The birds are singing, the animals are romping, and the pollen is killing your nose. It’s spring! That magical time when the world comes back to life and things start growing again. This also means it’s time to bust out the lawnmower. Sigh. Could anything be less fun? They’re loud, they smell bad and they use up precious gas that could be in your car. And they’re heavy to push.

Consider the bicycle-push lawnmower hybrid. It’s all the eco-friendliness of a push lawnmower powered by the superior strength of legs over arms. How fun is that! There are several patents out there, but just about anyone can make their own. So go out there and get some exercise and some yard work done at the same time. And have fun!

Keep money in your pocket while protecting the environment. Here are 10 tips to save energy at home.

Unplug seldom used appliances Even when not in use, your appliances are draining electricity from your outlets if left plugged in. Keep things like your microwave, coffee pot, phone charger, printer, and stereo unplugged until you need them.

Use smart lighting Use compact florescent light bulbs. Be sure to dispose of them properly. Turn off unneeded lights even when leaving a room for a short time. Also, consider opening your blinds for natural lighting during the day.

Use less hot water Wash clothes with warm or cold water instead of hot. Turn the temperature of your water heater down to 120°.

Seal yourself up Replace old weather stripping around doors and windows or consider replacing old windows with energy efficient ones. Don’t forget to check your basement and attic for air leaks as well.

Turn off the AC Plant trees to shade your home and open your windows for air flow. If you must have the AC on, only use it when you’re home. Turn it off when you leave in the morning.

Compost Put leaves in a compost heap instead of burning them or throwing them away. Vegetable scraps can go in too. Leave grass clippings on the yard-they decompose and return nutrients to the soil.

Reduce carbon emissions Walk or ride your bike instead of driving, whenever possible of consider public transportation and carpools.

Don’t flush your money away Switch to water saving toilets and faucets or just Install water-saving devices on your old ones.

Paper or Plastic? Neither. Plastic bags are not biodegradable and are not easy to recycle. Paper bags can be easily recycled and are biodegradable but they still have to be manufactured which results in polluted air and water. Shop with a canvas bag instead.

Keep filters clean Dryers and air conditioners have to work harder when the filters are dirty. Change air filters every month and empty the lent in dryers after every load.

Find more ways to save the environment here.

Very rarely do we ever look forward to checking the mail. It’s mostly “You’ve been pre-approved!” credit card offers, “Save $100’s at these stores!” coupons, and some magazine about premium cigars that the previous resident subscribed to. Oh yeah, and bills. While bills are a fact of life, junk mail shouldn’t have to be.

100 million trees are ground up each year for unsolicited mail, wasting 28 billion gallons of water for paper processing. That’s 4.5 million tons of junk mail that rarely gets opened and almost always gets thrown away. GreenDimes has partnered with American Forests, Sustainable Harvest International, and Trees for the Future to help. For a one time $20 fee, your household gets

- Removed from dozens of junk mail lists

- Unwanted catalogs eliminated. You keep only the ones you want.

- Monthly monitoring of your account. Each month, GreenDimes reviews direct marketers’ lists to ensure that your name stays off.

- 10 trees planted on your behalf!

Over 3 million pounds of junk mail have been stopped already and over a million trees (and counting) have been planted and saved. Step outside to an emptier mailbox and cleaner air.

The U.S. Department of Energy has just started its Entrepreneur in Residence program by putting an experienced entrepreneur from three venture capitalist firms into three of the DOE’s national laboratories. The entrepreneur will examine the laboratories’ clean energy technologies, pick the best one and run with it. The capitalist firms will then license the technology and form and finance a new company for commercialization.

National labs can do this themselves but it’s a lengthy process that could use some improvement. By bringing in venture capitalists, who do a better job of bringing new technology to the marketplace than the government, the Energy Department can feel confidant that the good ideas born in the lab don’t die there.

This year Arch Venture Partners of Chicago will work with Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Foundation Capital of Menlo Park will be paired with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. And Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers of Menlo Park will work with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado.

