COMMENTARY Do just one thing
CLEANING THE BLENDER
If you use a blender on a regular basis, it’s important to know how to properly clean it. When using a blender for making plant-based smoothies, frozen drinks and batter without any animal ingredients, it’s fine to use water and a little dishwashing soap to clean it. Just fill halfway with water, add a few drops of soap, run it on low speed, and rinse it out. But whenever you blend anything with meat, seafood, dairy or eggs, it’s important to totally disassemble the blender for cleaning. Any residue from animal products can become an unhealthy breeding ground for bacteria.
LIMIT ARTIFICIAL DECORATIONS
When decorating the outside of your house for the holidays, avoid artificial garlands or wreaths and fake sprigs of red berries. If it looks real to you, it’s also going to look very real to wildlife who think the fake berries and evergreens are a source of food and shelter. A bird could easily ingest small pieces of your decor and suffer illness or even death. Instead, stick with real and natural items, or place your artificial decor close to your home (like on your porch or front door) and nowhere near trees or open spaces.
NATIVE PLANTS FOR BIRDS
The National Audubon Society wants to make it easy to help you identify native plants for your ZIP code that birds will absolutely love. It’s part of a campaign to get 1 million native plants for birds planted in the United States. All you have to do is visit Audubon.org and enter your ZIP code; the database will suggest trees, shrubs and flowers perfect for your yard and list the types of birds each plant variety will likely attract. You can even buy the plants from the Audubon Society to support their work.
RECYCLING SCRAP METAL
Recycling scrap metal is good for the environment, but it can reap you some cash, too. There are scrap metal yards all over the country that pay cash for metals ranging from aluminum to steel to copper, all at different prices. Besides the obvious sources of scrap metal, there are also overlooked sources like damaged gutters, broken lawnmowers, metal shelves, outdoor furniture, old bicycles, appliances (full of copper wire) and even empty and clean paint cans. You might have cash lying around that you can get just by cleaning your garage!
CLEAN WOODEN UTENSILS BY HAND
Wooden cooking utensils always should be cleaned by hand and never in the dishwasher, since the high temperatures can easily degrade them. When you want to disinfect your wooden utensils, try using hydrogen peroxide. Fill a shallow container (like a casserole pan) with your wooden utensils and pour hydrogen peroxide all over them. Let them soak for at least 15 minutes; as the hydrogen peroxide bubbles away it will kill any bacteria that have built up. Rinse and air dry, and you’re good to go.
RECYCLING OLD TIRES
Did you know it’s illegal to throw old tires in the trash? The reason might surprise you: The steel belts inside of tires actually can puncture the liners at landfills, leading to ground contamination. In some states, getting caught throwing tires away can lead to fines and even jail time. There are recycling programs everywhere that recycle old tires — the rubber and steel is recyclable, and over 75% of tires in the U.S. are recycled. So do the right thing and take your old tires to a dealer who can send them to a licensed recycling facility.
THE EFFICIENT AIR FRYER
Your beloved air fryer not only saves you time, but it’s an energy saver, too. On average, it only costs about 25 cents in energy to run a standard air fryer for an hour (divide that by the few minutes it takes to make crispy fries, and it adds up to pennies per use). In comparison to a large gas or electric oven, an air fryer is around 35% to 50% more efficient. Over a year, using an air fryer instead of an oven can save you around $100 in electricity costs alone.