Doing the Best You Can With Green Living

Doing the Best You Can With Green Living

Some people taking “being green” to the extreme. They live “off the grid” and “off the land” and are very proud of how tiny their carbon footprints are. This is great if you can do that but for most of us it isn’t that easy. We need things like electricity, running water and fuel to do the things we do each day. There’s no shame in that.

The trick to using these “anti-green” technologies and utilities isn’t finding ways to live completely without them. It is to find ways to use them less or integrate more technology and utilities that are green to help balance things out. Here are some suggestions to help you with that.

Find ways to save on your electricity bills every month so that you can save up to make bigger and “greener” improvements to your home. Use www.Electric.com to find the best electricity rates in your area and go with the company that offers them.

Start implementing solar power in affordable ways. For example, you can use a solar-powered charger to keep your cell phones, tablets, eReaders and even laptops charged up. This keeps you from having to plug them in to a regular A/C outlet. It reduces the power you use which also reduces the amount of money that you spend on your electric bills each month.

If you are able, switch over to natural gas for as much of your home’s power as possible. It’s greener and costs less.

Implement all of those energy saving techniques you’ve heard about: use LED lights, unplug appliances and machines that you aren’t using, install home automation so that you don’t have to worry about things like whether or not you left the heater on when you leave for work, etc.

Low flow toilets and faucets and shower heads will reduce the amount of water you use each day exponentially. This doesn’t just help you save money on your water bill. It helps protect the water supply—which is especially useful if you live somewhere that is prone to droughts.

If you want to save even more water, you should learn about gray water—the water that is leftover when you shower, do dishes, etc. While you don’t want to use this water for cooking, it can be implemented in other ways, which will reduce your water consumption even further.

To this end, setting up a rainwater collection tank is incredibly easy and will provide you with even more water savings.

You already know about recycling. It’s time to start composting. Compost piles are easy to start, even in small places and can save hundreds of pounds of trash (just from your home) from being dumped into a landfill.

Walk as much as possible. Ride a bicycle when walking isn’t feasible. If a distance is too far (or you need to carry something to bulky or heavy) for a bicycle, take public transportation. If public transit isn’t an option, look into rideshares and carpooling programs. All of these things will help you reduce your carbon footprint and your consumption of gas and oil. Take the money that you would have spent on gas and put it into a savings account. When that account gets big enough, use it to buy a hybrid or electric car, so that you can go back to driving but don’t have to feel as guilty about it.

It’s normal to feel guilty about all of the things you do each day that aren’t green. The truth is that very few of us can lead an absolutely green life. These tips, though, will help you find a better balance between being green and being able to go about your daily life with relatively few interruptions.

Guest post by Becky W. photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc