s energy usage by 50%, saving you $60 per year.
• Self cleaning. Ovens with a self-clean option typically have the best insulation.
• Simplicity. More expensive pro-style cooking appliances won’t give you better energy efficiency, or even necessarily better cooking performance, than more moderately priced model.

Other Considerations

• For safety, install a carbon monoxide detector if you have a gas range. A carbon monoxide detector can help protect your household from dangerous levels of carbon monoxide gas should your stove malfunction
• Convection ovens, which use an internal fan to distribute heat, cook food more quickly at lower temperatures, and may reduce the oven’s energy use by as much 20%. The technology cost hundreds of dollars more than traditional ovens, however.
• Another non-traditional electric cooking technology, induction, is starting to make inroads in the U.S. market. It’s the most energy efficient of all cooktop technologies, and it rivals gas in terms of its responsiveness to changes in temperature setting. An induction cooktop works by transferring electromagnetic energy directly to the cooking vessel rather than heating up the cooking surface, so little heat is wasted. Its main drawback is that it can only be used with ferrous metal cookware such as stainless steel and cast iron–not aluminum, copper, or glass-and high cost. And cost may be another hitch. These cooktops cost hundreds of dollars more than traditional types.

Benefits…

…to your wallet, to your health
In general, it’s slightly less expensive to cook with gas than electricity. But gas cooking can introduce pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide into your home.

…to the Earth
The choice between gas and electric appliances makes an environmental difference, but it’s a minor one, since cooking accounts for only 3% of a typical household’s energy use. For the record: cooking with gas is more energy efficient and has a smaller carbon footprint because you’re burning the fuel right where you need it instead of transporting energy over power lines. When you use electricity, a lot of energy is lost during generation (when fuels such as natural gas and coal are burned at power plants to create electricity), and again during distribution (when electricity is transported great distances across power lines).

If you’re really looking to lower your carbon footprint, consider a solar oven. It’s a simple device used for cooking outside under sunny skies. You can buy one, or make one yourself using a cardboard box, aluminum foil, black paint, and a piece of glass. On a sunny day, food placed in a pot in the solar oven reaches temperatures up to 275 degrees F., and the food cooks slowly. Some groups, like Solar Cookers International, are making solar ovens available to families in the developing world as a healthier, less expensive, nonpolluting replacement for cooking with wood or other fuel.

Common Mistakes

• Neglecting burners. If your gas burners produce flames with yellow or orange tips, they’re burning inefficiently and producing too many pollutants. Ask your gas company to inspect the appliance and adjust the burners.
• Too much self-cleaning. Don’t use the oven’s self-cleaning feature too often. It uses a lot of energy.
• Using the oven as a furnace. Never use a gas oven or cooktop to heat your home. The buildup of carbon monoxide in your home could be deadly.
• Cooking without a fan. Whenever a gas oven or cooktop is turned on, it produces carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, and other pollutants. Use the range hood exhaust fan to remove these pollutants. Note, however, that recirculating fans don’t remove pollutants; only exhaust fans that are ducted to the outdoors will work. If your kitchen doesn’t have an exhaust fan that vents to the outside, open a window when cooking with gas.

Getting Started

If you’re replacing an oven or cooktop in good working condition, consider donating it to a local building materials reuse store. If it’s not usable, have it recycled–cooking appliances contain a lot of recyclable steel. Contact your local waste hauler or recycling department or visit www.earth911.org for recycling options.

Related Products & Services

• Microwaves
• Toaster Ovens
• Smoke detectors and Carbon Monoxide Alarms

For toast fans, pop-up toasters are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Today’s models accommodate thicker bread slices and bagels, too.

If you want a more versatile appliance, you might be interested in a toaster oven. It can’t toast bread as quickly or sometimes as evenly as a pop-up toaster, but it can broil a filet of fish, bake a few cookies, cook a small casserole, or heat up a small pizza.

Top Tips

• Know what you need. If you only want to toast bread, a pop-up toaster is your most effective and energy-efficient option. If you want to be able to bake, broil, or warm up small meals in addition to toasting bread, a toaster oven is a more energy-efficient alternative to a full-size oven. Microwave ovens cook faster and so use even less energy than toaster ovens, but they don’t toast, bake or broil.
• Fan the fire. Toaster ovens with convection fans often cost more, but they cook faster and more evenly.
• Watch your watts. Higher wattage appliances use more energy, but usually can toast more bread or cook more food. Typical toasters are 800 to 1,400 watts, while typical toaster ovens range from about 1,200 to 1,700 watts.

