7 Ways to Be More Eco-Friendly at Home 2011

As the shift to a greater ecological consciousness continues out of the necessity of long term survival, you might be wondering just what it is that you can do to help out the effort. Here are a few things to get you started on reforming your life in tune with the balanced harmony of our planet.

Garden

The first thing that you can do is plant a garden. By growing your own food, you cut down on the energy required for transportation. This eliminates the need for petrochemicals to be created in order to be sprayed as fertilizers. Best of all, you get to eat fresh, organic food and gain the satisfaction of knowing that you have the ability to feed yourself.

Washing Machine

The second thing that you can do is upgrade your washing machines. Consider buying an energy efficient washing machine if your old one uses up too much water or too much energy during the washing process. Top manufactures such as Beko washing machines make some fantastic energy saving machines now so it’s a great time to get a new far more eco-friendly washing machine.

Use cold water or a cool wash with your washing machine. Heating water during a wash cycle uses up a lot of electricity. Since electricity is overwhelmingly created by burning fossil fuels, this also cuts down on the carbon emissions being released. With modern eco laundry soaps hot wash cycles are a thing of the past.

Get Bargains

To get great bargains and help the earth a good thing that you can do is stop buying new when you can get “new to you”. Check out Craigslist, Freecyle, or your local thrift store to find quality used goods for a fraction of the price of new things. This prevents resources from being used to create new items and extends the life of ones that already exist.

Bulbs

An illuminating idea to be greener is to swap out your old incandescent light bulbs for CFLs. This decreases the energy which is used to power the lights that brighten your life. Although it is a small step, many small steps are necessary in a journey of a thousand miles.

Power Down

An important step to become slightly more ecologically friendly is to turn off your computer whenever you aren’t using it. This saves electricity and it saves you money. This is yet another example where helping the planet can also help you.

Thermostat

You need to make sure you lower your thermostat in winter and increase it in summer. A difference of a few degrees can vastly lower your electricity costs. Plus, it means less coal and natural gas needs to be burned in order to provide you with unnecessary levels of comfort. This also lowers the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants floating around in the atmosphere, contributing to the severity and speed at which our shared climate is changing drastically.

Home Office

When you work from home, not only do you eliminate the commute to and from work, but there is an immense amount you can do to make sure you are working green. Use recycled copy paper, for web work use a green web hosting company that uses eco-friendly ways to power the servers, don’t print unless you have to and print double sided if you can. Check out these eco office articles for more ideas such as this one on cutting out plastic in the office.

There are many other things that you can do to cut down on your environmental impact. To get more ecologically preferable ideas look around on blogs like treehugger.com, and thedailygreen.com to help you on your path towards a more sustainable life for yourself, our planetary habitat, and future generations.