EnvironmentLA - The City's official site for information about projects and programs that are making Los Angeles more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power - LADWP offers environmental Green LA programs, including Trees for a Green LA, Energy Efficiency for a Green LA, Solar Energy for a Green LA, Electric Vehicles for a Green LA, Green Power for a Green LA, Recycling for a Green LA and Educational Services for a Green LA.
Green LA Action Plan - The City's official plan to improve energy conservation, transition to renewable power sources, and change the ways citizens commute to work and school.
US Green Building Council-LA - A resource for agencies, municipalities, professionals and companies interested in sustainable, green buildings.
When it comes to saving water, we all know that the commode is key battleground. In a typical household – unless people are obsessively washing clothes or taking large baths — more water is used to flush the toilets than for any other single use.
Experts estimate that toilet water consumes from 25 percent to 40 percent of all the water used in a house.
You’ve likely heard about potential solutions. You could enact a household rule, “When it’s yellow…” If you’ve got the constitution for it. You could stick bricks in the back of the tank, but conservation experts advise against that, saying the clay flotsam that will be released could cause a bigger problem by getting caught in that pesky flap mechanism. Then a running toilet would run away with all your water savings.
Paper products are getting unquestionably more environmentally sensitive. With even big name brands like Kimberly-Clark publicly committing to using fibers from sustainably managed forests, you can expect to see stores make more room on the shelves for at least one “alternative” paper product brand.
There’s a funny scene in the Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry, and the displaced New Orleans family encamped in his house, wink and smirk over the toilet paper that his wife has installed in the bathrooms.
Being an environmentalist – as is her real life counterpart Laurie David – Cheryl David had outfitted the water closets with recycled TP.The running joke was that everyone had noticed the difference. And they weren’t in love with the experience.
Such is the reputation of recycled TP. Although, it seems as though I have successfully slipped it by my family. Has it gotten better (I think it has)? Or are they smirking behind my back? Probably a bit of both. I don’t really know, and it doesn’t matter because we won’t be returning to conventional stuff.
The new pocket guide endorses brands such as Green Forest, Earth Friendly, Natural Value and Seventh Generation, which are made of recycled paper. It recommends that shoppers avoid products such as Kleenex, Cottonelle, Charmin, Angel Soft, Bounty, Brawny and the Target and Wal-Mart house brands because they are not made from recycled wood products.
Using recycled personal paper products can make an impressive impact in curbing global warming, according to Greenpeace, among others — far greater than one might suspect from contemplating the lowly roll of toilet paper.