environment

NOW THAT I AM GREEN

March 10th, 2011 |

Author: Discho

Now that I’ve decided to go green, you say, what do I do next?

The fact is, going green can be as subtle as turning off the lights as you leave a room and turning off the standby mode on your TV, Video recorder or DVD player. By doing small things like this you are actually doing something for the environment and saving yourself money in the long run. By adopting a green lifestyle in this way you are reducing the impact on the earth’s resources because even in your small way, you are saving energy by reducing the use of electricity thus saving you dollars in the long run.

If you decided to catch the bus or train to work or ride your bike once a week, the savings in oil and gasoline would soon add up. If everyone of us did this even once a month, imagine the global saving in energy.

You can make gradual simple changes to your lifestyle which will have little impact on you but a huge impact on our planet.

I’ve listed some simple tips and easy changes you can make to start living more ecogreen friendly. Remember to take baby steps, but also remember that each step you take goes a long way to making our planet healthier and happier.

Less Energy Usage

The most important ecogreen fact is to weatherproof your house. Ensure that doors and windows close properly and are draught free. You will save a lot of heat escaping through badly sealed doors and windows and if you think of “dollars” escaping, this is a significant way to save both energy and your hard earned cash. You can enquire at your utility company for an energy audit and adopt the changes they suggest. Most utility companies offer this service at no charge and you should definitely take advantage of it if you haven’t already done so.

It is important that sunlight enters your home as sunlight is a disinfectant and a wonderful invigorating fact of nature. However, it is important to have blinds and curtains that completely cover the glazed areas of your windows to ensure that the temperature is fairly well maintained and there is not a huge loss of heat or cooling through the glass. The thermal quality of glass is very low, that is why homes in the Northern Hemisphere rely heavily on double glazing and it is now becoming more popular to have double glazing in the Southern Hemisphere because of the extreme weather conditions especially in Australia.

I learned many years ago, probably 30 years ago, that washing in hot water was not a good thing. I have been washing in cold water ever since and use a NP (phosphorous free) clothes washing detergent. This not only is good on my sensitive skin but is very good for the environment. My husband and my clothes last longer and stay brighter. When I was at home with mum and dad I remember mum boiling the copper and spending every Monday doing the washing in boiling hot water. Our clothes would be clean but faded very quickly. In those days it wasn’t always possible to have a daily bath or shower so in a sense I guess our clothes did get dirtier with body oils etc. Now that we are showering once or twice a day our clothes do not get soiled by body oils and are usually washed to “freshen” them up. Hanging clothes on the clothes line outside is also a good way to disinfect them with the rays from the sun. Actually the sun has amazing healing properties, as does salt water from the ocean. I suffer with Psoriasis and find sunbaking and swimming in the ocean does wonders for my skin.

Less Water Usage

My husband and I live in a rural area surrounded by farmland close to the ocean and I know a lot of farmers have to conserve water as the rainfall here and the surrounding areas is not consistent. A lot of the farmers have been in drought conditions for many years. Therefore, to conserve water and have a vegetable garden or to water young trees they have to resort to using grey water. The water used for washing is transferred to buckets and poured on the garden. This can also be done by using bathing water that can be bucketed out. Not a nice situation to be in, but a good sensible idea when you think about it.

Most of us seem to stop having baths when we start walking and are able to go under the shower “like a big kid”. Relaxing in a hot bath every now and then is a wonderful luxury, especially in winter but the majority of people these days have their daily shower or two. We have installed energy efficient shower heads in our bathrooms which only use 9 litres per minute. We have reduced our shower time to 3 minutes or less and have been doing this for years. We are able to wash and condition our hair in that time as well. I remember when our daughter was a teenager and her bathroom was positioned next to the granny flat our old friend lived in. He would hear her under the shower and would time her. He would get very upset when telling us she was under the shower for 15 minutes, 25 minutes or even 30 minutes sometimes. We were torn between being sensible in respect to the water usage and sensitive towards our daughter. Now that she has grown up and is actually 30 and has children of her own I know she is now facing the same issue that we were faced with. The issue is trying to do the right thing by your children but also trying to do the right thing by the environment.

Even though we had a dishwasher for most of our married life we only ever used it when we had visitors for dinner. Otherwise, it was a family affair to do the dishes at night. We usually had a double bowl sink so had a wash and a rinse cycle in the sink. If we did run the dishwasher, we always made sure that it was loaded to capacity. We would never use the “heating” component of the dishwasher but instead did hook up both the hot and cold water hoses to the hot water system and mains for cold. Using the heating component of the dishwasher would be an expensive element of running the dishwasher and if the dishes are wiped prior to placing in dishwasher, water from your hot water system should suffice to ensure that the dishes are nice and clean. Also, we always use the cool drying cycle rather than hot. Ok, you may be left with a bit of water sometimes to wipe off, but you have saved money and energy in the meantime.

This list is just a very small number of the things you can do to start living greener. Please check out my website ecogreenfacts.com for more facts, hints and tips to help you on the way to becoming green, green and greener today. Please let me know what you think about this article. Do you have any suggestions for future articles? If you wish to write an article to be included in my blog I would very much appreciate it and acknowledge your contribution.

I would love to hear your comments.