Other Considerations

Fifteen dollars will get you a basic pop-up toaster that works fine. Or you can spend a few dollars more for a toaster oven. For toaster ovens with more style, color choices, settings, and convection fans, costs range from $60 to $150 (or more for the fanciest toaster ovens).

Benefits…

…to the Earth
In general, toasters use a little less energy than toaster ovens, and toaster ovens use about half as much energy as a full-size electric oven. (A microwave conserves even more, though. It uses about two-thirds less energy than a conventional electric oven.) A convection fan can reduce the energy use of a toaster oven by cooking the food 20% to 30% faster.

Common Mistakes

Having too many choices. Few people need a pop-up toaster, a toaster oven, a conventional oven, and a microwave. Too many appliances will clutter your shelves and boost your consumption of natural resources. Figure out which ones you really need and just buy those.

Getting Started

If you want to calculate how much a toaster or toaster oven would cost you to operate each year, use this formula:

Multiply the appliance’s wattage times the number of hours used per day times the number of days used per year. Divide the product by 1,000 to get the number of kilowatt-hours used annually. Then multiple the number of kilowatt-hours by your electricity rate in $/kilowatt-hour (typically around $0.12 per kWh).

For example, using a 1,000-watt toaster for 10 minutes a day would cost about $7 per year in electricity if your electricity rate were 12 cents per kWh.

Trash compactors started turning up in American kitchens in the late 1960s. They use electricity to ram garbage into a compaction chamber, shrinking trash volume by as much as 80% and cutting down on the number of trips from the kitchen to the garbage can.

From a green perspective, though, there’s no compelling reason to buy a trash compactor. It will reduce the volume, but not the weight, of material that goes into your garbage can. Garbage trucks also compact trash so home compactors may not save much landfill space, and they don’t make any difference if your garbage goes to an incinerator.

If you pay for garbage collection by volume, a trash compactor may save you money. But that’s not a plus for the Earth–especially if it encourages you to produce more waste.

Top Tips

• Keep it simple. An Earth-friendly alternative to a trash compactor is an ordinary trash bin in the kitchen lined with reused plastic or paper bags from the grocery store.
• Reduce, reuse, and recycle. The greenest trash is the trash you don’t make. Don’t buy products you don’t need, avoid overpackaged items, and buy in bulk. What you can’t reduce, reuse. Repair things that break instead of throwing them away. Avoid single-use products if there’s a longer-lasting alternative. For example, use cloth napkins instead of paper. Borrow instead of buy. What you can’t reduce or reuse, recycle. If you’re diligent about these three “Rs,” the trash that’s left each week will be mostly nonrecyclable plastics, and the volume may be low enough that a trash compactor will be superfluous.
• Compost. Keep food waste out of the trash by turning food and yard waste into nutrients for your garden. It’s easy–and you can learn how in our composting section.

Other Considerations

• A full compactor bag can weigh as much as 50 pounds. Some people will have difficulty lifting and hauling that much weight.
• Most trash compactors have charcoal filters to reduce food odors. Some compactors also use “air fresheners”–synthetic fragrances that mask odors. People with chemical sensitivities may not be able to tolerate those fragrances. Also, some companies advertise compactors bags with “odor-absorbing additives.” What these additives are is not disclosed and how they might affect home health is an open question.
• Trash compactors typically cost between $400 and $1,000. The units offer similar features. For more money you’ll get more style, a luxury label, larger capacity, and greater compacting force. Beware of the hidden costs that can add up: one-time-use compactor bags made of plastic or paper (with a moisture-resistant lining) and replacement of charcoal filters every six to nine months and fragrances every four to six weeks.

Benefits…

…to your wallet
If you pay for garbage collection by volume, a compactor can reduce your garbage hauling costs. But a more environmentally friendly way to reduce those costs is to compost and be diligent about the 3Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Common Mistakes

Equating compaction with reduction. If you’re concerned about waste, focus on creating less of it rather than squashing what you’ve got.

Getting Started

• Read our article on the 3Rs[link to article] for more tips on how to go on a waste diet.
• Trash compactors are mostly metal, so if you’re getting rid of an old one, have it recycled. Contact your city’s recycling department or Earth911 for local recycling options.

