By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Would you feel guilty if your toilet was “phantom flushing” or slowly leaking gallons of water a day?

Leak Alertor

We would, and we’d be concerned about the costs on our water bill too.

A Philadelphia-area company feels our pain. The company, nth Solutions, has invented the Leak Alertor to let you know when the water closet is out of control, so you can get in there and fix the flap or that other thinga-majig that makes the toilet behave.

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By Bill Sullivan
Green Right Now

The next time you take a stack of old newspapers to the recycling bin, you might be helping make your home a more comfortable — and efficient — place.

Cellulose Insulation. (Photo: National Association of Certified Home Inspectors)

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By Tom Kessler
Green Right Now

When it comes to clogged drains, it’s been a struggle to find an effective alternative to the many harsh chemicals that most people rely on to break up trapped debris. But a Houston company has developed a product that is brilliant in its simplicity and has the added benefit of being as green as you can get where brownish goop is involved.

The PermaFLOW Self Cleaning Drain by PF WaterWorks has already won the Best of What’s New Award from Popular Science. It replaces an existing P-trap — that curved section of pipe just below your sink — with an improved version that has been engineered to eliminate the need for secondary maintenance products and procedures such as plunging, caustic drain cleaners and messy drain disassembly.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

It sounds like an oxymoron – a car “wash” that uses no water.

But some of the best green ideas turn traditional practices upside down. Bayes High Performance Waterless Wash/Detailer reinvents the car wash by subtracting the water. It’s not a “wash” in the conventional sense and the only water used is that contained with the biodegradable cleaner itself.

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By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

‘Tis the time of year for bugs to start bugging us. They may be creepy, or stingers, but most bugs and spiders serve a useful purpose in the environment. There are numerous devices now to help you trap and release wayward insects, indoors and out.

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From Green Right Now reports:

Power bills got you down, and you can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong because you’re trying to do so much right?

The Alliance to Save Energy wants you to realize the most from your efforts to reduce electricity consumption, so they’ve released this checklist for you to consider as you try to trim those galloping electric bills:

1 – If the payoff from your home fleet of energy efficient products doesn’t seem to be reducing your electric bill, ask yourself is it the “dreaded Snackwell effect”? Are you gulping energy in the belief that your more efficient computer, TVs and refrigerator will curb the bill so significantly you no longer have to worry? This phenomenon, akin to dieters indulging on low-calorie foods (like Snackwells) because they estimate that they’re consuming fewer calories overall, could be giving you a false perception of the energy-tightening you’ve done.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You want to go for it, but after paying for the Iraq War, the bank bailout and the stimulus packages you’re just plain tapped out. A new greener lifestyle with its eco-gadgets, shiny solar panels and breezy wind turbines sounds fun – and costly.

But wait. You don’t have to wait. Sure a lot of the new green foo-fahs are fashionable budget-busters. But green can also be, well, cheap. In fact, it has its roots in cheap, having been born back when people in caftans tried living together in packs called communes while eating hummus because it was economical and efficient. That was back when lots of people got next to nature, without gadgetry, because, man, it was a beautiful thing. This was before “tree hugger” become a term of derision and students openly doodled rainbows and ecology symbols on their notebooks. Back then in the pre-iStuff period many people also eschewed excessive consumerism (and sometimes clothes, too, but let’s not go there today).

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By Harriet Blake

The EPA has issued a list of pesticides that will be screened for possibly disrupting the human, as well as animal, endocrine system. The list, released Wednesday, focuses on “endocrine disruptors” which are chemicals that can negatively impact hormones produced by the endocrine system. The system regulates all biological processes in the body – specifically, growth, metabolism and reproduction.

“Gathering this information,” said EPA Adminstrator Lisa P. Jackson, “will help us work with communities and industry to protect Americans from harmful exposure. Endocrine disruptors can cause lifelong health problems, especially for children.”
The endocrine, or hormone, system is found in all mammals, birds and fish. It is made up of glands, hormones that are produced by the glands and receptors in different organs that respond to the hormones.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Spring cleaning happens. It rides in on the warm breezes, beckoning — not quite as urgently as taxes (which tends to shriek from under a pile of papers) — but insistently just the same.

This year, Seventh Generation, longtime makers of green cleaners and recycled, tree-saving paper towels, wants to help you remake your spring routine with more environmentally responsible cleaners and tools. In partnership with WebMD and Healthy Child Healthy Home they’ve opened a website called WebMD Health eHome where you can poke around a virtual house to get tips on how to use less toxic brews to shine and sanitize the homefront.

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By Laura Elizabeth May
Green Right Now

Meredith Henderson was on a mission, she wanted to make composting available where she lived. But she is among of the one-third of Americans who do not own their own homes.

“I do feel that apartment dwellers are often left out of the green movement because of the fact that their options are limited by their landlord’s willingness to create those options within their buildings,” said 25 year-old Henderson.

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By John DeFore
Green Right Now

Ever wondered what’s in that stuff you use to scrub the sink — the stuff that gets rinsed out into the water supply every time you do your chores?

A lot of people do, evidently — even those who don’t know a polyacrylate from a hypochlorite — and the folks at Clorox appear to be listening. They’ve announced an initiative to make that information (most of it, anyway) available over the course of this year, beginning with the products they promote as Earth-friendly under the Green Works trademark.

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By John DeFore
Green Right Now

The sickening effects of atmospheric formaldehyde may have become a hot topic thanks to FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina, but the problem is hardly limited to mobile homes. Formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a widespread health concern introduced to buildings through industrial textiles like carpeting and by materials, like plywood, that use certain adhesives.

That doesn’t mean we have to accept living in toxic rooms. Researchers in Korea have measured the extent to which household plants can clean the air, and their discoveries are encouraging.

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