In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’ve been bitten by the “green” bug and am always looking for ways that I can conserve energy and water, reduce my environmental footprint, and save money too. Moving from an apartment to a house has opened up a ton of new possibilities for ways that I can “go green” at home. But I’m finding that although I have a monstrous wish list of things I want to do, finding the time, money (yes, some of these changes can be expensive), and energy doesn’t happen overnight.
Still, I think I’ve made progress. In the few months I’ve lived in L-town, here’s a sampling of what I’ve done:
Painting with low-VOC products. I will say this: standard paints offgas volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are bad for the environment and bad for your health (paint is one of the leading causes of indoor air pollution, people!). But low- or no-VOC paints release few (if any) of those nasty pollutants and are almost odorless. I won’t go into the details of my personal experience here though, because you can learn all about how I (along with Conservative Mom) painted with low-VOC paint by checking out my post about it on The Home Know-It-All.
Replacing burned out bulbs with CFLs. Let’s see. I have compact fluorescent lightbulbs in all my new lamps, in the garage, and the overhead light in my office. It’s a start. I refuse to replace bulbs that are still working (wasteful!), but as soon as more burn out, you can bet that CFLs are going in their place. Why? Because they use approximately 75 percent less energy and last up to 10 times longer than standard incandescent bulbs. Even Conservative Boy sees their value (as I mentioned here).
Unplugging, unplugging, unplugging. Why? To ward off phantom loads, people. All those chargers and appliances you have plugged in are sucking energy—even when they’re not in use. Don’t believe me? According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 75 percent of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed when they’re off. Really. But all you have to do to stop those nasty energy suckers is unplug them! Learn more (again, from me!), in this post.
Running only full loads. This applies to both the dishwasher and the clothes washer. I don’t run either machine until I have a full load. And when it comes to the dishwasher, I always air dry (it can cut dishwasher energy consumption by as much as 50 percent). With the clothes washer, I wash everything on cold. And air dry whatever I can get to fit on my drying rack and the ironing board.
Full disclosure: Although I will admit that I’ve read about and even recommended just scraping, not rinsing, dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, I don't follow this recommendation. Rinse first and you can waste upwards of 20 gallons of water unnecessarily. But I’ve discovered that with our old dishwasher it doesn’t work. If I don’t thoroughly rinse first, I either have to re-wash a bunch of dishes by hand or send them through another load. Hah. That saves a lot of water. Looks like a new Energy Star dishwasher is moving up on the appliance wish list.
Recycling. Of course. Even though I’ve discovered that not many people here know this, you can get recycling bins in L-town, and they do curbside pickup every other week. Needless to say, our bin is always loaded full with newspaper, magazines, cardboard, plastic, and cans. And I have quite a collection of glass bottles and jars that I need to haul to the recycling center in town since we can't put those out with the rest of the recyclables.
Reusing. I reuse the back of printed paper like it’s my job. And I rinse off plastic baggies, aluminum foil, you name it to use again—until Conservative Boy catches me, gets annoyed, and throws my reused packaging away. I also used old dish towels and washcloths past their prime for cleaning rags. I’m still working on more ways to reuse more items around the house before discarding them, so if you have other ideas let me know. Oh, and you already knew this, but I’m a big proponent of reusable shopping bags.
Buying organic. There’s actually a decent organic selection at the Kroger in town (surprised? I was), so I’ve been buying a lot more organic products (milk, eggs, produce, coffee, whatever I can get) now. Conservative Boy’s friends made fun of my organic ketchup, but whatever.
Cleaning green. I use green cleaning supplies for almost all of my cleaning (except the floors; our laminate and tile floors are still babies so I’m carefully using the cleaner that came with them until it’s gone). Once this batch of green cleaners runs out, I’m going to try making my own. (Wanna learn more about why you should clean green? Just check out another one of my The Home Know-It-All posts!) Oh, and my personal cleaning is green too—I use natural hand soap, body wash, shampoo, and conditioner now.
