Green Your Home, One Room at a Time
by Jennifer Lefebvre
I recently read a great quick-reference guide called the green book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen. It is filled with hundreds of little ideas that we all can do to make significant, positive impacts on our planet’s health. For this article, I’d like to highlight one of the sections I thought was interesting and informative: How to green your home, one room at a time.
The Kitchen
Composting. Place fruits and vegetable scraps, as well as coffee grounds in a container or composter and add them to your garden. These items are food for your plants, they help to recycle valuable nutrients, and save space in the landfills. You can also save water by not running your garbage disposal, just by composting the items you would normally send down the drain. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that yard trimmings and food scraps constitute 26 percent of the United States municipal solid waste in the landfills. For additional information on composting please see the recent American Public University System (APUS) Sustainability blog article by Allison Knox on Composting in the Workplace and at Home.
Dishwasher. Make sure that your dishwasher is completely full before you run it. Also, do not pre-rinse your dishes before you load them into the dishwasher. If you hand wash, turn off the faucet between scrubbing and rinsing. This could save up to 20 gallons of water per dish load or 7,300 gallons in one year!
Refrigerator. According to the authors, your fridge is the biggest energy-consuming kitchen appliance, and opening and closing the door continuously accounts for up to $60 per year in energy used. So, the next time you are looking for a snack from the refrigerator, do it quickly!
The Living Room
Fireplace. Leaving the damper on your fireplace open allows up to 8 percent of your home’s heat to escape. Keep the damper closed unless you are using the fireplace.
Matches and Lighters. When choosing, choose matches. 1.5 billion disposable lighters end up in landfills each year. These lighters are made of plastic and contain butane fuel which are both made from petroleum. Book matches are even better than box matches since box matches are made from trees and book matches are made from recycled paper.
Mail. Rogers and Kostigen explain that the average U.S. home receives enough junk mail per year to constitute 1.5 trees, and many of us typically throw it into the garbage. To lower the amount of junk mail you receive, they suggest you register with the Mail Preference Service by visiting www.dmachoice.org. For more information how junk mail affects the planet visit www.donotmail.org. If you do receive junk mail, please recycle it.
The Backyard
Hoses. Attach a nozzle to your hose to prevent unnecessary water usage. The authors note that you can save over 6 gallons per minute and if 10 percent of us do this, we could save enough water to fill 128,000 bathtubs per year.
Pool. Covering your pool when it’s not in use saves 90 percent of water evaporation, which means less time refilling it. Average sized pools lose almost one thousand gallons of water a month during the summer months. This is “enough water to meet the drinking water needs of a family of four” for over a year.
These are just a few of the ideas this great resource provides. The green book is filled with many easy and accessible ways to make small changes to your daily activities which make a big impact on the environment.
Tags: American Public University System, APUS Academic Center, composting, Elizabeth Rogers, EPA, sustainability, the green book, Thomas M. Kostigen
