Forgot Password?
Home arrow GreeniacsArticles arrow Green Living arrow 10 Easy Eco Changes
Written by Miranda Huey   
Share |
Thursday, 02 April 2009

10 Easy Eco Changes!

In the past few years, we've discovered so many different ways to live an eco-friendly lifestyle. Everyone wants to go green, but not everyone has the time, money, and effort to do everything. Fortunately, changing just a few of these little habits can make a huge difference. Here are the top ten easiest (and cheapest) things you can do to go green!
1. Recycle: If you're anything like the average American, you probably produce more than 1,600 pounds of waste every year. Recycling is one of the easiest ways to preserve our limited natural resources. Just put any recyclable items in a separate recycling bin, sorted according to the type of item it is. For instructions on what's recyclable in your area, go to http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/Recycling-101.html.

2. Turn off the lights: Usually, when we roam around the house, we only need one or two lights at a time, but much more than that are left on. This wastes electricity and costs you money. Fortunately, changing your habit is easy. Take note of any extra lights that you don't need at the moment, and turn them off. You can stake this a step further and take out the light bulbs in any multi-bulb lighting fixtures you have when you don’t need all the bulbs to light up your room.

3. Bring your own bag: Instead of throwing away a plastic bag every time you go shopping, bring your own reusable bag to the store. When plastic bags are thrown away, they can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in a landfill. Plus, sometimes they can end up as litter around the city or oceans, wreaking further havoc on the environment. Bringing your own bag can be a great solution to this problem. For more ideas and information on bringing your own bag, you can check out the Greeniacs guide: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/Bring-Your-Own-Shopping-Bag.html.

4. Adjust the temperature of your refrigerator: You may not know it, but one of the best ways to save electricity is to raise the temperature control inside your refrigerator. The colder the temperature is set, the more energy your refrigerator has to use in order to keep everything cold. Setting your freezer between 0° F and 5° F and your refrigerator between 38° F and 42° F will keep your refrigerator energy efficient.

5. Turn off the water: Many of us use a great deal of unnecessary water every day without even realizing it. When washing your hands or face, be sure to turn off the faucet when you are scrubbing or lathering. Also, don't just keep the water running when you are brushing your teeth. Just turn it on when you need to rinse your brush or fill up your rinsing cup. You'll be amazed at how much water you'll save. For more specific ways to reduce your water usage around the house, check out some Greeniacs resources: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/How-to-Conserve-Water-in-Your-Kitchen.html, http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/Reuse-Your-Grey-Water.html, http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Water-Conservation.html.

6. Use a reusable water bottle: Buying bottled water is costly, bad for the environment, and is no healthier than filtered tap water. While the bottles are recyclable, 80% are actually put into the trash and sent to landfills, where they take an average of 450 years to degrade. Be sure not to just refill your plastic bottle, since the plastic can leak back into your water. Instead, buy a reusable water bottle. You can fill it up for free, anytime, anywhere. For more info, check out: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/Buy-a-Reusable-Water-Bottle.html.

7. Buy rechargeable batteries: Normal non-rechargeable batteries are often thrown away in a landfill, where their chemicals (lead, cadmium, mercury, silver, zinc or nickel) can leak into the environment, our food, and even our water supply. When you use rechargeable batteries, you not only save money, but much fewer batteries get thrown into the environment.

8. Fully load your appliances (dishwashers, washing machines, dryers): When you load less than the full amount, your appliance still uses the same amount of water and electricity, which goes to waste. The best way to get the most out the energy and water that you use is to turn on your appliances only when they are fully loaded.

9. Print double-sided: One of the easiest things you can do to save paper is to print double-sided. Some printers have a double-sided feature, while others don't. If your printer doesn't have this option, just print the odd pages first. Flip the paper over, re-feed it into the printer, and print out the even pages. Not only will you help reduce your paper usage, you'll also save money on paper. Try to buy recycled paper as well whenever possible!

10. Change a light bulb: Did you know that compact fluorescent light bulbs use a quarter of the energy of fluorescent light bulbs? Simply changing all the light bulbs around your house to either CFL's or LED's can save you money on your electricity bill and save the environment. Greeniacs published some guides to help you decide what the best option may be for you: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/CFLs-vs-LEDs.html, http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/Switch-to-Compact-Fluorescent-Light-Bulb.html.
These are just some examples of easy ways to make your life more eco-friendly. Hopefully these changes will make Mother Earth, as well as you and your family, feel much better every day!

Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/saving/recycling/solidwaste/wastetoenergy.html.
2http://earth911.com/plastic/plastic-bottle-recycling-facts/.
3http://www.vegfamily.com/whole-family/plastic-water-bottle-safety.htm.
4http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/12-21/battery-recycling-article.htm.
5hattp://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls.





Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 February 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.