Easy Ways to be Eco-Friendly

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Save water! This environmental problem is often bypassed to make way for the more dramatic ‘carbon footprint’, but in actual fact wasting water can have a huge negative impact on the environment, due to the cleaning process (requiring electricity!) and rapidly lowering water tables in some areas. The average person uses 60-70 gallons of water per day indoors alone, much of which is wasted unnecessarily. To reduce this collossal amount, simply make the following tweaks: a) turn the tap off while you are brushing your teeth or washing your face – a running tap wastes about 6 litres a minute! b) wash your vegetables in a bowl, rather than under a running tap – this will make them easier to cook anyway. c) never turn on the dishwasher or washing machine until it has a full load – otherwise you could find yourself using an enormous amount of water for a few plates or a t-shirt or two. It’s just not worth it! d) Have a shower rather than a bath – the average shower uses much less water than the average bath. Don’t be too long in there though!

Save electricity! There are endless ways to do this around the home, some of which are more well known than others. I’ll remind you of the obvious ones and give you a few extras you might not have thought of: a) No more standby! Everyone knows it wastes electricity, but there’s still millions out there who just can’t be bothered. Even I’m guilty of that one occasionally! If you constantly forget, you can buy a special ‘powersafer’, which automatically cuts the power supply to an appliance when it is put on standby. b) Energy-efficient bulbs make a bigger difference than you think – to your bills if nothing else. c) Whenever you use the kettle, only boil the amount you will be needing. The amount of electricity a kettle uses is larger than you may think – just look at the electricity meter whilst it is boiling for proof. Less water will mean less time boiling, and if you count the number of times you make a hot drink in a year you will see how much of a difference this could make! d) Turn down the central heating even by just a degree or two – this can make a big difference in the long run. In spare rooms or rooms that are rarely used, turn down the radiators to very low or zero. e) clean the coils in the back of your fridge and freezer with a vacuum cleaner, to increase their efficiency. f) Try to hang out your clothes to dry rather than using a tumble-dryer. To reduce ironing, hang them on coathangers when they are still wet, and then hang the coathangers from the washing line. g) Don’t keep opening the oven door; each time you do, 20 degrees are lost.