I'm a green myself, but try to be real green with the following actions:
1. I recycles batteries, plastic container, ink cartridges of my printer (Through the office of my father whichs send their toner and ink cartridges to recycling), paper that i don't need.
2. I operate my split upper air conditioner (Heat pump) in my rooms at my father home and the hostel i live in only when it is really necessary and put is on 24-25degC (75.2-77degF) at cooling and 25degC (77degF) at heating. Close the door and windows when it is operate and turning it off, when i leave my room for a long time.
3. I ask the hostel guide people in the hostel i live in, and my mother (In which in the case of my mother home, the solar water heater is defect, and the electrical boiler takes a hour to heat the water) to not turn on the electrical boiler, during the spring, summer and the autumn, when there is a continuous sunlight, to allow the solar panels to heat the water without consume electricity.
4. If it is needed to replace appliances, I ask my father and my mother to buy only appliances not made in China and that are made of high quality (LG and Samsung appliances willn't be bought, as they are of very low quality and are made in China. The same is for Electra air conditioners that shows problems from the moments of after the installation presently, in contrast to Tadiran air conditioners that are more reliable).
5. Not turning on light during the day and when not necessary. With my 160W SBMV lamp in my room of my father home during winters, if i feel cold, so i first turns on the 160W SBMV lamp instead of my air conditioner (It sometimes heats my room very fast with its 160W only), and only if it is too cold for the SBMV to heat my room, turns on my air conditioning and use the 160W as an aid for the heating air conditioner.
6. When i operates the 6kg washing mechine of the hostel i live in, i put the cloths first in the drum, then jeans that can't withstand more than 30degC (86degF) water, than regular jeans and then towels, until it is filled totally, and operate the mechine on the synthetic program at 30degC (86degF).
If there is a full hoarder of towels and some jeans only available, i put the jeans first and than the towels, until the drum is totally full, and operate the mechine on the cotton program at 40degC (104degF)(The minimum temperature that cottons can be washed properly and that i can set in the washing mechine).
7. With printers: I will continue to buy Canon inkjet printers if my IP5300 will end their life and a repairing willn't be possible and will avoiding to buy HP printers, as HP printers tends to end their life within a year (Correct also with the first deskjets of 500 and 600 series which I have seen them fails within a few months and uses tons of ink), while i have my Canon IP5300 survives for 4-5 years continuously without any faults (The only fault that occured in my printer, was with its removable printhead (Seperated from the ink cartridges) which was damaged because of me repeatedly trying to manually clean it with a toilet paper).
8. I buy only recycled printing papers of Mondi/Hadera Paper israeli company which usualy made in Israel and not in China and is of high quality compared to most other recycled papers.
9. If this is possible, i use LSD NiMH rechargeable for my Camera. Currently i uses LSD NiMH also for my NUV flashlight, but as flashlights reduces performance earlier with rechargeable batteries, and the only chargers for 4 batteries that available that charges each battery seperately are fast charger, i would soon move to Energizer new Lithium non rechargeable batteries, which have longer life than alkaline, because these are the well known photography batteries but in AA and AAA formats (Currently i see only the AA. I hope that AAA will appear soon as well).
10. Use CFLs only in open fixtures and especially care that the base will point upward. This will significantly prolong the CFL life.
11. Try to avoid to use meltlights and fixture especially designed for CFLs, and use preheat PLs instead (Slightly more efficient with ballast losses but much more reliable).

