You do not have to move to a cabin in the mountains and live off the land if you are thinking about helping the environment. Have you noticed how environmental issues have become hot news, quite literally, these days? Quite simply, we can’t continue to be conspicuous with our consumption habits and we have to understand what it means to be sustainable as we move forward. This will require us to think about every single action that we take during our daily lives. Find ways to save electricity at home and really learn about the benefits of renewable energy, to see whether we can apply at least some of these ideas to our lives.
What can you do to help save the environment? Here’s a small list of steps that you can take at home, right now, which would make a difference. If every single one of us did only the things on this list, the resulting changes could be remarkable.
1. Look at all the bulbs you have in your house. Compact fluorescent bulbs are much better than incandescent bulbs which simply burn energy. Swap out all the lights in your house. You’d be surprised just how many bulbs you have. While you might be a little shocked when you buy these bulbs to start off with, government energy statisticians tell us that you could save the difference in cost within your lower electricity bills, during the space of a year.
2. Be a better steward. Send whatever is acceptable to the recycling plant. Bury biodegradable waste and food leftovers in the ground rather than clogging up the local landfills. People who know about these things tell us that up to 20% of the rubbish that we throw away is biodegradable and we could recycle it ourselves without stressing the system. Think of the energy used to collect this excess waste and save them the trouble of doing so.
3. Rethink your transportation. Are you able to share transportation with somebody else on your way to work? Why not pool resources and cut down your bill, and the bill of a co-worker at the same time. It seems nonsensical when you look at all those cars jammed on the motorway in the morning, the vast majority of them with just a single occupant. This is craziness and while we wait for our politicians to come up with public transportation systems that really do work, we can all use our common sense.
4. Plant trees in your back garden. Trees are great for our environmental problems and the thorny subject of climate change. They attract carbon dioxide emissions that are otherwise spewed into the air by power consumption. Plant them to protect your home from the direct sunlight and even cut down on your cooling bills in the summer. If you have a noisy highway nearby, a couple of well positioned trees will help to cut down on your noise pollution, as well.
With a little bit of creativity, we can make a difference in virtually everything that we do!
