5 Great Green Apps

The other day, as I scoured the web for good ideas for a home project we’re doing, it occurred to me that the process was far easier this time than the last time we collected ideas.  Why?  Because I’m using Pinterest to do it. I can pin any photo I find on the web to my Home Design bulletin board on Pinterest.  No more going through magazines, cutting them up, sticking the cut-out photos in a file, jotting notes on post-its to better explain what I liked about the images, etc.  That kitchen tile I liked in the photo I found on Houzz.com?  I can show the photo of the tile via the Pinterest app on my iPhone to my tile guy and he can help me find it.  That got me thinking about other apps I regularly use that help me to be less wasteful - and more efficient. 

Here are the five “Green Apps” I use most regularly:

1.     Pinterest: for the reasons indicated above.

2.     JotNot Scanner: take a photo with your smart phone of anything and fax or email it directly from there.  Now if you could only get other people to stop sending you faxes...

 

3.     iRecycle: hop on to www.earth911.com‘s app, iRecycle, and find out where the nearest place is to recycle your (hopefully) now redundant fax machine – or virtually anything else, for that matter!

4.     iRewardChart: set up paperless reward charts for your kids.  Award points for achieving certain goals and set up rewards your kids can earn using those points.  It’s helpful to be able to award points as they are earned (such as right after you leave a church service during which your child did not melt down), to really drive home the praise.  Similarly, if I’m in the checkout at the supermarket, I sometimes find it helpful to hold my cell phone up and calmly say to my four-year-old “if you ask me again for another candy bar before we leave this store, you’ll lose two ‘cooperation points’.  You do want to go on that camping trip worth sixty points, don’t you?”  Works like a charm.

5.     Evernote: whenever I need to create a grocery shopping list, I do it on Evernote.  I can create the list either on my desktop or on my cell phone and the two devices will sync up.  When I’m in the store, I just click the button next to the item to note that it’s already in my cart.  This is just one of many ways to use this great app.  It helps me use less paper and create less waste, helps me save money by NOT buying things that aren’t on my list, and my seven-year-old actually enjoys grocery shopping with me when he can check things off as we find them.

 You might also want to check out Light Bulb Finder and Hootroot – two apps that won the EPA's Apps for the Environment Challenge.

What are your favorite green apps?

"Destination. Up Ahead. On the right."

Shunning telephone books as I do, it will come as no surprise that I love my car's GPS and have recently fallen in love with Google Text.  You just text a query to the numeric equivalent of GOOGLE (466453) and it immediately texts you back with information.  For instance, if you're hungry and want to find the nearest restaurants, you'd just text RESTAURANT and it will text you back with the nearest restaurants.

Pretty cool, right?  Except when it doesn't work. 

Like this afternoon, when I went to our local Blockbuster after picking up the kids from school and found it empty.  As in, no longer there, empty, closed forever.  I guess we don't go to Blockbuster often enough.  And maybe neither does anyone else around me.  After all, it's true we do most of our movie rental through iTunes now.  But the kids love the experience of walking through the video store, so I was determined to find one.

So I texted Google to direct me to another Blockbuster.  When it texted back, I was surprised to see the address - how could I have missed a Blockbuster so close to my own home? 

I was skeptical but punched the address into my GPS and set out.  A few minutes later we heard the familiar words, "Destination.  Up Ahead.  On the right." 

I snorted derisively as we pulled up.  Nice.

Library Elf

From the time I graduated from college until I had children, I was oblivious to late fees on library books.  I read whatever I bought in airport book shops when I traveled for business.  In fact, other than during the two years I spent in business school, I don't think I set foot in a library.

Typically, the kids and I visit the library once a week and are really good about bringing our returns with us, so we're never late.  So it was a bit of a shock when I stepped up to borrow more books for my kids at our local library and was hit with the late fees for the last batch of books and DVDs we'd borrowed.  These were the books and DVDs that had come due while we were on vacation and then sat collecting dust for a few days afterward while we recovered from said vacation.

Here's our local library's schedule of late fees:

Books	25 cents/day
Books on tape & CD	25 cents/day
Music CDs & audiocassettes	$1/day
Movie DVDs & VHS tapes	$1/day

It wasn't so much the late fees on the books that got me - it was the DVDs.  We were eight days overdue on our stack and the late fees added up to almost $20.  Good grief!  Where am I, Blockbuster?

As I forked over the cash, the librarian looked at me over her glasses and asked if I'd heard of Library Elf.

