Greening the Home
Written by kris & katie on October 15, 2007. Permalink
If it’s not in your budget for a major remodel, such as solar panels and green roofs, there are smaller things you can do in your home to reduce climate change.
1. Get the compact florescent bulbs. If every American replaced one bulb in the home with a CFL, we would save for than $600 million in annual energy costs and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars. [source] You can get a CFL at any hardware store, and if for some reason you live in an area where they’re not available, you can get them online.
2. Stop buying bottled water. Do you know where bottled water companies get their water? In most cases it’s just tap water that goes through filtering process to remove all the chemicals and impurities. While it does make it taste better, you can achieve the same, great tasting result with an undersink Reverse Osmosis filter. You can get a really great one for around $200. I have been purchasing filters and supplies from this company for over a decade and they are probably the nicest and most informed people in the business.
3. Buy a water saving showerhead. For less than $20 you can replace your showerhead with a more efficient one which will save over 10,000 of water annually. [link to retailer]
4. Switch to more eco-friendly cleaning products. Using typical household cleaners come with a host of problems, such as contamination of water supply, how to dispose of the bottles when you’re done, etc. You can use products that are less harmful, such as 7th generation, or you can make your own products with household staples like vinegar and baking soda.
5. Stop the junk mail. Over 8 million trees are consumed annually in the production catalogs. You can sign up for Catalog Choice, which is a free online service which allows you to log on and request that you stop receiving specific catalogs. For example, if you always get the Sharper Image catalog but look forward to your DWR catalog, all you have to do is log on and provide your identifying code on the label and they’ll contact the Sharper Image for you, with no interruption to your other catalog deliveries.
