You have an old car; a charity wants it, will pick it up for free and sell it to support its good works. Seems like a win-win situation, right? Unfortunately, many nonprofits that have car donation programs are operated by for-profit towing companies. The towing companies pick up the car and sell it to dealers or as scrap metal, and then give a tiny portion of the proceeds to the charity. If you have a car you would like to donate to support a charity, do this instead: Sell it yourself and donate the cash you make directly to the charity. This way you know it's going to your favorite cause, and you get the full value of the cash donation for tax-deduction purposes.
Do Just One Thing for August 09, 2015
When it comes to making a weekly trip to the grocery store, the easiest way to green your supermarket visit is to stay at home. If your community has online supermarket shopping from companies like PeaPod or Fresh Direct, for example, you can use them to deliver your food, cutting your carbon emissions from not driving by as much as 50 percent. Because the delivery vans are designed to do cluster deliveries to multiple homes on a single route, it is the greenest way to shop for your weekly veggies, eggs, bread and milk.
Do Just One Thing for August 08, 2015
It may seem like no big deal, but don't flush common household toiletry items like cotton balls, cotton swabs and even dental floss. Even though it may seem harmless, the reality is these small things can create massive problems. Dental floss can wrap itself around other objects in the sewage system and cause clogs (think of it like fishing line). And cotton items can swell up and get lodged in the bends of pipes, creating blockages that can cause clogs -- and major pluming repair bills.