With a compost heap in your backyard, you can avoid sending a lot of your rubbish to landfill, and can instead give it a second life as food for your garden. To your compost heap, you can add:

• Kitchen waste like vegetable peelings.
• Dried leaves.
• Grass clippings.
• Weeds.
• Hedge clippings.
• Animal manure.
• Small amounts of newspaper.
• Saw dust and wood shavings.

It only takes a small and consistent effort to create and maintain a compost heap in your backyard, and when you consider that garden trimmings and food waste account for 23% of the waste created in the US, these are all things which will break down naturally in your compost heap, but are instead being taken to landfills and creating tonnes of toxic methane gas.

Methane is the greenhouse gas which traps heat in the atmosphere 20 times more effectively than carbon dioxide. Methane also remains in the atmosphere for between nine and 15 years ones emitted.

Other benefits of composting at home include:

• Prevention is better than cure. While the EPA and many other private environmental companies are working on ways to turn methane gas into renewable energy, it is always more effective to stop the root of the problem, rather than just treating the symptoms.
• Fertile garden soil. When you actively compost your garden and kitchen waste, the decomposition process is sped up, and a dark fertile garden soil is created which your plants will love, and will save you money on potting mix at the garden centre.
• Natural fertiliser. The soil which is produced from a compost heap is a natural fertiliser, so you can avoid paying for chemical fertilisers, and avoid bringing chemicals into your home and yard.
• Education. With an aim to prevent more damage to the environment, it is important to teach your children the importance of managing their waste, and seizing every opportunity to do good for the planet and a simple composting system in your garden can do just that.

This was a guest post by Alban, who has seen his vegetable garden grow healthy since he has started to make and use his own compost. When he’s not gardening, Alban writes about finance.

This is a guest post by Jean Lam who is a health and fitness enthusiast. During his spare time, he enjoys exercising and writing articles on body building, weight loss,  how to get rid of acne and skin care natural home remedies.

Many people, particularly in Asian countries, love drinking green tea. One major benefit of green tea is its richness in antioxidants like the salubrious polyphenols notably catechins where epigallocatechin gallate(EGCG) is the most plentiful. EGCG is also known as a flavonoid. Other antioxidants include carotenoids and tocopherols. Antioxidants are basically phytochemicals which can protect our cells from free radicals damage.

Green tea is one of the most popular health drinks on earth for good reasons. Green tea has been linked to many health benefits including but not limited to:

(1) Inducing fat loss and weight loss.
(2) Increasing metabolism.
(3) Lowering high blood pressure.
(4) Preventing cancer.
(5) Reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
(6) Detoxifying the body.
(7) Healing acne.

In this article, am going to focus on the last benefit which is curing acne. As surprising as this might sound, green tea can indeed help in healing acne. Actually, you can use green tea in two ways to achieve your goal. Here is how to use green tea for acne.

Internal Treatment

Green tea can be used as an internal treatment for acne. If you enjoy drinking green tea, this wouldn’t be a problem. Enjoying something while using it as a treatment will make you more motivated to achieve your goal. Drinking green tea on a regular basis will detoxify your body and this will result in shrinking acne as the latter has a lot to do with toxins in our blood.

Consume 2-3 cups of green tea everyday for 2-3 weeks and you’ll notice that your acne gradually disappears. The good thing with green tea is you don’t necessarily need to use it as a treatment for any specific amount of time. You can just include it as part of your diet and reap long lasting benefits.

External Treatment

Another amazing way to use green tea for acne is as a skin care therapy. During my teenage years, this is the remedy I used to treat oily skin and eventually get rid of acne. Excess sebum is what most teenagers encounter during their puberty and is one of the major causes of acne.

To use green tea as a skin care therapy for acne, you’ll need some dried green tea leaves. Boil them in some water and let it cool down till warm. By using a clean cloth, apply the warm green tea on your face or any other areas where you have acne. Tap gently and constantly for 15-20 minutes. Green tea will cleanse your pores from excess oil and dry up your acne. The powerful antioxidants of green tea have a healing effect. Follow this therapy for 2-3 weeks and you’ll start noticing your acne shrink. Once your acne starts curing, it will start itching and this is a good sign that it’s healing. Don’t scratch as you’ll hamper your initial efforts.

If you have acne, start using green tea as it’s a natural treatment without any side effects and it’s not expensive. Patience is required but it’s really worth it.

This is a guest post by John Smith. Take it away, John.

Several appliances in our homes use energy. The biggest culprit of all is the heating and cooling system. Then, follow other electrical and electronic appliances: lights, fans, inverters, and kitchen appliances. Here are 15 great tips on how you can make your house more energy efficient.

