Earth Day Money-Saving Tips Help Save the Planet, Too -- BIG GREEN PURSE by Diane MacEachern Says Consumers Can Afford to Live and Shop Green

• 

Big Green Purse (Available Now)

If money talks, Diane MacEachern is using hers to say

New York, NY (PRWEB) April 18, 2008

As much as consumers want to stop climate change, save energy, and "reduce, reuse, and recycle," they often worry that these steps are too costly or complicated. With BIG GREEN PURSE: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World (Available Now), green living expert Diane MacEachern gives readers simple but effective tips to help them start making eco-shopping and lifestyle changes today for a meaningful impact on the planet tomorrow.

"If you take just a few suggestions from Big Green Purse, you will be on your way to being part of the solution instead of part of the problem." -- Laurie David, founder of StopGlobalWarming.org and a producer of An Inconvenient Truth

"If money talks, Diane MacEachern is using hers to say "Save the Planet." …MacEachern has shopped green for 20 years and has lots of tips for what's worked for her and what hasn't…In Big Green Purse, MacEachern encourages readers to take the power of the purse to an even higher level." -- Body + Soul

In BIG GREEN PURSE, Diane's most cost-effective steps include:

•     Enjoy the eco-benefits of bulk shopping: Whether at Costco, Sam's Club, or the local grocery store, buy the largest package available. Ounce for ounce, single services cost twice as much as the economy size of any product. Buying in bulk means you'll take fewer trips to the store to buy more; and you'll throwaway less trash overall.
•     Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs: they cost $2-$4 more at the time of purchase, but save $30-$50 over the life of the bulb. Since they last ten times as long as an incandescent, you're changing the bulb far less often - another great time saver.
•     Use Reusables. For example, one household sponge costs $.99; one roll of paper towels costs about $1.99. The sponge lasts as long as 17 rolls of paper towels, saving consumers more than $30 over the life of the sponge.
•     What about Water Bottles? Once you figure in the price of the water, the bottle, the label, the cap and the energy used to transport the bottle to your store, bottled water can cost as much as 10,000 times more than tap water. You can save as much as $500 a year by buying a filter for your tap and a reusable water bottle.

In addition to her money saving tips, Diane argues that the fastest, most effective, way to save the planet is to mobilize the most powerful consumer force in the world--women. Women spend $.85 of every dollar in the marketplace. When they harness the "power of their purse" and shift their spending to eco-friendly products and services, they can change manufacturing practices dramatically.    

"By buying green products," notes MacEachern, "consumers encourage manufacturers to reduce pollution, save energy and water, use less packaging, and protect natural areas like rain forests. BIG GREEN PURSE explains exactly how each one of us can learn how to shop smart and change the world."

What Else is Inside Big Green Purse?

• Dozens of sensible, time-saving ways and immediate strategies for green living that readers can incorporate into their lives today
• Information on 25 commodities where women's dollars can have the greatest impact, including food, clothing, cars, computers, coffee, cleansers, furniture and flooring
• Eco-cheap strategies to help readers save money but still live and shop green
• A list of phony "greenwashing" marketing techniques to avoid
• Standards-based guidelines and "thumbs up/thumbs down" ratings to help shoppers shift to eco-friendly products, companies, and services

While it is a fun and entertaining read whose suggestions will save consumers $20-$50 a month, at its core BIG GREEN PURSE is a call-to-action. "We can make a difference in the race to save the planet," notes MacEachern, "but only if we make our money matter."

Whether we've been paring down our purchases for years or are greenhorns when it comes to a green lifestyle, on some level we still need to shop. That's where our purses - and our power to protect the planet - come into play. With BIG GREEN PURSE, we can collectively change the world… and we can all afford to do it.

About Diane MacEachern
Diane MacEachern is a bestselling environmental writer, sought-after public speaker, and founder of http://www.biggreenpurse.com, winner of the "Best Green Website Award" from Future Now in 2007. She has advised the Environmental Protection Agency, World Bank, World Wildlife Fund, and many other agencies and nonprofit organizations focused on protecting the planet. The author of the bestselling Save Our Planet: 750 Everyday Ways You Can Help Clean Up the Earth, MacEachern lives in the Washington, D.V., suburbs in the energy-efficient home she helped design and build more than twenty years ago.

###

PDF Print