§ Do not leave faucets dripping; always close them tightly after use. (One drop wasted per second wastes 10,000 liters of water per year.)
§ Use environmentally friendly cleaning products whenever possible. Here are a few sites that offer recipes for homemade cleaning products:
§ EHow.com Home Made Cleaning Products
§ EarthEasy.com Home Made, Non-Toxic Cleaning Solutions
§ Use low energy light bulbs, which last up to eight times longer than ordinary light bulbs and can also reduce energy costs.
§ Position furniture in your home to make best use of natural light.
§ Rather than use bottled water, purchase a water filter pitcher, such as one offered by Brita, or put a filter system on your tap. The savings will astound you! I haven’t purchased cases of bottled water in over a year! Financially, I am saving about $30/month! Environmentally, gone are my days of contributing hundreds of plastic bottles to trash heaps.
§ Reuse items such as plastic bags, jars and brown grocery bags. I save Ziploc bags that I used to store items such as fruit or bread or crackers, etc. I wash them with soap and hot water, and let them dry. I keep them separate from the new bags, and use them for storing other items such as office supplies, nails and screws and other non food related goods. Same goes for spaghetti sauce or jelly jars – you’d be amazed at what you can do with these items!
§ Switch off lights & machines when not in use. The same can be said for items plugged in. Do you keep your cell phone charger in the wall? How about the toaster? Are these items plugged in 24/7? You would be surprised to learn that they are still using energy even if they are not in use.
§ This is the easiest of all…when you are not in a room, turn off the lights. I realized that when I am home at night, I turn on just about every light in the house! I became really conscious of this over the past year. Now it is a habit - the lights go off when I leave the room.