Last year, due to the participation in Beeton, Alliston, Tottenham and the rest of New Tecumseth in the 2010 Earth Hour, Power Stream, our local electricity provider reported a 7.4% drop in consumption for this one hour period.
Earth Hour might be great for raising awareness, but its overall effectiveness, if just for one hour, is minimal. The key to Saving Our Planet is to make better choices in the way we consume energy and our finite resources.
I challenge everyone to make more environmentally friendly choices in their daily life. Make a game out of it, rather than seeing it as a "chore"!
To get you started, here are some tips that anyone can choose to do:
- reduce your phantom electricity usage!!! Unplug appliances and adapters and chargers when not in use.
- Try to re-use or re-purpose rather than throw out. Embrace rags and reduce your consumption of paper towels.
- reduce your use of the clothes dryer. Hang your laundry. Use an outdoor clothesline where possible, and consider using indoor clotheslines in winter. I find the furnace room to be a very effective place to dry clothes, an added benefit in our region is the much added moisture added to our dry homes.
- Instead of using chemical cleaning products, consider using a water/vinegar mixture for many household cleaning tasks (1 part vinegar to 3 parts water works well).
- Reduce or eliminate your dependency on "disposable" or "single serving" anything. Use re-usable coffee cups and containers.
- Make automobile usage more efficient by combining chores/trips. When you use your car, remove items stored but not needed. Drive more efficiently.
- If you are not using your entire home, consider closing doors and vents to areas unused.
- Increasing insulation and reducing leakage in a home will result in huge energy savings in almost any home.
Here are some links to previous blogs I have posted on the subject of Saving Our Planet:
Houselhold tips
Automobile tips
Better Choices
