Eco-Friendly Home Projects
So, lets get to it!
First lets look at ways to minimize wasted energy. Our homes use a lot of energy to maintain our comfort (up to 45% of the electricity bill, according to the Department of Energy). We all want to be cozy warm in the winters, and refreshingly cool in the summers. What happens when we let this comfortable air escape our home? We waste energy! We can minimize this by placing proper weather-stripping around our doors and windows, caulking and sealing off as many places for air leaks as we can find. This keeps the nice air inside, and the natural weather outside. You can also save by setting the thermostat a degree or two warmer in the summer, or cooler in the winter. You can also use a programmable thermostat to relax the temperature controls when you aren’t even home notice the difference (but don’t forget your pets!) Over time, you’ll find that you won’t notice much difference, except when the power bill arrives. The same applies to washing clothes. Cold water can save a LOT of money in the washing machine. What about saving electricity with our lights? Changing to compact-fluorescent bulbs (CFL’s) can save a lot of electricity, but that comes with a compromise. The quality of the light is often “different”; the colors may have a different hue, or the lights aren’t as bright when they’re first turned on. Then there is the issue of mercury. These lights require a certain amount of mercury (a very dangerous element) to operate. The bulbs last a long time, but in the event of breakage, you must be very careful of children and pets coming into contact with the broken pieces. Changing your whole house to CFL’s can save a whole lot of electricity, so do the research and weigh the pros and cons for yourself. An alternative are LED (light emitting diode) products. They’re currently pretty expensive, but can outlast even the best CFL’s, and don’t involve dangerous by-products such as mercury and phosphorus. Also, don’t forget to unplug TV’s and cellphone chargers, almost any thing that is plugged into the wall uses electricity, even when you’re not actually using them. You can save a good bit of money just unplugging them between uses. A little inconvenience can go a long way. Plus, things that aren’t plugged in don’t generate those little bits of heat that add up to higher bills for air conditioning.
Then there’s trash. Many things are bio-degradable, and can be added to a compost system. Letting nature do the work, turning bio-degradable trash and food scraps into beneficial material that can be used for flowers and vegetable gardens. Other things can be reused, such as worn-out clothes for rags or bags or other crafty items. You can use bottles to hold flowers, jugs to catch rainwater for plants, the ideas are limitless. Many stores are providing free or low-cost reusable shopping bags, which keep you from gathering up so many of the “disposable” bags. Plus, you can stuff more groceries into these bags because they’re significantly stronger. And if all else fails, there are recycling programs in almost every community, allowing you to send off your recyclable trash to be turned into new products instead of going to a landfill. Everything from empty soda bottles to car tires can be made into some other useful product.
We can certainly eliminate some harmful chemicals from our homes. These include the “green cleaning” products that are on the market, but do be mindful that many aren’t much different from the regular products, except for a higher price. Better still than store bought products, are those made from simple nature-friendly products. Cleaners made from simple baking soda, vinegar, ammonia, natural soaps, and other such items, can save the world and our pocketbooks. There are lots of free recipes online for cleaning products that don’t require harsh chemicals. Just search places like Instructables.com or eartheasy.com for more recipes.
Now for the positive things we can do.
Grow plants, everywhere! This just depends on how extreme you want to go. Anything from a few plants, to a vegetable garden, to a house covered in English Ivy Insulation, can all make their differences. Our computer desk, kitchen counter, dinner table, living room, night stand, anywhere you can imagine may be a good home for a plant. Just be sure to match the plant to the location, make sure it gets enough light, and water it enough (not too much!) A few plants will at the very least make you feel better. Surrounding yourself with living things which need a little loving care is a great mental boost, after all, your mind is part of your environment too. Plants give off oxygen, clean the air, and help to regulate the humidity around them. All things which are good for us and the environment.
If that’s not enough for you, grow vegetables or fruit. These sound like difficult matters but even the smallest apartment has room for a window box or small table-top garden. Check with a local nursery for plants which can be grown on a small scale. You can even grow on the sidewalk, if it’s allowed. A raised bed garden can be built very inexpensively. There’s a lot of reward in knowing you have tended a garden which gave you food in return for the effort. Talk about a good trade. If you have room, you can plant a big garden, and maybe even make a little money by selling the extra that you produce at a local farmers market, or donate it to a church or shelter, help improve some other people’s environment with fresh foods too. Plus, gardens are the perfect places to use that compost we talked about earlier.
If you want to really go over the top, and your living situation allows for it, set up trellises and such. Then plant climbing plants like English Ivy or Grape Vines, and let them cover the whole house. This almost seems insane, but the leaves provide shade to the surface of the house, keeping the cooling bills lower. You do have to keep a watch that you don’t invite bugs with this. Do some research here, some plants force roots into brick and other surfaces and can damage the wall, while others don’t, so choose the plant that’s right for you. (check out home.doe.gov for more information), Be prepared with a natural solution in the case that bugs do become a problem.
There are many more projects to make your home more friendly to yourself and the world around you. From the simple things I’ve listed here, there are more involved ways of bringing your world into harmony with the world we live in. Give it some thought, look around at your daily life and habits, see what things you can do to benefit the environment and have it benefit you as well.
Check out these websites for more ideas:
http://home.doe.gov/
http://www.instructables.com
http://www.eartheasy.com
There are thousands more sites, be creative, look around, explore, and find what fits your life.