That seems like a pretty hefty list, but honestly, it barely scratches the surface of what I could do. I have a long way to go. Conservative Boy set me back a bit by turning up the water heater, much to my chagrin. But for now I’ll just have to make up for that extra energy use in other ways (you can only do so much with a man who refuses to take anything but scalding hot showers).
You think I’m done rambling? Ha. Think again. I could go on about this stuff for hours. (Which is probably why, whenever I spout off another random fact related to energy or water savings, Conservative Boy makes a comment like: “What’s that for? Chapter 22?”) So expect more soon.
Oh wait, I almost forgot to ask. What are YOU doing?
3.27.2008
Going Green Around the House
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6 comments:
i'm doing the same as you! but i'm bad about unplugging things. i don't like re-setting my coffee maker timer all the time. but i do use power strips that make the on/off easier.
i also ditched the car. it wasn't a necessarily green choice at the time, but its become one. i could buy a car here, but i won't b/c i'm doing just fine with public trans.
oh, and i'm DONE with bottled water. and have been for quite some time. bottled water really irks me.
and i set my thermostat really low, if not off, most of the time. i luckily don't need much heat here in oregon.
that might be all other than what you've done, too. small steps, right?
Good ones! I have a crappy coffee maker without a timer so I don't have to worry there. Although I'm thinking of switching to a coffee press so I never have to plug in.
I WISH I could ditch the car. I'm so glad it's working out for you. I'm hoping to start walking and biking around town soon (and I hardly drive anywhere anyway), but there's zero public transportation here so I'm limited on that front.
I forgot about mentioning bottled water—good one. I done with that too, unless I'm captive at places like sporting events where they don't let me bring my own bottle in. Gotta love the SIGG bottles though! (I meant to comment on your blog—I might steal that idea for Christmas gifts next year!)
We keep our thermostat down too, although this winter I wasn't able to keep it quite as low as I normally would because I've discovered my office, where I'm sitting all day with bad circulation in my hands and feet, is the coldest room in our house. I hate it when personal comfort gets in the way of going green, but I guess that's always the biggest obstacle, isn't it?
I have a degree in environmental science, does that count?
Oh, and I keep my thermostat all the way down, but that's really because my building has steam heat that's always set far too hot, and if I don't have it all the way down it gets up close to 80 degrees in here.
I walk to school, but that's because it's two blocks away.
I take the bus to work, but that's really because for what I would pay for three days of parking I can get a bus pass through the U for the whole semester.
Also, I do extremely full loads of laundry, but that's because I'm 1) lazy, and 2) cheap.
Come to think of it, I airdry a lot of my clothes, especially in the summer, but that's mostly because of 1) the cheapness, and 2) so things don't shrink or get messed up.
I almost never turn my tv on, but that's because I don't have cable and the reception here is terrible.
I don't paint things at all. Take that!
I don't unplug anything though, since by my calculations the carbohydrates I would burn in doing so all the time would result in my exhaling more carbon dioxide than the coal burned for electricity being saved would save.
I advocate cutting down carbon positive old growth forests and buring those dirty trees deep below ground. Then we can replace them with carbon negative new growth and at the same time collect methane from the old trees decomposing anaerobically. I think all office paper should meet the same fate.
I think a degree in environmental science should count for something.
And you know what? Even if all those moves like taking the bus and turning down the thermostat are a result of how cheap or convenient they are rather than what affect they'll have on the environment, that's fine by me. I think too many people discredit the smart moves that can be made in daily life to conserve energy and water because they think it's just stemming from stupid hippies ranting about the environment when, as you've made clear, a lot of them just make sense because they're cheap and even easy.
I don't know if I buy your argument about not unplugging electronics though, but I'll let that one slide.
Ummm, for the record, the last two were supposed to be more funny than serious.
Umm ... I figured the last one was. But you never know about the one about the electronics. Conservative Boy doesn't think unplugging is worth the effort ...
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