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So with our move to a new city, we had to find a new bank.  It was just getting to be a huge problem with the closest branch being 4 hours away (one-way).  With the banking sector in the state it is in, I was very careful as to where I was willing to put my money.  After much debate, we opened an account at Citizens Bank.  They are one of the larger banks in the Philly region.

This is a green blog, so why am I telling you where I opened a bank account?  The reason is because they have a new feature for their checking account that I wanted to talk about.  The name is called Green$ense.  Green$ense, to me, is a type of rewards program. You can earn up to $120 a year, depending on the number of non-paper payments you make.

So I was trying to figure out what makes it “green”.  Most of it you can do with any account and I’ve already been doing it.  They require you to do eStatements, so no paper is being generated to mail you a monthly statement.  You do not earn rewards on paper checks, again to try to reduce the amount of paper.  They provide online bill pay, again eliminating the paper.  That seems easy enough and something you can probably accomplish with just about any account.  The one thing different that they are doing with this type of account, which I’m not aware of another bank doing, is to give you a debit card that is made of recycled plastic.  They will also send you a monthly email with green tips and  your positive environmental impact by doing so much electronically, instead of using paper.  I haven’t gotten the email yet, so I don’t know how good the information is, but I’m hopeful.

While Citizens is marketing this with the green spin, I’m sure it is saving them a ton of money in not having to handle the paper.  Truly, most of this you can do with any bank and I encourage it (if you haven’t already).  Get your statement emailed to you.  Take advantage of online bill pay.  The less paper you use, the better.

I’ve recently done some transactions on Craigslist and that makes me feel pretty good. As part of our recent move, there was some extra furniture we didn’t plan on moving. Some of the furniture was nice stuff and some not as nice but since I wanted to sell the good stuff I figured I would just post all of it. Surprisingly every single piece was spoken for and I got my asking price for all but one piece. Since I was limited on time (with the sale of my house), two of the people missed showing up and I just couldn’t reschedule. After that, turns out that my husband’s cousin is just now establishing his own place since he recently graduated. So the items I didn’t move from the Craigslist posts are now being put to good use at his apartment.

The whole idea here is that when you are done with something, just because you don’t want it any more doesn’t mean that no one wants it. So instead of throwing away items you don’t want, especially those big items, see if someone else wants it. Whether it be family or a stranger willing to pay you for it, I bet you could find someone. Nothing else, consider donating items.

Beware if you start posting on Craigslist, it can be addicting. I’ve done lots more searching for things I may want for my next house. I suppose that time will come when I start buying.

Have you been avoiding the CFL bandwagon because of the mercury content?  A while back I started switching over to CFLs and at that point I was concerned with how I would recycle them, but had faith something would come up before the bulbs burnt out.  Recently the answer has come to us.  Both Home Depot and Ace Hardware have instituted recycling programs for CFLs.  The EPA also has a site with listings of where you can go to recycle the burnt out bulbs, broken out by region.

The other thing I have heard about CFLs is, what to do if one of the bulbs break.  There was someone I used to work with that had somehow broken two CFL bulbs this past spring and he would tease that he had a mercury spill at his house.  CFLs do contain mercury, but very very little.  However, EPA has given some guidelines on how to properly cleanup from a CFL breaking.  The basic gist, don’t blow it around (including don’t vacuum it up), just pick up the pieces to throw them away and the little pieces left can be picked up by using duct tape.  If you do have a spill, check out what the EPA has to say just to be cautious.

I was reading this article today on CNN about this guy in London who figured out how to build a bicycle out of cardboard.  The market is for people who don’t want to spend a lot on a bike that might get stolen and hopefully make it cheap enough so that someone won’t even want to steal the bike.  Additionally the concept would be to replace the cardboard frame every 6 months.

Now CNN has put this in a very green aspect but I’m torn on how I feel about that. Yes, making biking an affordable and secure mode of transportation helps with all the negative impacts that cars have on the environment.  However, replacing an entire bike frame every 6 months can’t be ideal either.  I realize we aren’t living in an ideal world, if we were this blog wouldn’t exist.  Perhaps this is just a step, but is it the right one?  We get away from the infamous carbon footprint, but is generating more waste better?

Just some thoughts I had on the topic today.  Not an answer or something that we can do, but perhaps something to think about as we do look at the changes we are making.

On another transportation note, and an upcoming post will feature this, I have been taking the train into work every day and loving it.  I’ve been living here for 4 weeks now and have yet to go to the gas station to fill up.  Especially nice when gas is over $4 a gallon.

I was on the phone with my mom tonight, and she had a fantastic idea.  She said she was looking for a collapsible bowl but hasn’t been able to find one.  So I did some searching and found some.

Let me back up and explain.  When you go out to dinner, the portion sizes are usually way too big.  I at least try to control my portion sizes to be healthier, but that means there are always leftovers.  Most restaurants will put those leftovers in a “nice” Styrofoam container for you to take home.  It is hard for those of us that are trying to control what we eat and be better for the environment.  This is where my mom’s idea fits in.  A collapsible bowl will easily fit into purse and can be expanded at the end of dinner to bring home those double portion sizes.

I first found a really cute set of bowls at Crate & Barrel that really weren’t that expensive.  As I thought about those, they won’t work for this particular situation because there is no lid.  However, I found that Rubbermaid is making collapsible bowls with lids.  Check out the website, they also list places where you can buy them.  Several grocery stores are listed that you can find here in Philadelphia and in Phoenix.  There are also some national chains that carry them like Target and Kmart. I also found a similar product made by Foldtuk at Target.