Washing dishes at the sink can be a Zen-like ritual–or at least a way to get your hands warm and your fingernails clean. But automatic dishwashers have their benefits, too, and not just for the busy and the lazy. Used wisely, modern automatics consume less water and energy than washing dishes by hand.

Today’s best energy-efficient dishwashers have soil sensors that automatically adjust power and water use based on how yucky your dishes are. Most offer an internal booster heater that raises the water temperature inside the dishwasher to about 140°F. This allows you to save energy and money by reducing your home’s water heater temperature to 120°F or so. So sit back, enjoy your friends and family, and–for a few blissful minutes–let your dishwasher help you save the planet.

Top Tips

At home

• Wash smart. Don’t pre-rinse your dishes. Just scrape off the biggest food scraps into your compost bucket. Modern dishwashers and detergents can take care of the rest. Pre-rinsing can waste as much as 20 gallons of water, according to Energy Star. If your dirty dishes sit overnight, use the dishwasher’s rinse feature–it uses much less water than hand rinsing. In addition, always run your dishwasher with full loads and use the water-saver setting.
• Air dry. The “air-dry” setting just uses a fan rather than the electric heating element for the “heat-dry” setting. It takes a bit longer but saves you money.
• Wash light. If your dishwasher doesn’t have soil-sensing technology, use the “light wash” or “china/light” setting unless you have a very dirty load.
• Turn down the heat. If your dishwasher has an internal booster heater, turn down your home’s main water heater temperature to 120°F.

When shopping, look for

• Energy efficiency. Dishwashers that have earned the government’s Energy Star label use energy at least 41% more efficiently than dishwashers that only meet the federal government’s minimum energy standards. But even among Energy Star dishwashers, energy consumption varies widely. When shopping, look for the yellow and black EnergyGuide label required by the federal government. It will tell you how much energy that particular model will use in kilowatt-hours per year (kWh/yr), allowing you to do an apples-to-apples comparison of different dishwashers. Or you can compare dishwashers’ Energy Factor (EF), another measurement of the dishwasher’s energy efficiency. A higher EF is better. The federal minimum EF for dishwashers is 0.46. Energy Star qualified models currently must have an EF of at least 0.65.
• Low water use. Energy Star dishwashers use about one-third less water than other dishwashers–averaging 4 gallons a cycle, compared to 6 gallons for other new dishwashers and 8 to 14 gallons for older models.

Other Considerations

When you buy a new dishwasher, be sure to recycle your old one rather than trashing it. Dishwashers contain a lot of steel that’s recyclable. To find out where to recycle your old dishwasher, contact your city’s recycling department or go to Earth 911.

Benefits…

to you, your wallet, and the Earth
Assuming you don’t pre-rinse the dishes, using an Energy Star dishwasher instead of hand washing will save you 5,000 gallons of water, $40 in utility bills, and 230 hours of your time-every year! If your dishwasher was manufactured before 1994, replacing it with an Energy Star model can save you more than $30 per year in utility costs and more than 1,000 gallons of water. So, if you have an older model that requires you to do some pre-washing, shop away knowing a new model can save you $70 per year and a whole lot of time!

Common Mistakes

• Supersizing. Don’t buy a supersized dishwasher. If you don’t cook much and rarely fill up the dishwasher, consider buying a compact model (18″ instead of the standard 24″) or a dishwasher drawer–you’ll save energy and water. But if you use the dishwasher often, you’ll save energy and water with a standard-size dishwasher rather than running a compact model more frequently.
• Location. If you’re remodeling your kitchen, try not to place the dishwasher too close to the refrigerator. Dishwashers produce heat, which can make a nearby refrigerator work harder to stay cold.

Getting Started

• Check with your local energy and water utility companies–some offer rebates for purchasing energy- and water-efficient appliances.
• The Energy Star website also provides a list of Energy Star dishwashers and their energy

Garbage disposals seem like the ultimate convenience–drop your banana peels, pizza crusts, and other leftovers down the drain, turn on the tap, flip a switch, and away they go. Problem is, when it comes to waste, whether it’s food or anything else, there is no away. Any “waste” that can’t be put back to use–either through reuse, recycling, or composting–becomes pollution that’s expensive to deal with and takes its toll on the environment.

