At the end of the day, just before going to bed, you go through the house to do an energy check.  You make sure all the lights are off, the oven is cold, the iron is unplugged. So now you've done your duty as a good energy conserver, right?

Not so fast...

If you go through the house again you might notice several ghostly, glowing lights. There's one on your computer, resting for the night on standby mode. And your cell phone charger is still plugged in, emitting a green glow.

And what about the iPod charger and adapters for your digital camera and every other digital device you own?

Phantom Energy?

When left plugged in, these devices create what's known as phantom energy loss. If you add up all the phantom energy being drained in houses across the United States, it adds up to a whopping sixty-five billion kilowatt hours of electricity every year.

And it costs us around 5.8 billion dollars every year. Plus, all those extra kilowatt hours pump more than eighty-seven billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Doing YOUR Part

Simply put: pull the plug. If your cellphone is fully charged, unplug the charger. Same goes for your mp3 player and smart phone. And instead of leaving your desktop computer on all the time, shut it down when you're not using it.

It's not true that leaving a computer on all the time makes it last longer. Bottom line, turning things off will lower your electricity bill and help protect the environment.