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Show i i i Recovery district focuses on conservation methods At the Davis County Energy Recovery District, the focus is threefold recycling, p re-cycling, and the conversion con-version of waste-to-energy at the steam facility. These three facets of the solid waste management program are what most often come to mind when thinking of cleaning clean-ing up the environment and saving energy. But when you get down to it, there are hundreds of things the average person can do to help save the planet. Let's start with recycling. First, leam the recycling rules of your area. Call your city offices and read the ! city newsletters for additional information. Think recycling when shopping. Buy items packaged in materials mate-rials that you know are recyclable in your community. Buy larger sizes and refills. Reuse your paper and plastic bags, or use a net bag. In the home, organize to make recycling easy and convenient, rather than a messy chore. Here's a tip for newspaper. Take a dresser drawer and put some binding bin-ding twine on the bottom and up the sides. Then as you finish the papers, simply put them in the drawer. When the drawer is full, tie the bundle up and it's ready for j recycling. Little tricks such as these make recycling se cond nature rather than second effort. Pre-cycling comes into play throughout daily life. Pre-cycling simply means generating less garbage. Coupled with recycling, pre-cycling can further decrease the amount of trash generated (an average of 1 ,300 pounds per person per year). Let's start with water. Saving water provides a twofold benefit. First, in saving the water as a resource. Second, the fossil fuels needed to heat and process the water are conserved (not to mention the global warming warm-ing caused by their combustion). Most people do not realize how much water they use. The average faucet runs at a rate of three to five gallons per minute. Leave the faucet running while brushing your teeth, and you'll use 10 to 15 gallons instead of one-half gallon if you simply wet the brush before and rinse after. The same applies to washing dishes. If you i do them by hand, fill the basin. You'll use five gallons instead of the 30 used by leaving the water running. Install a "low-flow" shower head to cut water use in half. The average four-person family uses almost 700 gallons of water per week just showering-the equivalent of a three-year drinking water supply for one person. Showers account for 32 percent of home water use. Low-flow shower heads don't reduce pressure, they simply mix air in with the water. In the end, you'll be saving on both your water bill and electric or gas bills. Reduce your air conditioner temperatures by six degrees and the Department of Energy says the country will save 190,000 barrels of oil a day. Do the same in winter with your heater over a 24-hour period and we'll save 570,000 barrels of oil daily. Check into compact fluorescent light bulbs. They are big energy savers, and they're not like the fluorescents you're accustomed to in offices and schools. Even though they're more expensive initi allyabout $15 per bulb they last longer and use only one-quarter to one-third one-third the energy of incandescent bulbs. For instance, a 60-watt incandescent bulb lasts about 750 hours' a compact fluorescent bulb with one-third the wattage will generate the same light and bum for 7,500 hours. Store more in reusable containers, instead of habitually habitu-ally wrapping leftovers in plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Have your car serviced where the mechanics recapture or recycle the cooling fluid from your car's air conditioner. Buy pine and oak furniture rather than exotic tropical woods such as teak or mahogany and help save the rain forests. The list goes on and on. For more ideas, get a book such as "50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth' by the Earthworks Group, published by Earthworks Ear-thworks Press. Then get on your recycling and pre-cycling pre-cycling routine. We've only got one planet. Let's not waste it. |