Garbage disposals do keep food scraps out of landfills. That’s important because when materials like food, paper, or plant waste decompose in landfills, they produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more potent than CO2. But garbage disposals don’t really solve the waste problem; they shift it to wastewater treatment systems instead. Food waste in wastewater increases levels of nutrients like nitrogen, which are great when added to the soil but harmful in our waterways. To deal with excess nutrients, municipal water utilities have to add expensive systems to their treatment plants.

Moreover, it takes resources for your disposal to send your food scraps on that unnecessary journey. It doesn’t require much energy, but in a year’s time you’ll be sending more than 900 gallons of water down the drain. “Waste,” as green architect William McDonough likes to say, “is basically stupid.” The greenest way to deal with food scraps is to compost them and nourish plants with the nutrient-rich results.

Top Tips

At home

• Make less waste. Buy only what you need, in quantities that you can eat before it spoils. It’s easier than trying to find eco-friendly ways to get rid of waste.
• Compost! As the bumper sticker says, “Compost happens.” Check out these ideas on how to make it happen at your home.
• Remove the disposal. If your kitchen has a disposal and you don’t want to use it, take it out so it won’t get smelly if any food waste settles there. Removing a garbage disposal is a relatively easy DIY project. If you keep the disposal in place but don’t want to use it, make sure the sink has a strainer basket to catch food scraps before they go down the drain.
• Or install an aerator. If you decide to keep and use the disposal, you’ll waste less water if you install an aerator on the kitchen faucet.

Other Considerations

• Garbage disposals also increase the amount of grease that goes down the drain from fatty foods. A buildup of grease causes blockages in home plumbing and municipal sewer lines. Some cities discourage or prohibit garbage disposals for this reason. Garbage disposals also add extra volume to septic tanks. If you have a septic system, having a disposal may increase the size of the tank you need or require you to empty it more often.
• If you don’t have the space or ability to compost, contact your local elected officials and let them know you support a municipal “green waste” recycling program that accepts food scraps as well as yard waste. San Francisco is one of a growing number of cities that collects its citizens’ green waste. On garbage day, residents put out three bins–for recycling, compostables, and trash. The green waste is taken to a facility where it is turned into rich, black compost that local farmers use to recondition their soil.

Benefits…

…to your health
Not having a garbage disposal will make your house a little quieter. If the kitchen is used by a person in a wheelchair, it may also improve accessibility by keeping the space under the sink clear so that the wheelchair user can scoot in closer.

…to your wallet
You can save the $60 to $300 purchase price of a garbage disposal by not having one, or not replacing it when it breaks down. Don’t expect big energy savings, though. Running a ¾-horsepower unit for one minute a day costs less than a dollar a year.

…to the Earth
Sending 900 gallons of water down the drain every year seems more than a little silly. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that water managers in 36 states expect water shortages in the next 10 years, even under normal, non-drought conditions.

Common Mistakes

Using hot water. Operate a garbage disposal only with cold water. Using hot water wastes water heating energy.

Getting Started

Reduce your food waste and start composting. If your old garbage disposal breaks, try living without one. Once you break the grinding habit, you may find you never miss it.

Today’s high-efficiency clothes washers use half the gas or electricity of a standard washer. They also extract more water during the spinning cycle, which reduces drying time and energy. They offer oceanic water savings, too. Standard full-sized washing machines use 40 gallons of water per load, compared with only 18 to 25 gallons for machines that have earned the government’s Energy Star label.

Clothes dryers, on the other hand, don’t vary much in energy use. But their consumption does add up–dryers in the United States use the equivalent of 58 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. That’s about as much electricity as the entire city of Los Angeles uses annually. One of the easiest ways to help bring that number down, not to mention reduce wear-and-tear on your clothes, is to hang your clothes to dry, either on a line outside or on drying racks inside. Line drying is one of the oldest and most effective energy-saving (and therefore money-saving) technologies around!

Top Tips

At home

• Wash less often. Sure, socks and undies need to be washed after each wearing, but how about those jeans and polos?
• Run only full loads. When it comes to energy and water use, full loads are the most efficient. So fill the machine, but don’t overdo it. Stuffing the washer past full makes it harder to get your clothes clean.
• Adjust water levels. If you must do a smaller load, use less water. If you’re lucky enough to have a washer with a “mini-basket,” use it. Such baskets fit over the washer’s agitator, enabling you to wash tiny loads with a minimum of heat and water.
• Wash in cold water. Roughly 90% of the energy used for washing clothes goes directly to heating the water. For all but the most stubborn stains, washing in hot or even warm water is unnecessary. Most detergents are now formulated to wash in cold water. When you do use the hot setting, turn your water heater down to 120 degrees F. (“Normal” on heaters without temperature markings).
• Air dry your laundry. Solar power doesn’t get more direct than a clothesline. If you live in a rainforest or where the winters are long, things can still dry inside on a rack.

