These are weekly tips from Mohawk Industries. For over 120 years Mohawk has been a trusted name in carpets. Today Mohawk is the leading producer and distributor of flooring worldwide. Mohawk is also responsible for many advances in the green world. There are many areas in which Mohawk is going green. You can check out the many ways in which Mohawk is going green by visiting there Mohawk GreenWorks website.

Our website will be updated with the Green Tip of the Week each week, so please keep checking back weekly.

07/23/2008
Small decisions can have a big environmental impact. If 10,000 people transferred just one credit card account from paper statements received in the mail to electronic statements viewed online, a collective 3,481 trees would be saved during the lifetimes of those people.

Want another good reason to make the switch from paper to electronic statements? It could represent a 10% reduction in the chance of identity theft.

And if you need one more reason consider that the cost of postage is eliminated when you pay your bills online. That could mean savings of up to $148 per year.

Finally, you can also have easy access to old statements online rather than hunting through that drawer where they all seem to collect in random order.

Go electronic on bill payments. It saves trees and money!

–statistical source: Ideal Bite

08/10/08
Want to live greener at home but not sure where you can recycle?

Visit www.earth911.org.

Along with many helpful hints about living greener, the homepage includes a search engine where you can type in your ZIP Code and see a list of all the organizations in your community that recycle.

These lists include everything from landfills with recycling programs to retailers that offer recycling for electronics products.

The EPA estimates that 75% of what’s in our garbage cans could be recycled, but only 25% actually is. Visit www.earth911.org to learn how you can help to increase that percentage.

08/15/08
Living greener often just means making simple choices that have a positive impact on the world we share.

For instance, when shopping for produce, seek locally grown fruits and vegetables. If just 10,000 individuals purchase a locally produced apple rather than one shipped in from another region, the gas saved from that
shift in purchasing would fill the tanks of 50 midsize cars.

Simple acts have a positive ripple effect. Think about how your choices impact the environment.

statistic: idealbite.com

08/19/08
Each year, approximately 100 million trees are processed to create the
paper used to produce junk mail. Each of us receives almost 560 pieces of
junk mail annually. You can stop a lot of the junk mail by visiting these
websites:

www.DirectMail.com – free, quick way to get your name off commercial
mailing lists.
www.OptOutPrescreen.com – opt out of pre-approved credit card and insurance
offers online or by phone: 1-888-5-OPTOUT.
www.NativeForest.com – five easy steps to stop junk mail.

08/27/08
Here’s a tip that’s great for the envrionment and can help you save
some money, too.

The average American home has about 45 bulbs; replacing them with
compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) could save $180 per household
per year on electricity bills.

What else is great about CFLs? Their life span! If you hate changing
light bulbs in difficult to reach places, keep in mind that most CFLs
will last an average of 10,000 hours. Compare that to 850 hours for a
standard incandescent light bulb. You’d replace 11 incandescent light
bulbs in the time it would take one CFL to burn out!

The average American home has about 45 bulbs; replacing them with
CFLs could save $180 per household per year on electricity bills.

09/16/08
Living a “green” lifestyle also makes excellent sense when keeping a household budget in check.

A two degree difference in thermostat settings can result in a 4% reduction in heating and cooling costs during the year.

Adding a programmable thermostat can add an additional 10% in savings.

Those savings can certainly help to offset other rising household costs!

–statistics courtesy of Environmental Defense

09/24/2008
Autumn’s here, but days are still pretty warm. If you’re driving around town, roll your windows down, but use the air conditioner if you’re traveling faster than 45 mph.

It’s fairly common knowledge that air conditioners drag down a vehicle’s fuel efficiency, but, at speeds over 45 mph, your car windows create enough wind resistance to actually decrease your engine’s efficiencies.

At slower speeds, keep all four windows down to reduce wind drag. With the back windows open, air can escape from the car easily and your fuel efficiency will be even greater.

10/01/2008
When distributing copies where the text takes up less than one half of a sheet, copy and paste the text to get as many copies as possible per sheet and then cut them apart after printing or copying. It also reduces your time at the photocopier!

