There are tons of small things that we can do at home to help in reducing landfill waste, cleaning the air, preserving our natural landscape and help in reducing carbon footprint, creating a healthier home and lowering monthly bills to boot. Let’s fasten our seat – belts and go on a ‘Green Adventure’ and take small inexpensive yet effective steps to make our plant eco – friendly. Let’s GO GREEN and SAVE GREEN.
1. Save Energy to Save Money-
• Lower the thermostat a few degrees lower in winters and a few degrees higher in summers to save on cooling and heating costs.
• Turn off computers, mobile phones chargers and other unwanted electronic gadgets during the night time as this would help to save a lot of money. By turning of the computer instead of leaving it on the sleep mode, 40 watt hours per day could be saved. This accounts to 4 cents a day and $14 per year.
• Replacing incandescent bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) or Light Emitting Diode (LED) is feasible. CFCs use 75% less energy, last 10 times more compared to standard incandescent bulbs. This leads to an average savings of $35 per bulb.
• Unplug appliances when not in use and turn off unwanted lights and fans. This would reduce the electricity bill by 44%.
2. Save Water to Save Money-
• Take shorter showers as this would lower the water and electricity bills.
• Wash clothes in cold water whenever possible. As much as 85% of energy used in washing machine goes in heating the water.
• Installing an aerator on all our faucets can cut the annual consumption of water to half.
• Turning off taps while brushing teeth, shaving, or washing face can help save 4.5 gallons each time.
• Rain water harvesting is also an effective technique to collect natural rain water using it for washing and gardening purposes.
• Run the dishwasher and clothes washer when it is full only.
• Check out for leakages in pipes in your house and get it repaired.
3. Less Gas = More Money = Better Health
• Cover small distance by walk. This would not only save gas costs but also parking cost improving cardiovascular health and reducing obesity.
• Walking on footpaths and side lanes help in bettering health and reducing traffic.
• Car pooling or car share to save fuel and money.
• To travel short distances use a bicycle or eco- friendly bikes/cars that run on solar energy.
• Also switch off your vehicle’s engine at the red signal in order to save the fast dwelling precious fuel.
• Usage of public transport instead of private transport proves to be beneficial to the environment.
4. Eat Smart-
• Go vegetarian once a week. Eating one less meat – based meal once a week helps the planet as well as your health. To produce one pound of beef 2,500 gallons of water is used and reducing intake of meat can save water.
• Buy locally produced fruits and vegetables as it can help save thousands of currency and prevent wastage of fuels. It can also help local farmers and help in growing local economy.
5. Avoid using bottled water- They end up in the drains and bins
• Not only is it expensive but it also generates large quantity of container waste.
• Reusable water bottle should be preferred rather than plastic ass it is toxic and harmful. Plastic takes millions of years of degrade.
6. Buy Smart-
• Borrow books, magazines, movies from libraries or friends instead of buying a new one every time. This saves a lot of money and paper as a lot of ink and paper used would be saved. Also older people can carry down their clothes to the younger ones.
• Online buying and selling is another such way to get rid of old stuff instead of just throwing it away and buying things at a cheaper price.
7. Separate your waste- Act smart
Separate your dry waste and wet waste and put it in different bins. This makes the work easier for the people handling waste and tons of money is also saved.
Also compost and biogas plant can be set up and the energy can be used for cooking and lightning purposes.
8. Go Renewable- Its time to think for our the environment we live in
Make the best use of the Solar power, wind energy and other renewable forms of energy.
9.Ban plastic- Plastics are death in disguise
• Use re-useable shopping bags- Every year 13 billion bags are issued to shoppers across the world, that is 220 per person. These bags are hardly used for 12 minutes before being discarded but they remain in the environment for thousands of years.
• Stores can make provisions for collecting re-used bags and re-cycling them or issuing cloth or paper bags to their customers.
• Plastic bags lead to the death of innocent animals as they land up in their stomach both marine and land. Thus, usage of plastics should be banned and be replaced by cloth or paper bags.
• Like a demon in disguise plastic continues to haunt our environment spoiling its unmatchable beauty.
10. Plant more trees – Invest in green living.
To satisfy the world’s need for paper, every year 4 million trees are slaughtered. Both money and trees can be saved from ending up in the landfills-
• Switching from paper napkins and towels to cloth. Re-useable dishes can be used instead of disposable plates and glasses.
• Magazines can be viewed online. Roughly 90% of the magazines are discarded and only 44% are recycled.
• Give old newspapers and magazines to the kabadiwala in exchange of little money. Recycling paper is healthy for the environment.
• Using online banking, which is easier from theft and time-saving and money for stamps. It reduces the amount of paper mail coming to our households.
Trees are the one and only solution to all the grave problems that we face today be it global warming, acid rain, climate change, green house effect, pollution and many more. The rate at which they are being slaughtered today is very disheartening. Thus we as the future generations can try small things mentioned above to improve the condition of the planet and revive its past glory. And yes we must all learn to share and pass this knowledge of reviving our planet with simple steps and our bit can definitely make a big difference. If every person takes a small step towards being greener, the result will be phenomenal.
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