Green Tips

Since the Canadian Government is offering Grants to make your home more efficient, now is a great time to have an energy audit done of your home to find out what you can do to save energy.

At the Green Living Show last week we bumped into the folks from GreenSaver, a non-profit organization which offers energy audits and retrofits for homeowners in the GTA. Having an energy audit of your home before and after your renovations can help you qualify for a Natural Resources Canada grant (more information on the NRC website).

Vladan Veljovic, President & CEO of GreenSaver, was kind enough to answer some questions for us about their program, the environmental benefits, and about the money that consumers can save on utility bills after an energy audit.

Effective April 22, 2009, Ontario has banned the use of more than 250 pesticides, and over 80 pesticide ingredients for cosmetic use. The ban, which is now law across the province of Ontario, bans the sale of pesticides "for cosmetic purposes on lawns, gardens, parks and school yards, and includes many herbicides, fungicides and insecticides".

Find out more about how this ban might affect you as a homeowner, and how you take care of your lawn this summer without pesticides.

The EPA Energy Star program offers these helpful tips on how you can save energy and money by taking some simple steps in your home. Did you know that the energy use of an average home can generate over twice the greenhouse gases of an ordinary car? Here's some easy things you can do to cut down on greenhouse gases - right in your home.

This one-minute video gives you some quick and easy tips that you can do to live greener at you office.

The holidays are just about over, and it's time to think about disposing of the carefully decorated tree in your livingroom. Not sure how to recycle your tree? Here are some of the tree collection schedules and a few tips for residents of the GTA:

Give a gift with No wrapping paper, no tape, almost nothing to throw out or recycle, while at the same time pro-actively helping the environment!

These last minute gift ideas could be a great save for that person who can be difficult to buy for. Yes, that person who likes unwrapped, practical, locally-made gifts from renewable materials made by fairly-paid employees. ;-)

Since this information is for last-minute gifts, we have chosen to include only organizations that will let you send an E-card or where you can email the details of your gift to the recipient.

The holidays are a time when people travel frequently to friends and family's homes, entertain, wrap and give gifts, eat more, and generally consume more. It's fun, but there are lots of things we can do to be more environmentally responsible while still enjoying ourselves and having lots of fun.

The City of Pickering has some put out some great tips this year on how we can have a more environmentally friendly holiday season.

There's only about 8 shopping days left until Christmas day, and many of us haven't finished buying gifts yet.

If you're still on the lookout for that perfect gift for an environmentally conscious family member, here's a few great gift ideas that are sure to get a smile.

Here's a few easy, and even cost-efficient ways that you can have a more environmentally friendly holiday season!

Here's a quick tip on one really easy thing we can do that can potentially

• Help our environment
• Boost our local economy
• Save trees
• Spend our local tax money more effectively

Are you ready to hear what this one simple thing is?