1. Insulate Your Home

Good builders refer to your home’s exterior as the “envelope” or the “shell.” If you keep this envelope sealed against air leaking into the house from outside, you can bring down your energy expenditure for space heating and cooling, and keep out those drafts. Test your home for leaks and identify the points from where cold air is entering your home. To stop the inflow of cold air, you can caulk your home’s exterior, use gaskets to plug holes, or choose from several other methods to ensure air infiltration does not occur.

2. Turn Off Lights

Turn off lights when you leave a room. Use energy efficient light bulbs that give you greater quantity of white light while consuming lesser power. Invest in motion-activated and heat-sensing lights for your porch, living room, and main living areas. These lights turn off automatically when there’s no one in the room. Use solar-powered lights for your garden.

3. Turn Off Appliances

We need to understand that when an appliance is on, it draws a certain amount of power to remain in ready to use state. Most people assume that since the appliance is not being used, it’s not consuming energy. This is not true.

4. Don’t Keep Devices Plugged in

People keep their mobile phone chargers plugged in and turned on for ready use. Know that power is diverted to the charger even if you’re not actually charging your phone at that point. The same goes for printers, speakers, DVD players, televisions, and other devices that are usually plugged in active mode when no one’s using them.

5. Use Manual Sprinklers in Your Garden

Automatic sprinklers tend to waste both energy and water. Use hand held sprinklers to water your plants. Use the automated sprinklers only if you have a large lawn that needs frequent hydration. During the rainy season, turn the automatic sprinklers off.

6. Coat Your Hot Water Cylinder

The thicker the coat of your hot water cylinder, the less heat you lose. Get your water heater cylinder coated with an 80mm-thick coat at low cost and save on energy and money, as well as lowering your carbon footprint.

7. Use Only as Much Heating and Cooling as You Need

Ensure that your boiler thermostat’s thermostatic radiator valves heat only the rooms that you use, and only when you use them. Set individual thermostats in every room and save on energy. Every month, make sure you change your air conditioner’s filter to minimize the wear and tear on your AC unit. If you live in a hot region, it’s good to plate your single pane windows with solar shades to reflect the heat and keep it outside your house.

8. Use Solar Power

If you own a home, you can garner the power of the Sun to provide most of your energy needs. Even if you live in a region that doesn’t see much sunshine, cleverly placed solar panels on the roof will gather enough heat to supplement your power requirements nicely. Solar power can be used to power up lights and virtually any appliance you use in your home.

9. Update Your Refrigerator

Did you know that refrigerators consume about 20% of your total household energy? Make sure your refrigerator is Energy Star rated. Energy Star rates refrigerators that consume 25 percent less energy. Set your refrigerator and freezer temperature according to your refrigerator’s manual to optimize on energy consumption and turn on the energy saver switch. The gaskets around your refrigerator and freezer doors must be clean and sealed tightly to prevent loss of cooling.

10. Surround Your Home With Greenery

Homes can heat up during the summer in regions where summers are always hot. This is all the more evident if your home is poorly insulated. Grow plenty of shrubs and trees around your houses to block the infrared radiation that causes the heat build-up. The greenery acts as a natural cooling system while reducing the usage of your home’s cooling system.

11. Get Your Home’s Energy Audited

Get your home’s energy utilization audited so that you know what aspects are consuming more energy and how you can cut back on your energy consumption. Your local Housing and Community Affairs Department will be able to put you in touch with reputable power auditing agencies for this purpose.

12. Turn Off Heating and Cooling When You’re Out

Be sure to turn off your home’s heating and cooling when you’re out. You can install a programmable thermostat and a timer for your water heater and your cooling system to achieve this. Set the system to start just before you reach home in the evening. This way, you’ll ensure that your energy consumption is moderate.

13. Rearrange Furniture to Facilitate Better Cooling

After doing everything possible to achieve better cooling for your home, if you’re still not getting the best out of your AC, check if your furniture is blocking air vents. The flow of cool air tends to stagnate if your air vents are blocked by huge chairs, couches and other pieces of furniture. In such cases, the cool air doesn’t flow but stagnates in different corners, giving you a dispersed cooling effect, with some areas feeling cool while others remain hot.

14. Set Your Washer to Warm Water Setting

If you wash all your clothes under the hot water setting, your washer will consume a great deal of energy. Set your clothes washer to the cold-water or warm water setting. If you switch from hot to warm setting for at least two wash loads in a week, you can save nearly 500 pounds on your carbon footprint every year, not to mention the energy and money savings.

