Gadzooks, this made the front page of Care2. Vote for it, por favor.
Man oh man, it seems the free tote bag offers never stop. I already have about 4 or 5 reusable cloth bags that I got for free at mi casa, but just in case you need a reusable cloth tote bag, hur ye go:

Free Tote Bag Numero Uno

This is only available to our brothers to the north, the mysterious “Canadians”. Simply sign up for Heinz’s baby newsletter, and they will repay you with your very own tote bag. Fill in your “province” (Canadian slang for “state”) and address, and ye shall receive.

Free Cloth Tote Bag Numero Dos

Mantra Energy is giving away a free tote bag also as well too. Simply fill in their short form, mash the “Submit” button, and twiddle your thumbs whilst awaiting the arrival of your eco-friendly reusable bag.

La Tercera Bolsa Gratís

Cancer patients only! This here free tote bag is only for people with cancer. If you don’t have cancer, then you just mosey along and don’t click THIS LINK. If, however, you or a family member or close friend has cancer, then go on and get them this cancer tote bag.

Welp, that about wraps it up for free tote bags. Once you get them, bring them to the grocery store and amaze everyone with your eco-savvy by using reusable cloth bags. Until next time, this is your host, Joe.

Step right up and enter for the chance to win a de-luxe 2009 Smart Fortwo. These bad boys get 33 city/41 highway miles to the gallon — not too shab, although for how tiny they are, you’d think they’d get better gas mileage than that.

But anyhoo, click THIS HERE LINK for the chance to win your very own Smart Fortwo. Apparently, you can enter once per day, so that’s what I’ve been doing. The contest is only open until Halloween this year (dang, such a long time). Just imagine, not only will you be saving on gas (and cutting down air pollution) while you drive, you’ll be able to park in some tiny parking spaces. Can’t beat that with a stick.

The Free Cloth Tote Bag Bonanza continues with a superbly crafted tote bag from Stouffer’s. Yes, Stouffer’s, maker of famous frozen dinners, is giving away free grocery tote bags. Here’s how to get your very own so next time someone asks if you want flimsy plastic or wasteful paper bags you can rudely thrust your cloth bag into their jealous face.

• Go to Stouffer’s and register
• You will get 100 points
• Donate at least 20 points to get a free tote bag!
• Send me $4 via Paypal

It’s just that easy. That last step is very important people! So register for that site, donate your points, getchoself a cloth bag, and start eschewing plastic and paper bags once and for all.

If you’re like me, you’d rather use a reusable cloth bag for grocery shopping instead of them flimsy plastic bags. You can fit a lot more in a cloth bag, it helps the environment, PLUS some stores reward you for using cloth tote bags. But who can afford to buy a reusable bag these days, what with the economy and hard times and all?

Fret not, for THIS LINK will lead you to a free reusable cloth bag. That’s right, just click it, fill in some form, and bah-bam, you’ll be well on your way to living a greener life, all for the low cost of zero. Act now, supplies are limited!

Please email your entries to ecojoe ecojoes . com

My stupid abacus broke again! AARRGH!!

How often have you been frustrated when performing rudimentary calculations on your abacus? Do you often want to calculate your energy savings, but you don’t know your maths? What about writing “80085” on a calculator and showing it to a friend to get a good chuckle? Do you ever want to do that, but you have no calculator?

Take heart, because I am hereby announcing the EcoJoes Incredible Calculator Contest! I have in my hands TWO brand-spankin’ new calculators, and they are ready to help you calculate your way to a greener, thriftier life. But how can you win one of these calculators, you might ask? Here’s how:

Calculator Contest Rules

• Get a blog or website
• Write an article or page about a time when you saved money by being all green and mess
• Put a link in the article back to EcoJoes.com (so I can find your article)
• Wait for me to announce the winners, then sit back and enjoy your very own calculator

That’s it. So good luck everybody, and may the best man/woman/transgendered person win.

Clean air. We all want it, many of us even need it. But sometimes the air inside your own house can be slowly killing you, without you even knowing it! Is there any way to detect harmful ozone in your air before it is too late?

Yes, and you don’t even have to pay a cent. For I bring to you a free sample of an ozone test kit. You can use it in your humble abode to test your air. If there’s a dangerous amount of ozone, you will see a lil’ pink circle, and you can hold your breath and sprint safely outside to the clean, outdoors air.

TO GET THE FREE SAMPLE CLICK HERE, OKAY?

I admit, this is not be the most exact test, but it’ll give you a basic idea of whether you should do further air quality testing or nay. It’s a free way to see if your air is ozone-free, so please, click the above link and get your very own free test today.

This morning outside my work it was about 70 degrees and sunny. The weather was quite literally TOO good. So we turned off our air conditioning and opened the windows to air out the office. As the cool outside air came rushing in, my brain gears started turning, and I wondered to myself, “Self, if every house in the U.S. of A. turned off their A/C and opened their windows whenever the weather was nice outside, how much money and electricity would that save?”

Welp, let’s see. The average price in the U.S. for energy is 9.49 cents per kilowatthour. And the average home air conditioner uses “more than 2000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, causing power plants to emit about 3500 pounds of carbon dioxide and 31 pounds of sulfur dioxide.”

Okay, stay with me. According to the OFFICIAL ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION, in 2005 there were about 93.3 million American houses with air conditioning. So let’s figure that those houses are in places that have nice weather (65-80 degrees) about 20% of the time, or 70 days each year.

That means that if all those houses turned off their air conditioning on those days and opened their windows to let in the fresh air, then:
400 kwh per house * 93.3 million houses = 37.2 billion kilowatthours saved!! That equals out to savings of over $3.5 billion each year! Ay chi wa wa.

Of course, the actual amount of nice days could vary, but still, if everyone did this whenever the temperature was nice outside, we’d be saving billions of kilowatthours. Dang, crazy.

So next time you’re at work or at home, and the weather is nice, instead of cranking on the ol’ air conditioning and wasting energy and money, why not just open the windows and let some fresh air in? You’ll be saving money and electricity while getting some fresh air in your cave.