Written by Andi Croft, Guest & Freelance Writer
Carbon dioxide emissions are one of the significant sources of pollution. In fact, we are pumping billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere yearly.
As such, making your home more energy and water-efficient is one of the best ways to help the environment.
In this post, we will walk you through eight tips on how you can make your home more sustainable and eco-friendly:
Invest in energy-efficient appliances
Appliances can wrack up your electricity bill. Think of it as having these for two prices: The cost of purchasing the appliance and operating.
Therefore, when you buy more energy appliances, you can significantly cut off the second price.
Opting for energy-efficient appliances helps prevent greenhouse emissions and conserve water. They also help you save money by significantly reducing your energy bills.
Replace your fluorescent lights
Another critical and environment-friendly thing that you need to do is to invest in the right fluorescent lights.
Sure, energy-efficient bulbs are readily available in the market. But people still took a significant amount of time for many to come around with the idea.
Opting for more energy-efficient light bulbs like LED bulbs uses up less electricity and lasts longer. Meaning, you don’t need to be spending a lot of money to replace them.
Use natural cleaning products
The thing with natural cleaning products is that they’re as effective as regular ones.
Maid Sailors always advises opting for natural cleaning products. That’s because they don’t have any harmful chemicals that can hurt your health or the environment.
However, natural cleaning products might sometimes be more costly, and not a lot can afford them. Still, you can make your DIY cleaning products by using baking soda, lemon juice, and vinegar.
Get window treatments
Blinds and curtains not only give you a bit of privacy, but they also keep the light out but help save energy as well.
To ensure that you get the right kind, look for those that significantly reduce heat loss in the winter and deflect sunlight in the summer. Doing so reduces the work that your HVAC system needs to do.
It would help if you also considered double glazing your windows. This will help you reduce moisture build-up, and they can help with conserving energy.
Insulate
As we’ve mentioned, one of the most effective ways you can make your home more eco-friendly is by consuming as little energy as possible. One of the best ways to do this is to invest in insulation.
Excellent insulation helps you hold the heat. Meaning, you don’t need to burn energy by reheating your home all the time.
There are various areas in your house where you can insulate, including the roof and walls. It would be best to consider covering your exposed hardwood floors at home with area rugs.
Not only are area rugs cost-effective, but if you’re looking for a more stylish way to insulate your home, these can be an excellent option. Plus, an area rug can prevent the air from slipping through the cracks of your floors.
Line-dry your laundry
You can skip the dryer during hot summer months, and just line dry your clothes out in the sun.
Your beddings and clothes will also last a lot longer if you hang them dry in a drying rack instead of the dryer.
Don’t have enough space to line-dry clothes? Place them in a drying rack on your balcony instead. Or you can keep the windows open for the sun to come in, drying your clothes a lot quicker.
Make compost
Don’t throw away kitchen scraps and leftover food. You can turn these into compost.
In fact, you’ll be surprised how much food you’re throwing away that can still be recycled and made into compost. All you need to do is put a compost bin in your garden and then place all the food waste there.
Composting has a lot of benefits overall. It helps enrich the soil, retains moisture, prevents plant diseases, and reduces pests. Hence, you do not need to rely on chemical fertilizers too much.
All your scraps and yard wastes can make perfect soil that will allow you to grow your vegetable garden.
Learn to switch off
Sure, we live in a digital and fast-paced age. But it has its perils that often affect the environment.
That’s because every time we’re using our electronic devices, we’re consuming energy, the energy that’s gotten from a non-renewable source.
Being constantly online and in our gadgets can also lead to anxiety and other mental health issues. Therefore, switching off your gadgets every once in a while or going digital detox- can be a good thing. Not just for the environment- but yourself as well.
The eight sustainable living tips listed above can help make your house more eco-friendly. That way, you can do your part in saving the environment while reducing your energy bill.
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