One thing we can all do to help cut down on paper waste is to sign up for “eBilling” from companies which offer this. Not only does this have the immediate impact of less paper waste, but it also saves the sending company both time, error and money (which the hopeless optimist in me believes will lead to a discount for the customer).

With “eBilling”, you still get a detailed statement (typically available through the website) which you can print to PDF for your records. Additionally, by paying online, you cut your cost of mailing (writing the check, stamp, envelope, etc.) and virtually eliminate any chance of your payment being lost or processed incorrectly.

Any way you look at it, online billing and payment is a rare win-win for all parties involved.

Many of you out there probably noticed that Google went black in an effort to raise people’s awareness about energy conservation.

One of the absolute easiest ways in the world to use less electricity with a computer is with laptop use for three reasons:

1. Laptops are by very nature designed to use less power.
2. Obviously when you’re using a laptop on battery power you’re not drawing from wall current.
3. Power supplies for laptops are far less electricity hungry. For example, I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 built back in 2005. Its power supply is only 65-watt. The one in my desktop PC is far greater.
4. If using wall current, with a laptop you’re plugging in one less item to said wall (no LCD monitor to plug in since it’s built-in to the laptop itself).

All modern laptops (about since wi-fi cards became standard items) should have a low-wattage power brick that only uses the bare minimum to power/charge the unit when using wall current.

If you currently have a laptop and want to know what the wattage rating is, look at the power brick (the thing you use to charge the laptop / plug it into the wall); it’s printed directly on it in plain sight.