Today was the Israeli earth hour. I took some pics and i'll upload them later this week



Dor : I am green too, and i allready listed some of it before. I think that thinking comes before being green (and here is where some "greenies" fail), and without thinking anything else is useless anyway

But here some thoughts about what you said :

3. A broken water heater should be repaired and there is no reason to postpone it - you are wasting way more electricity than the repair would cost. In the worst case you're looking at several 100's NIS for new solar panels, but sometimes its something as simple as busted pipe

4A. Lets go 1 step back : Why dont you repair the appliances, but buy new ? In many cases the faults are trivial to find and fix, and come down to stuff like replacing a fuse or microswitch

4B. There is no direct relation between made in China and reliability / efficiency. Some stuff made in China is good and some is bad. You should look at the appliance itself to spot the clues of good or bad device

6. Keep in mind that overfilling the washing machine prevents the clothes from splashing around, and they come out less clean. Maybe its better to fill in less stuff but also select shorter program and use less detergent accordingly

7. Do you print color or black/white ? For black/white perhaps a laser is better choice (color laser is good but usually way too expensive). I am well familiar with HP Laserjet 1200 PCL5 and thats one of the very best laser printers i know. On my experience modern HP are ok in hardware quality, but their software/drivers is a disaster (and compatibility between 2 HP products is a disaster too.. HP keyboard refusing to wrork on HP computer, how is it even possible)

8. Reuse your own papers which you printed from 1 side. Thats way better than recycling since even in recycled paper there is significant new content, and the recycling process is lossy. Also, if you use so much paper, perhaps there is stuff that can be done on the computer screen ? (and if yes, what prevents it ?)

9. I pick batteries from the battery recycle bin. I find there rechargables after 1 use (people did not know that they are rechargeable), as well as loads of fairly good alkalines which will do up to several weeks in LED flashlight and up to years in the TV remote etc. I once picked up in a single visit enough good 9V batteries to power a 240V CFL. Appliances like the TV remote dont justify using rechargeables, since by the time it will be depleted (in few years) it will allready be EOL (ie. not take a charge) anyway

10. I use CFLs where there is no other good option, this comes down to fixtures that were incandescent  (and have no place for ballast), or as temporary light for every purpose (in temporary use for short periods i dont care about closed or open fixture, in non-temporary use i try to pick the most suitable lamp)

11. Those meltlights are ok for small CFLs (up to 9W no problem), and will probably be OK for LED up to about 9W too. A 9W LED in meltlight can be good solution for permanent use. Problem is that those meltlights come bundled with 26W CFLs that will overheat in them

I'm sort of green, but not crazy green.  For example:
I recycle
I do believe in animal rights to a certain extent
However, I'm all for incandescent light bulbs (got a bunch of 130v long life bulbs today)
I'm okay with cutting down a tree or clearing land with an excavator, but NOT alright with oil drilling in the Arctic or the Pebble Mine (which is a huge issue here in Alaska)
It annoys me when old buildings are condemned because of stuff like asbestos.  If it isn't disturbed, no harm done.
And I DID screw in a few 100w incandescent light bulbs for Earth Hour.

Oil drilling is either not an issue or environmentally beneficial.  Take the trans Alaska pipeline, which increased caribou populations ninefold due to all of the waste heat from it.

And what exactly is the benefit ?

The waste heat from pipelines is beneficial to the local wildlife.  In addition, the CO2 from burning the fuel is good for plant life (despite what the watermelons are bleating, current CO2 levels are dangerously low by historical standards).

for me It energy wasting time as I no longer have to run the AC. can run a few kliowatts of lignts

I totally forgot it was on April 31st! I was gonna light up one or two kilowatts of light, to compensate the network drop. 

I totally forgot it was on April 31st! I was gonna light up one or two kilowatts of light, to compensate the network drop. 

21 days! I’ll have to revive my Unistyle.

You all are aware that April 31st doesn't exist right? 

You all are aware that April 31st doesn't exist right? 

Ria needs to give me a slap for that!

Ria needs to give me a slap for that!

I like to tell people that my birthday is April 31st.
I guess that makes me timeless

I like to tell people that my birthday is April 31st.
I guess that makes me timeless

You get special powers!

I think earth hour was on March 27th, so we missed it by a couple of weeks.

You all are aware that April 31st doesn't exist right? 

My error... I deserve a slap from y'all