| ALINA TUGENDI DON’T know about you, but I’m a little tired of the whole green thing. Not the idea that Americans need to sharply cut their energy use (the words carbon footprint will not pass my lips). And not the idea that there are some relatively painless actions we can all take that will help although I know real change will not be made without real sacrifice.
But I am growing a little cynical about the consumption-oriented part of the movement, the urging to buy our way out of environmental problems. From organic jeans to compact fluorescent light bulbs, it is getting harder and harder to know what represents genuine progress and what is a marketing gimmick.
Take my refrigerator (please!). It is 10 years old and is a side-by-side, which wastes more energy than one with a freezer on the top or the bottom. It has a water and ice dispenser in the door, which is also a no-no for energy conservation. And it was made before 2001, when the most recent federal energy-efficiency standards for refrigerators went into effect.
It is the definition of an energy hog.
After reading enough about how much this elderly refrigerator could be costing in emissions alone it might be pumping out a ton of carbon dioxide annually I began lobbying my husband for a new one.
The only trouble is, ours works fine. And I priced a new energy-efficient Kenmore with a top freezer and no water and ice dispenser at $1,100 on sale.
Besides the money, is this really a good idea environmentally, to get rid of an appliance that is operating just fine to buy another one, even if it does have better energy standards?
“It takes energy to make a product,” said Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “You don’t want to replace perfectly good products.”
He gave me his rule of thumb for refrigerators.
“If it’s avocado or brown-colored, it’s time to retire it,” he said. Refrigerators from the 1970s, the last time I believe those particular appliance colors were in vogue, use three to four times the power of today’s models.
A spokeswoman from the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the Energy Star program along with the Department of Energy, told me that, generally, any appliance over 15 years old probably should be put out to pasture. The good news is that about 80 percent of a refrigerator or a clothes washer is recyclable.
“Getting rid of an old appliance is not without some environmental impact, but because so much can be recycled and reused, if you have a guzzler, you’re better off sending it to the landfill,” said Jennifer Amann, a senior associate at the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
Try to find a place that will pick up your old refrigerator for recycling, either the company you are buying your new one from or see if your state or local government has a recycling program.
Even if they are brought to the landfill, Ms. Amann says, most of the appliances’ parts are then recycled, because they take up too much space.
What environmentalists do not want you to do is place the old one in the garage to hold two six-packs of beer. If you really need it, Mr. Horowitz suggested, leave it unplugged until, say, holiday time when you need the extra space for those pumpkin pies.
And do not resell it. Retiring the energy-inefficient model is the best thing to do.
When we do buy a new one, we will look for top or bottom freezer models and make sure it has an Energy Star. As I learned, the Energy Star is a program that allows companies to promote energy-efficient products voluntarily. To rate an Energy Star label, the appliances, as well as computers, lighting and about 50 other products, generally use 20 to 30 percent less energy than required by federal standards.
There is a cool site, www.energystar.gov, that shows how much you could save by buying an Energy Star appliance. Put in the age, size and model of your refrigerator and the cost of a kilowatt-hour of electricity in your state (the site offers a national average if you do not know) and it spits out how much you could save replacing it with an Energy Star product. My refrigerator, the site told me, costs $113 a year to run, versus $55 for an Energy Star model.
Once I started looking into this, I began wondering about our other appliances. After checking with the previous owners of our house, it turns out that our clothes washer is just about 15 years old, while our dishwasher, given to us by a friend who was remodeling, is about eight years old. They may not be as pretty as new ones, but they work. Still, are they costing us a lot, both in money and environmental cred?
It turns out that clothes washers and dishwashers have pretty much the same criteria as refrigerators, they have become much more energy-efficient. So if yours is inching toward 15 years, consider replacing it.
For clothes washers, the new front-loader models use much less water and spin clothes dry much more thoroughly, so you are spending less time and power drying.
I also learned something interesting about washing dishes. Unless you are an extremely frugal hand dishwasher, you are certainly using more water hand-washing dishes than a dishwasher does, Ms. Amann said. And with a newer model, do not even pre-rinse by hand.
“A good dishwasher can use just four to seven gallons of water to wash a full load of dishes,” she said. If you do not have a full load, but are afraid the food will get stuck on, a good feature is rinse and hold, which uses less than a gallon of water.
Wow. Easier and ecologically good. A win-win.
New federal standards for washing machines will go into effect in 2011; for dishwashers, in 2010. If you are interested to see if your appliance predates a federal standard, or if you want to wait to buy one until the new standard goes into effect, check out http://www.standardsasap.org/federal.htm.
Although clothes dryers are big energy suckers, there is not much that can be done to make them less wasteful. So just hang onto yours until it gives up the ghost. One good feature of newer models is a moisture sensor, so the dryer stops when clothes are dry.
The federal government does not issue Energy Stars for dryers, because there is not much difference in energy use among the models.
The greenest dryer, is, of course, the clothesline.
As we move toward summer, it is a good time to replace an ailing central air-conditioner. New federal standards just started two years ago. But if you are keeping your old one, check to see if the ducts are leaking. You can waste about 30 percent of energy through leaking ducts, Mr. Horowitz said.
For those of us, especially in New York, who use window-box air-conditioners, they are inexpensive enough that it is worth swapping an old one for an Energy Star model. The more recent ones also have a thermostat that will shut off the air-conditioner when the room gets cool enough. Sometimes the local utility company will pick up old boxes through an early retirement program.
As weary as I am of hearing about how I can “go green,” I have to admit that it is interesting to learn some really painless ways to cut down on energy use, like eliminating the screen saver on your computer. “You can save $50 to $100 a year just by turning off the screen saver,” Mr. Horowitz said, and letting the computer go to sleep.
So I think we will look for a new window-box air-conditioner to replace the one in my son’s room that may date to the Carter administration, the last time we were all so focused on this issue. But we will hang onto our old refrigerator for a little longer now. Maybe I should start worrying about the food inside. Are those carrots organic? |
Jacksonville Florida's First EcoBroker Realtor, Dena Calivas 