Each year three new venture capitalist firms will be chosen to work with the laboratories and the lucky entrepreneur will be sponsored $100,000 by both the DOE and its own firm. Here’s hoping it pays off wonderfully.

Two reports were recently issued by the state of Maine and the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project stating that compact florescent lamps (those spiral light bulbs) can pose a small risk of mercury poisoning to young people and pregnant women. Oh no! How did they figure that out?

For the Maine study, researchers broke 65 of the bulbs in question and tested the air for mercury vapors. They found that the levels of vapor in the air exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times! “We found some very high levels [of mercury] even after we tried a number of cleanup techniques,” said Mark Hyland, director of Maine’s Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management. Really? I wonder why? 65 bulbs? Who goes around doing that? Who has 65 light bulbs stored in their house somewhere that can be easily accessed by young children and pregnant women?

At least the people in Vermont are a bit more realistic. “Using compact fluorescent bulbs is still the brightest idea out there,” say Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. “The message is: People should not be afraid but informed and prepared and learn how to dispose of them properly.”

The florescent bulbs only use about 1% the amount of mercury that old thermometers used and the risk of exposure to it can be greatly reduced if you exercise some common sense when using them. It is recommended that should one of your bulbs should break, get children and pets out and ventilate the room. Scoop up the pieces with a stiff paper such as an index card and place in a glass jar to be disposed of outside of the house. Never use a vacuum, even on carpet. Wipe the area with a wet paper towel. They even go so far as to suggest cutting the piece of carpet out should the bulb break on it.

But the risk of mercury exposure isn’t that great in your home. It’s out in the landfills. Most people throw away their used florescent bulbs in their trashcans and send them off to landfills. Here they break and release the mercury vapors in mass quantities. Remember those 65 light bulbs and how toxic the air was after they broke? Over 300 million fluorescent bulbs were sold in the United States last year and perhaps as many as 1 billion bulbs will be sold this year. That’s a lot of mercury. What are we to do?

Each state has different disposal regulations and some have banned regular trash disposal, stating that florescent bulbs are household hazardous waste. Be sure to check where your local collection sites are. Ikea stores also have recycling containers for florescent lights.

All in all, compact florescent light bulbs are still great for the environment (only using 25% the energy of regular light bulbs and lasting 10+ years) and are relatively safe if you familiarize yourself of the risks and dispose of them correctly.

As the saying goes, children are our future, so it’s important to teach them about the planet they’re going to inherit. Kids this day and age, spend far too much time in front of televisions and computers or glued to the newest hand held gaming device. Children need to be aware of the current crisis Earth is facing with global warming and pollution, but how do you go about it without scaring your child or without downplaying the situation?

Since they’re in front of the computer already, introduce them to kid friendly sites that teach about the environment. Action For Nature has lots of helpful links and games for children to enjoy.

One of the best ways to get your kids to care about nature is to get them out in it. Visit state and national parks and centers. Sign up for community clean up events. Take walks around your neighborhood and teach them about local flowers and trees.

One of the best ways is to bring nature closer to home. Build a bird house together, or plant a tree or a garden. Having their own section of the garden to plant and tend to will teach kids responsibility and fill them with pride when they see that their plants are thriving due to their care. If you don’t have a back yard, a window box full of herbs and flowers work just as well.

Bring nature to school. More and more schools are planting their own gardens or are involved with community gardens. If your child’s school does not have a gardening program, try talking to other parents and teachers about starting one.

Remember, environmental awareness starts with you. Your enthusiasm and respect for nature will be infectious as your children look to you, their number 1 role model.

Sony Electronics has teamed up with Waste Management, Inc. to encourage proper electronic device disposal. Their goal is to recycle one pound of consumer electronics for every pound sold, and are offering some pretty sweet deals to get you to help them meet it.

They are offering a $100 coupon off the purchase of a BRAVIA® HDTV from Sony Style when you bring in your old Sony TV to be recycled. If the TV you wish to recycle is not a Sony, take it in anyway. Waste Management will charge you $25-$50 to recycle non-Sony televisions, but you still get the $100 coupon so you still save money! The small print says that you have to bring in your TV by March 15, 2008 and you have to use your coupon by March 31, 2008, so hurry to the nearest participating Recycle America location and trade up.