"I don't think we read about that one.  Is it in another volume?" I thought she was referring to the Spiderwick Chronicles, which were in my stack.

"No, no," she chuckled.  "Library Elf is a free email service that warns you when your library books are coming due.  You should sign up."  She handed me a flier and I went online to sign up when I got home.

Today, I received my first reminder, three days before my books are due.

It really is very cool.  You get the heads-up about the deadline and you have the opportunity to remotely renew your books.

More great, green, money-saving technology.

The Green of SignUpGenius.com

I'm room parent for my kids' Montessori class.  As such, a few of my responsibilities include recruiting parents for weekly snack duty,  organizing pot luck events, and getting folks to volunteer for special projects.  This can be time consuming and it can involve lots of sign up sheets, loading of data into spreadsheets and reprinting sign up sheets to lasso stragglers (i.e., a lot of paper).

This year, I decided to automate it and hunted briefly for an online solution.  I stumbled across SignUpGenius and am very glad I did.  Within half an hour, I had an online sign up sheet for snack duty set up and emailed to parents.  Now, they can access the sheet at any time, modify it, swap snack duty with other parents, and receive email reminders so they don't forget.

Now that's some great green technology.

SinkPositive Accessory Sink: Fresh Water For Your Hands, Graywater For The Bowl

Every once in a while I stumble across a cool green gadget.  This is one I saw yesterday.  You just replace your toilet lid with this SinkPositive Accessory Lid, attach a hose to the refill valve in the tank, and presto: a sink on the back of your toilet.  You have fresh water to wash your hands and graywater for your bowl.

Something to think about!

Cool Electric Cars

At first I thought I'd write about green concept cars.  There are some very cool ones, like this Honda 3-RC.  But it's not meant for production, so as far as I'm concerned it's just a pretty picture (a very pretty picture).

Here are a few really neat ones that are either currently available in the U.S. or are scheduled to be available shortly.   What are your favorite electric cars?

Triac by Green Vehicles

With an 80mph top speed and 100-mile range, the zero emissions Triac has an extra advantage of being allowed in the carpool lane with only a single occupant.  First delivery is scheduled for October 2010.  MSRP: $24,995

BYD e6

Purely electric.  All chemical substances used in the Fe battery can be recycled.  0-60 mph in 10 seconds, top speed of 87 mph.  Range of 186 miles.  Accomodates five passengers plus luggage. Company is backed by Warren Buffett.  Field testing began in China in May 2010.  Expected to be available in the US at year-end 2010.  Estimated cost: $40,000

The Wheego Whip LiFe

Max speed 65 mph.  Range is about 100 miles, which makes it more of a "neighborhood electric vehicle".  MSRP: $26,495 with A/C, after Federal tax credit

How to Watch iPod Video on 2006 Honda Odyssey Touring

I know what you're thinking.  How is this a green topic?  Well, consider never buying another DVD or CD.  No more plastic boxes or plastic wrap.  No more disks that get scratched and thrown away.  That makes the iPod a good piece of green technology.

One thing that has long frustrated me was my inability to easily hook my iPod into the DVD system in my car.  There are no jacks in the dash, nor are there any near the screen.  Well, turns out that that's actually not the case.  In the third row, there is a storage area beneath the left arm rest.  In there, there are AV plugs that must be for gaming systems.  Two analog audio jacks and one composite video jack. There is also a power outlet.  So I pondered this, along with the AUX/DVD button on the dash.  Hmm.

I went to Best Buy and bought a "Composite A/V for iPod" cord, made by a company called rocketfish (you can find various brands various places - just don't buy the Apple version - it's far more expensive).  It has the proper A/V plugs, a USB plug for power and an iPod connector.  You need to supply the power plug adapter for the USB plug.

Connecting it was easy.  I ejected the DVD I had in the player, switched it to AUX and cued up the desired program on the iPod and my kids were immediately viewing SpongeBob from my iPod on the Honda's DVD screen.   The added bonus is that the kids can now control what they watch from the back seat.  No more "I don't like this one, Mom, change it!" while I'm trying to drive.

Kindle or Nook?

It goes without saying that I'm a big supporter of libraries.  Sharing books is good for the environment. 

But if you must read new releases, the Nook or Kindle pay for themselves if you choose to buy around 16 new releases via e-book rather than hard copy.  Plus, e-readers save trees, so I consider them to be green technology.

I've weighed the differences and I think I've decided - but I'd love to know what you think.  Please take my poll!