15. Run Only Full Loads in Your Dishwater

Don’t start your dishwasher unless it’s absolutely full. Your dishwasher will consume the same amount of energy whether it’s full or not so make use of your energy consumption by loading it to the limit. Also, set your dishwasher on the energy saving setting if you have it. This will allow the dishes to air-dry, saving you that much more energy. Another option is to turn off the drying cycle manually. Opting not to use heat in the drying cycle can save you 20 percent of your dishwasher’s total energy consumption.

John has been living an eco-friendly life for last 5 years and manages an online nursing scrubs store, NursingUniforms.net

The following is a guest post from Baily Harris. Please direct your attention:

Growing a garden is definitely hard work. There are various steps in the process including planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting. After the planting, you may immediately be faced with the major issue of garden pests. Pests come in many forms, but have one main focus: the destruction or consumption of your precious plants. Many products that promise to keep pests out of your garden exist on the market today. The problem is most of these products contain chemicals that can harm us, our families, our pets, and the environment. Luckily, you can create your own non-toxic pest repellents that will keep pests away from your garden without posing any health or environmental risks.

Insects

There are many recipes for non-toxic insect repellents. One effective recipe for a repellent spray uses 10 cloves of garlic, 8 hot chili peppers (any variety), 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dishwashing soap, and 2 pints of water. Finely chop the cloves of garlic and hot chili peppers. Combine those with the water and allow the mixture to steep overnight. The next day, strain the mixture and add the oil and soap. Pour ingredients in a spray bottle and shake well. Spray the mixture on the leaves of healthy plants, and repeat once a week and after it rains. The strong smells will repel insects from coming near your plants.

Another recipe uses essential oils to ward off insects. Just combine 3 drops sage essential oil, 3 drops thyme essential oil, 3 drops lavender essential oil, 1 teaspoon rubbing alcohol, and 4 pints of water. Mix all the essential oils with the alcohol and water. Pour into a spray bottle and shake well. Apply to the leaves of your plants 1 to 2 times a week and after rainfall. Sage has long been used as a natural insect repellent, and the thyme and lavender have strong smells that insects detest.

Slugs

If slugs are becoming a problem in your garden, they can be hard to control. A simple slug repellent is lava rock. Simply place lava rock around the base of affected plants. The rough, abrasive surface will be avoided by slugs. Be sure to keep the rocks above the soil’s surface, otherwise slugs can use the soil as a bridge to get across to plants.

If you have access to seaweed, it can also be a very effective slug repellent. Use the seaweed as mulch around the perimeter of your garden or in between plants. The seaweed is salty and slugs don’t like salt; it can kill them. Be sure to avoid direct contact between the seaweed and plants, as the saltiness can harm plants as well.

Moles

Whether tunneling through your yard or garden, moles can be quite the nuisance. You can make a non-toxic mole repellent using 1/4 cup castor oil, 6 tablespoons water, and 2 tablespoons liquid dish detergent. Blend together the oil and dish detergent using a blender, until foamy. Combine with the water and sprinkle the mixture over holes and areas of the greatest damage in your garden. Moles do not like castor oil and should stay away from the areas you treat. Make larger batches if you have a big mole problem. Repeat once a week and after it rains.

Rabbits and Deer

Although rabbits and deer are cute, friendly creatures, they can cause major problems if they find their way into your garden. Since they are larger pests, it doesn’t take them nearly as long to eat up your plants. The best remedy is to prevent them from entering your garden in the first place.

You can make a non-toxic repellent for rabbits and deer using one part egg, one part milk, one part dish soap, and 5 to 10 garlic cloves. Combine all and mix well in a blender. Keep the mixture in a closed container, preferably outdoors, for 24 to 48 hours, or until it begins to spoil. Then strain it and place the liquid in a spray bottle. Spray it around the perimeter of your garden and plants at least once a week. Rabbits and deer do not like the smell of eggs.

Another recipe for rabbit and deer repellent uses 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper, 2 tablespoons dish soap, and 10 tablespoons cooking oil. Combine the three and mix very well. Pour into a spray bottle and spray around the perimeter of any plants or shrubs you want to protect. Repeat as needed. The strong smell of cayenne pepper is a major turnoff for rabbits and deer.

Dealing with pests in your garden can be very stressful. If you use harsh chemical repellents in your garden, you may be harming you and those around you. This, in turn, will cause you more stress that you just don’t need. Give these natural, non-toxic pest repellents a try. You will rest easy knowing your garden and family are safe and sound.

Bailey Harris writes for www.insurancequotes.org, a site that provides quotes for car insurance.