Boast the greenest house on your block

▶ Author Joshua Piven shares some thrifty ways to make every room in your house more efficient ▶ Consider it your best-case scenario survival handbook

 

 

It’s easy to talk a big game about going green, but we often wonder how to turn the rhetoric into attainable change. We talked to author Joshua Piven, the man behind the “Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook,” about his new book, “This Green House: Home Improvements for the Eco-Smart, the Thrifty, and the Do-It-Yourselfer” ($13, Stewart, Tabori & Chang).

Bedroom
Piven suggests lightweight window coverings to keep heat and light out of the bedroom. Another simple change is to opt for a slatted wood bed base (of IKEA fame) instead of a box spring. “Box springs are expensive to make and ship, and you can’t recycle them. They typically go to landfills,” Piven says.
 
Living room
Most of your energy is used in this room, so use a green power strip — it goes into standby mode so your electronics aren’t gulping down energy all day.
 
Kitchen
Piven has 21 ways to reuse water bottles, from baby toys to funnels to bird feeders. He also emphasizes cutting down on buying bottled water. “Bottled water generally costs $10 a gallon, tap water is about a penny a gallon,” he says.
 
Bathroom
Piven suggests using unbleached toilet paper, which is better for the environment. If you’re really ambitious, turn the top of your toilet into a sink for hand washing by replacing it with a basin. That way, the water that flushes your toilet has already been used to wash your hands.

“Being green doesn’t have to mean sacrifice,” Piven reasons. “It’s doing things that you already do in a different way.”