At the laundromat

• Try eco-friendly. If you don’t have laundry facilities in your home, visit one of the ecofriendly laundromats that are starting to show up in many cities. They have more efficient machines, sell detergents without harmful additives (see our cleaning supplies article to learn more about additives), and may also offer wet cleaning, a less energy- and chemical-intensive version of dry-cleaning. Schlep your clothes to and fro in an organic cotton laundry bag or petroleum-free (non-plastic) basket.

When shopping, look for

• Energy and water efficiency. Choose a washer that has earned the government’s Energy Star label. Many of the highest-efficiency clothes washers are front-loading models, but manufacturers now also make efficient top-loaders, so you can choose whichever suits your needs. Shop carefully, however, as there are still differences among Energy Star models. Choose an Energy Star model with a high Modified Energy Factor and low Water Factor. You can find MEF and WF on Energy Star’s qualified product list.
• Moisture sensors. Some dryers now come with moisture sensors that shut off the machine when the clothes are dry. This saves energy and lengthens the life of your clothes.

Other Considerations

• If your home has a gas hookup, it’s more energy efficient to use a gas dryer rather than an electric one. New gas dryers have electric ignition, which does away with the money-wasting pilot light found on older models.
• Gas dryers should always vent to the outside because the exhaust air can contain unhealthy combustion gases. It’s also a good idea to vent electric dryers outside so that you’re not introducing too much moisture inside the home. Check with your local building department for code requirements.
• Washers and dryers contain a lot of recyclable steel. When your old one fails, be sure to have it recycled. Contact your local recycling or public works department or visit www.earth911.org for recycling options.
• Try using an environmentally friendly laundry detergent. It’s not only easier on the earth but it’s also easier on your skin.

Benefits…

…to your wallet
Although an Energy Star washer may cost more upfront than a standard machine, it can cut your utility bills by an average of $50 a year, saving $550 over an average 11-year lifetime. Line drying can save you $65 a year. It also reduces wear-and-tear on your clothes.

…to the Earth
According to the Energy Star program, the average household does nearly 400 loads of laundry each year, sending about 13,500 gallons of water down the drain. An Energy Star washer will save 7,000 gallons of water a year. Over the machine’s typical 11-year life, that’s enough for a lifetime of drinking water for six people!

Common Mistakes

Leaving the lint. If you forget to clean the lint filter after every load, your clothes will take longer to dry and use more energy.

Getting Started

Check with your local energy and water utilities about rebates on high-efficiency washing machines.

To zap or not to zap

More than 90 million American kitchens have a microwave oven. You don’t need one to eat healthfully or have a green kitchen. But a microwave can shave off some of your energy use, especially if you cook smaller meals or use the kitchen mostly to reheat takeout or warm frozen foods.

Top Tips

At home

• Zap small meals. If you have small to medium quantities of food, it’s much more energy efficient to cook in a microwave than in a conventional or convection oven or on the stovetop. The energy and time savings decreases with larger volumes of food, however. (Keep in mind that microwaves aren’t suitable for certain types of cooking, such as roasting, grilling, or baking.)
• Don’t zap baby bottles. Don’t use a microwave to heat milk in a baby bottle. It can heat food unevenly, so there may be dangerous “hot spots” you may not detect when checking the bottle’s temperature. Plus some bottles contain a chemical known as BPA, which can be harmful to children, and is believed more likely to leach into products when used in the microwave.
• Close the door securely. Like a conventional oven, a microwave uses radiation to heat food. But conventional cooking uses “infrared” radiation, or heat, and microwaves use a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum–”microwave radiation.” When exposed to microwave energy, water molecules in the food vibrate, converting the energy into the heat that cooks the food. While it’s true that human exposure to intense microwave radiation can cause harm, microwave ovens are designed to contain the microwaves within the oven. They do not produce energy if the door is open. If the oven is damaged, however, radiation leakage is possible. Never use a unit that is malfunctioning or has a damaged door, latch, or seals. Keep the door and seal free from food residue, so that the door closes securely. If you suspect a problem with the oven, stop using it and contact the manufacturer.
• Don’t use plastic. Packaging containers like margarine or salsa tubs should never be put in the microwave. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that plastic containers and plastic wrap labeled “microwave safe” are okay to use, but that the plastic wrap shouldn’t touch the food during microwaving. On the other hand, some experts advise against using any plastic containers or plastic wrap in the microwave because chemicals could potentially migrate from the plastic into hot food. Until there’s a definitive answer, the safest approach is to use a microwave-safe glass or ceramic container with a lid. If you don’t have a lid, put a paper towel over the container. Read our article on Safe Water Bottles and Other Plastics to learn more on the topic.
• Nix takeout containers. Never microwave food in takeout containers. Styrofoam can melt, and paper containers often have often a greaseproof lining that can leach chemicals into the food. Microwave food in ovenproof glass or ceramic containers.

