Starbucks, that lovable, local mom-n’-pop coffee shop, goes through literally ‘uge amounts of coffee every day. Instead of chucking the used coffee grounds away to waste space in a landfill, they fill up 5-pound bags and let you take the grounds home to help out your compost and/or garden! How boss is that?

As an added moneysaver, you can rebrew some coffee with the old grounds! Enjoy your free weak brew as you chuckle at the thought of ever paying for coffee again!

The nitrogen from the used coffee grounds is a real kickstarter for your compost and garden. Nitrogen is a major fertilizer for crops, and your plants will react to it much as Popeye reacts to spinach.

It’s worth noting that TOO much nitrogen can cause nitrogen burn in your plants, so I don’t recommend planting your garden in pure coffee grounds. If you do though, and it works, let me know, por favor!

The one bad thing about this program is Starbucks doesn’t reuse their bags. I have no idea why; they’re pretty durable, and they’re basically just putting trash in them. C’mon Starbucks, take that next step and reuse the bags if people bring them in!

So next time you’re trudging past a Starbucks, stop in and see if they have any of their big bags of used coffee grounds. Tell them EcoJoe sent you, they’ll know what you’re there for.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, who knows a thing or two about natural resources, says that if every U.S. household replaced just one roll of paper towels with a roll of 100% recycled paper towels, it would save over half a million trees every year!

Such an easy way to save tons of trees! So next time you’re out and about and feel the need for some paper towels, look for 100% recycled ones.

Better yet, use good ol’ reusable cloth rags to clean up messes, and cut down on all that paper towel waste.

If you want to take it to the Eco Hero level, reuse old t-shirts as cleaning cloths. You’ll be saving money AND helping the environment. Now that’s what I’m talking ’bout.

Hey you. You trying to save some money, AND reduce your impact on the good ol’ planet Earth? Well here are some easy ways to do both, by making your home more efficiency and environmentally friendly.

Some notable tidbits from this nifty infographic:

• Up to 40% (almost half!) of our drinking water literally goes down the toilet.
• Low-flow showerheads can use less than half what a normal, wasteful, Earth-hurting showerhead uses
• Installing good insulation can cut your heating/cooling costs by 30%!! Hot dang.
• Putting aerators on all your water faucets can cut your water use by up to HALF!

I’ll let you peruse the rest of it at your leisure; chiggity check the helpful picture below:

Image provided by none other than EcoSmartFire dot com.

Do you put off flushing your old-timey toilet, dreading the inevitable waste of water as gallons and gallons of good clean water are used by your old, inefficient terlet? But buying a new, high efficiency toilet just seems out of your budget?

Amigo, I think I have the solution. If you live in Durham, North Carolina, keep on reading. If not, contact your local municipality or city and see if they have a similar program.

The City o’ Durham is running a Toilet Rebate Program, wherein they’ll give you a $100 credit for every old, inefficienct toilet that you replace with a WaterSense-approved, high-efficiency toilet.

The new toilet must use 1.28 gallons per flush at most, and has to be on this here EPA high efficiency toilet list.

I ended up buying 3 Project Source high efficiency toilets from good ol’ Lowes, and although they weren’t listed on the EPA list, I spoke with someone from Durham Department of Water Management, and he told me that they’d add that toilet brand to the approved list soon.

So now I have 3 low-flow toilets that’ll save money and cut water use for years to come. Also, I actually made money buying these toilets!

Cha-ching! I suggest you take part in the Durham toilet rebate program before it’s too late!

Save water, save money, that’s the power of EcoJoes.

Righto, so a little while ago, I built me a homemade water barrel out of a trash can and assorted odds n’ ends. The only thing left to do was attach the barrel to my gutters to collect all that free rain water.

It turned out to be pretty easy to do, and I’ve been enjoying free rain water for my garden ever since, saving money and cutting down on my city-water usage. Bah-blam.

Supplies

Here’s what you’ll need to READ MORE »

Here at the official EcoJoes Estates, we’re always looking for ways to cut our water use to help the environment and save some precious dinero on our water bill.

After reading this semi-literate, grammar-error-ridden piece on the top three ways to save water in your bathroom, my thoughts turned to how to save water that the toilet used.

One easy solution was to not flush the toilet every time I peed in it. If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.

Boom, instant savings! Unfortunately, this makes the house smell even more like urine than it usually does.

What to do? How could I READ MORE »

Today we take the focus off of the environment and being eco-friendly to focus on saving money. Why, you may ask? Mainly because I’m hosting this week’s Festival of Frugality. In fact, here is a link to their home web page.

Eco-Friendly

Lisa decides to combine helping the environment with making some cash-money. Go on, peruse her post about recycling for cash.

Miss T provides us with her handy compost recipe. Dispose of your READ MORE »