We believe in the Big Three environmental principles – REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE…but we don’t always go as far as we’d like to. Sure…we’ve championed the replacement of Compact Fluorescent lightbulbs in the building(and we mean to write more on that). But when we go to stores, we still get plastic shopping bags.

Of course, we don’t recall seeing paper bags offered at any of the places we frequented in the last month…not even the supermarket. Ireland, among other countries, actually mandated a 15 cent charge for any plastic bag given out. That reduced usage by ninety percent.

An estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide. Billions end up as litter each year. According to the EPA, over 380 billion of plastic bags, sacks, and wraps are used in the U.S. each year. The Wall Street Journal estimates 100 billion plastic shopping bags, while the American Forest and Paper Association estimated in 1999 the US used only 10 billion paper grocery bags…a much smaller number by comparison.

To do our part, we visited Reusable Bags. Even Al Gore referenced them in An Inconvenient Truth. Not only are they merchandisers of reusable technology, but they are environmental activists. They even have an advocacy line of merchandise with their slogan…”Plastic Bags Blow – BYOB – Bring Your Own Bags.”

We purchased some of their ultracompact shopping bags. These bags fold up into a little pouch you can fit in your pocket so you can keep it in your car, or on your person and use it when you shop, then return it to its pouch for next time. Their bags come in various materials…nylon, canvas, nylon mesh. They also offer reusable bottles…to avoid the continual wasting of plastic water bottles…sandwich bags, lunch sacks, etc. Have a look.

One of our first posts reported on Walmart’s efforts to promote energy efficient lighting, something they consider a win-win situation. Now, as our friends at the Consumerist and the New York Times report, Walmart continues to throw its energy-efficiency into the effort.

CFLs have their problems…they take a few moments to get to full brightness…dimming technology for them is not fully developed…but they do come in a wide range of colors and sizes. The spirals have been covered by globes to hide their CFL origins.

We recently put through an order to 1000bulbs.com. The dimmable bulbs we ordered were on backorder, and it took a few weeks for them to show up…and we fully plan to detail our recent experiences with these bulbs.

Recently, the Consumerist directed us to a review of the Kill-A-Watt, a device that plugs in between an appliance and an outlet to give you a reading of its power consumption. We actually already owned one of these devices, from our affiliate, Smarthome.

With it, you can determine the energy wasters in your home and, if possible, replace them. Look for the EnergyStar label…and for computers, use the power-saving features built in…program them to blank your monitor, spin down your drives…even standby or hibernate if it works for you.

Since devices draw power even when apparently off, especially ones that can turn on via a remote, you might want to put devices on power strips you can manually turn off. We made a list of our devices and redistributed our electronics to allow us to turn off power to our computer monitors and such when they weren’t being used.

Just remember…a tech-enabled lifestyle doesn’t mean you are wasteful.

We tend to avoid the hand dryers in bathrooms, because they take a long time to get your hands dry and often don’t do the job. We, obviously, if you read our previous posts, are in favor of environmental responsibility. But an inefficient product does not encourage our usage.

As The Sun Online reports, Billionaire inventor James Dyson, well known for his commercials for his Dyson vacuum, has promised his new restroom hand dryer will end the need to wipe your hands on your clothes. Instead of using hot air, as the current dryers do, his pumps room-temperature air through a tiny slot at four hundred miles per hour. It apparently dries both hands in ten seconds, after which it sterilizes the waste water.

Dyson claims it not only dries better, but uses 83% less energy. It is being launched in London today after trials and will officially launch in the UK next month.

On a recent trip to the local Home Depot, we were pleased to see not only a whole section of CFLs, but Phillips dimmable CFLs in the R30 and R40 sizes available for the first time. They only had a few boxes, but $11.95 each was still less than we’d found online. So, check your local home improvement warehouse for these dimmable CFLs if you can.

When we started this site, we did not think we would necessarily emphasize energy-saving. But, with rising fuel and energy costs a consideration for all, we feel it is a good move to explore new technologies can save you money.

Now, with the summer over and winter coming, it is time to think about heating your home. There are two basic types of heating systems: 24 volt and line voltage. Line voltage systems are usually used for electric baseboard heaters. In this, the 240 or 120 volts that power the heater run directly through the thermostat.

Now, there is no lack of programmable thermostats on the market. They are not all created equal and are priced differently for a reason. Programmable thermostats are divided into 7, 5-2, and 5-1-1 day programmable thermostats, based on the number of different programs it can contain. While we think that backlit displays for thermostats make them look more impressive and are easier to find, we have never sprung for the extra feature.

Some also have a vacation override function, which allows a second program to supplement the first in the event of a vacation. Another feature related to this allows the vacation override to be triggered by a dry contact switch. Thus, a wire can be run to a home automation system to allow remote control. This allows you to call ahead and switch back from vacation to normal mode, a wonderful feature for any vacation homes you might have.

One of the biggest problems with heating and cooling control is the multi-room house. With central heating and cooling, if one person wants the air on, the whole house gets air. With varying cooling/heating capability and size of room, that can mean variants in temperature. There is an option. One is of course, having vents that can close. A more high-tech solution is a motorized duct damper. By installing these dampers and wiring them to temperature controls, the duct can be opened or closed based on the temperature. This is called zonal heating or cooling, as it divides the house into zones.

This system is already in place if you have electric heating. Electric heating usually mean independent thermostats per baseboard, and thus the cost of upgrading to programmable is much more expensive, as there are more to replace. We are preparing to field-test the least expensive programmable line voltage thermostat we could fine, a rebranded version of the Line Voltage Thermostat – LUX ELV1 for a list price of $39.99. We’ll have more information on how that worked out in a future post as well as thoughts on controlling your temperature remotely.