Also, if you bring or mail in your old notebook, regardless of brand, you can get credit for a new VAIO® or receive a Sony Style Gift Card.

It’s the same for old cameras and camcorders; you get an e-coupon to spend on a new one at sonystyle.com. Get an instant estimate of your old cameras value, sign up for a Trade-Up account, print off a free shipping label, ship it off and receive your coupon.

For every other Sony product, you can recycle them for free at the same participating Recycle America locations.

While looking for a sustainable organic clothing line, I came across a fabric called Tencel®. It claims to be extremely soft, versatile, and wrinkle resistant and all around better than cotton. I decided to do some research and see for myself.

Tencel® is the brand name owned by Lenzing Fiber for the fabric lyocell. It’s made of cellulose from wood pulp that is chemically broken down then reformed as long fibers in a spinneret. The wood comes from sustainable tree farms (Tencel® is made of eucalyptus) which require neither artificial irrigation nor pesticides, and while sometimes toxic, the chemical solvent used is 99.5% recovered and recycled. The waste that is produced during manufacturing is minimal and is considered harmless. It’s biodegradable, requires no bleach and is usually completely degraded in just eight days in a waste plant. So what’s the catch? Lyocell is hard to dye, so depending on the manufacturing company, various chemicals, enzyme baths and dye processes that may be toxic (and irritating to sensitive skin), are used. It is also hard to find and is fairly expensive to buy. But is  it better than cotton and thus, worth it?

Conventional cotton farming is one of agriculture’s most environmentally destructive activities. It takes an enormous toll on the planets air, water, and soil, and significantly affects the health of people living in cotton growing areas. Organic cotton farming, on the other hand, is largely safer by using methods designed to eliminate the need for pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. It’s a growing trend that makes organic cotton fabrics easy to find and cheaper to buy.

So is lyocell better than cotton? Make you own informed decision and shop smart.

As wonderful and exciting as using eco-friendly renewable resources are, there still remains a large, un-friendly problem: shipping. Just about everything makes its way across the big blue during some part of its life, and it’s almost always on a CO2 spewing ship. Isn’t there a better way?

On January 22, 2008, the Beluga Group in Bremen, Germany launched the MV “Beluga SkySails” on its maiden voyage from “Columbuskaje” in Bremerhaven to Guanta in Venezuela loaded with components for a chipboard plant. It was the first ship to launch SkySails innovative towing kite system for commercial use.

SkySails has developed a wind propulsion system that can lower fuel costs by 10-35%, which is crucial in our oil starved economy. The system is comprised of three simple main components: a towing kite with rope (think paraglider style), a launch and recovery system, and an automatic control system. It launches itself, steers itself and even calculates the best route to take based on weather forecasting data and the captain’s priorities. Then when the voyage is done, it pulls itself back in until the next time you’re ready for it. Virtually any cargo ship can be retrofitted with one and it requires no additional crew and only a few days of training for existing crew.

Oil prices keep rising, our oceans are becoming ever more polluted, and carbon emissions are destroying the ozone. Thanks to SkySails, ships can once again make a greener (or bluer, rather) journey with pride by hoisting their sails. It’s almost enough to make you want to say “Argh.”

On March 31, 2007 in Sydney Australia, the flick of a switch inspired the world. For one hour, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights in an effort to raise awareness of climate change. It was the birth of Earth Hour. Launched by the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia, this massive unification reduced Sydney’s energy consumption 10.2% for the hour. That’s the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road.

This year, the whole world will participate on March 29, 2008 at 8pm. Cities like Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tel Aviv and Manila have already signed up to go dark. You can sign up too. Phrases like “What can I do?” and “I’m just one person,” will finally be thrown out as everyday people like you and me unite to do our part and see results instantly. Tell your family and friends; tell your boss and co-workers. Together we can save the world, one hour at a time.