When shopping, look for

• Durability and a good warranty. Longer-lasting products cost you less in the long term and keep waste out of landfills and incinerators.
• The right size. Smaller ovens use less energy (but they also cook less food). Otherwise, there’s little difference in the various products’ energy stats. The government’s Energy Star program doesn’t rate microwaves.

Other Considerations

• Microwave ovens cost from $70 to $800. Pricier models may have larger capacity, a child lock, sensors to determine when the food is done, “speed cook” technology and browning capability that combine microwaving with other types of heating, and shortcut keys for tasks like bread defrosting and popping popcorn.
• Microwave ovens have been popular since the early 1970s, yet some people remain concerned about their safety. One common misconception is that food cooked in a microwave becomes radioactive. It does not. As to concerns about microwave leakage, oven manufacturers must comply with the FDA’s regulations, which limit leakage to a level that the FDA says is far below what is known to harm people. Microwave energy drops off dramatically as you move away from the oven. The FDA says that a measurement of radiation made at 20 inches would be 1/100th of the value measured at 2 inches. Although the likelihood of exposure to even low levels of microwaves is extremely low, some people take the extra precaution of not leaning up against the microwave while waiting for the beeps to signal their dinner is ready.

Benefits…

…to you and your health
Microwave energy quickly penetrates deep into food, speeding up cooking time compared with a conventional oven. These ovens’ ability to cook quickly in little or no water also helps food retain its vitamins and minerals. And in the summer, you may appreciate the fact that microwaves don’t heat up the air in the oven, or your kitchen.

…to your wallet
Microwave ovens use much less energy than conventional ovens, so they can save you some pocket change. Let’s assume you are paying 12 cents a kilowatt-hour for your electricity. If you run a medium-size (1,000-watt) microwave at high power for 15 minutes, you’d spend 3 cents. A typical electric oven run at 350 degrees for one hour would cost you 24 cents. Do that every day, and you save yourself $75 a year with the microwave. More significantly, by keeping the kitchen cool in summer, a microwave may reduce your air conditioning costs.

…to the Earth
Microwaving is an energy-efficient way to cook food, but it’s not without its environmental impacts. There are about 27 pounds of steel in the average microwave oven, as well as plastic and glass. And disposing of old units adds to the waste stream.

Common Mistakes

• Microwaving popcorn. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical used to make the lining of many microwave popcorn bags, may be carcinogenic. It’s the same chemical used to make nonstick coatings in cookware and water-repellent fabrics. PFOA is present in the bloodstream of nine out of ten Americans. Major U.S. manufacturers have agreed to phase out their use of the chemical by 2015, but in the meantime you might be safer making your popcorn on the stove, in a pot with a little oil.
• Superheating water. Be careful when using a microwave to heat water. If it gets too hot, a phenomenon known as “super heating” can occur, in which the water shows no sign of boiling yet is beyond boiling temperature. Disturbing the container even slightly can cause scalding water to erupt. To prevent this safety hazard, check the instruction manual for information about heating times. To greatly reduce the likelihood of superheating, add sugar, tea, or other ingredients to water before heating or wait a minute before removing the container from the oven.

Getting Started

Microwaves are handy, but not essential. If you don’t need one, don’t buy one. And if you have an old one to get rid of, contact your city’s recycling department or Earth911 for local recycling options.