Being environmentally responsible is down to the individual. In fact, according to Sustainable Brands, 83% of Americans said that they wanted a greener home and to make steps to live more sustainably. Your own home is an excellent place to start, even small changes can make a difference. Gaylord Nelson said “The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” Never has there been a better time to start – here are some little changes you can make.
Harvesting The Rainwater For A Greener Home
In America, the average family uses 400 gallons of water per day. More than 30% of this water is used outside, for watering lawns and gardens. It is important that we conserve water wherever we can. Installing a simple rainwater tank stores rain from gutterings, rooftops and pipes. This water can then be used for your garden, or irrigation system. What’s more, you plants will love it – rainwater is better for them than tap water, as it doesn’t have chlorine or fluoride added to it. Rainwater is completely soft water and contains important nitrates that help plants to grow.
Get your furnace tuned
Heating costs are getting higher every year – the average annual cost of heating with natural gas is $644 and if you are heating with propane, the average annual cost is now over $1600. One small way that you can help reduce the cost of heating, and help the environment is to get your furnace tuned. It will help to make it run more efficiently, ultimately using less fuel, and saving more money.
Turn off your lights
Switching off your lights has a far bigger impact than you might consider. Take a 60 watt light bulb – if it is switched off for an hour, you would save 0.6 kilowatt hours. In monetary terms, this is about 1.2 cents. This doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but it has a snowball effect. Cornell university recently ran a “lights out” campaign, when they calculated that simply by turning off lights that weren’t used, they would save $60,000 per year. Let us also bear in mind how much energy a light bulb uses. Take an incandescent bulb, only 10% of the energy it uses produces light. The other 90% produces heat. They are simply not efficient for the job that they are doing. So next time you leave the room, turn the light off.
Little changes around your home can help the environment and save you money. We need to look towards the future and leave a better planet for the next generation.