10/08/2008
If you have multiple electronic devices that remain connected to electrical outlets all day even when not in use, insert the plugs into a power strip rather than a wall outlet. By placing the power strip on “standby” mode when the devices are not in use you can save money on your electrical bill, reduce CO2 emissions, conserve electricity…and your electronic devices even get some protection from a power surge!

Mohawk’s Eden, NC, Facility Celebrates Green ISO Certification

Mohawk’s Karastan manufacturing plant in Eden, NC, is now ISO 14001 certified with the International Organization for Standardization.

ISO 14001 is an environmental management standard that specifies a set of requirements that helps organizations protect the environment, prevent pollution and improve eco-performance. Karastan’s spinning and worsted facilities in Greenville, NC, will also be presented the environmental certification later this month.

“Conformity to ISO 14001 standards benefits the environment, our company and our customers,” said Scott Mair, director of manufacturing for Karastan. “By making environmentalism a priority, we constantly strive to find better and more efficient ways to meet our eco-goals.”

Mair added that all New Zealand wool used by Karastan is sourced by a company that meets stringent Environmental Choice New Zealand specifications.

Since Karastan was founded in 1928, it has embraced the importance of good corporate citizenship and engaged in sustainable business practices well before the concept entered the mainstream. Environmental sensitivity is a core value for the men and women at the Eden, NC, facility. All of us congratulate Scott and his team on being recognized with ISO 14001 certification. The honor is one more validation of their exceptional performance.

10/15/2008
There was no green tip to post for this week.

10/22/2008
Each year, in the United States, about 12 million barrels of oil and 14 million trees are used to produce plastic and paper shopping bags.

Save these valuable resources by purchasing reusable shopping bags. These can be obtained at many retail stores or online. For options, search “reusable shopping bags.”

10/29/2008
As more of us are recycling, it’s important to ensure that what we place into bins can actually be recycled.

Paper was one of the first commodities to be commercially recycled in the U.S., and most types of paper can be recycled.

Among paper that can’t be recycled as normal “mixed paper” includes: food contaminated paper; waxed paper; waxed cardboard milk & juice containers; oil soaked paper; carbon paper; sanitary products or tissues; thermal fax paper; stickers and plastic laminated paper such as fast food wrappers, juice boxes, and pet food bags.

Some phone books are bound using a glue that interferes with the recycling process. The phone books should contain information on whether it can be recycled as a whole or whether pages must be ripped from the binding.

That’s a relatively small list of non-recyclable products, but please keep it in mind as you recycle.

Source: The Consumer Recycling Guide

11/06/2008
Is that “drip drip drip” from the leaky faucet or shower head keeping you awake at night…or are the higher water bills the culprit?

Leaky faucets and showerheads not only waste water, one of our most precious natural resources, they also drive up our monthly utility costs and tap into the “green” in our bank accounts, as well.

One affordable and easy way to help conserve water is through the installation of water aerators. Costing only a couple dollars for sink aerators and under $10 for a low flow shower head, they can help you save money as well as conserving water. According to “Earth Easy” these inexpensive and simple to install, low flow shower heads and faucet aerators can reduce your home water consumption as much as 50%, and reduce your energy cost of heating the water also by as much as 50%.

Check them out as a another way to reduce water waste and reduce water cost!

Source: www.eartheasy.com

11/26/2008
“Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, earned its name because its the day on which many retailers find themselves “in the black” (profitable) for the year. As you begin your holiday shopping, you can transform “Black Friday” into a happy shade of green.

First, consider purchasing gifts with reduced packaging material. This limits the environmental impact of your purchase, and, of course, you can recycle cardboard or paper packaging.

If you shop online, consolidate the orders you make with each retailer so that the packaging for shipping is reduced. (This will also help you save some “green” in terms of shipping costs.)

Saving money isn’t necessarily a “green” strategy, but it never hurt.s To stretch your holiday dollars farther, consider websites like www.discounts.online.com , www.anycoupons.com , or www.couponchief.com , which give you the opportunity to find unpublished discount codes or coupons.

When packaging gifts, consider bags instead of wrapping paper. The bags can be reused–some people even make trading them back and forth a holiday tradition–but most wrapping paper is ripped to shreads.

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