EcoAid and Sustainability

For the Home

Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room. It also helps to unplug appliances when possible, especially when leaving home for trips/vacations.

Use a microwave to cook meals as it uses only 20% of the power than that of a conventional oven. Not to mention, it's faster.

Replace incandescent light bulbs with Energy Star qualified Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL). If every household in the U.S. replaced one light bulb with a CFL, it would prevent enough pollution to equal removing one million cars from the road.

To cut back on air conditioning use, it may help to plant trees to shade your home during warm summer months. Doing so can even cut back on heating your home especially if you plant trees and shrubbery on the north and northeast sides of your home to help against wind chill.

Insulate your home, water heater and pipes.

If you have an older toilet that does not have a water saving feature, fill an empty soda bottle and place it in the tank away from the operating mechanisms. This will help reduce the amount of space it takes to refill the tank.

Use the Energy Star program to find energy efficient products for your home. The right choices can save families about 30% ($400 a year) while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Have leaky pipes, faucets, air conditioning and refrigeration systems repaired as drops of water can add up to hundreds of gallons before you know it.

Purchase “Green Power” for your home’s electricity by simply contacting your power provider to see where and if it is available.

Forgo the clothes dryer and dry your laundry outside on a clothesline, as dryers are one of the biggest single users of electricity and energy in the home.

For the Car

Use public transport as often as possible. Or if your destination is relatively close try biking or walking it. In addition to helping reduce carbon emissions it is also a great means of exercise.

Make sure your tires are properly inflated. If improperly inflated, your car will use excess gas.

Remove any extra weight from your car to cut down on fuel costs and consumption as well as carbon emissions.

Cut out unnecessary trips. Before leaving the home make a list of your day’s errands and get them done in one trip.

For your Life

Choose to purchase items in the grocery store that use less packaging or recycled packaging. You can also buy a larger sized item in one trip instead of a smaller sized item, which means more trips to the store and more packaging waste.

When buying foods, look for the “USDA Certifies Organic” label. Not only will you be buying a more sustainable product, but you can also rest easy knowing that the organic ingredients inside are made from renewable resources and the conservation of soil add water to enhance the environment.

Try vegetarianism. Since more people are giving up meat, there is more accessibility to tasty and healthy meat free options. Not to mention, eating meat costs a lot of energy. In fact a 6oz. steak requires 24 times as much fossil fuel based energy to produce it as that of vegetables and rice.

When purchasing your next computer, consider a laptop. They use much less energy than desktop computers and they offer added convenience.

When not in use, unplug battery chargers.

Try purchasing a 100% new renewable energy product. In just one year, this could help an average household using an average of 938 kWh per month to avoid contributing over 15, 600 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Out of the 25 billion single-serving plastic water bottles Americans use each year, over 80% end up in landfills. To prevent this always recycle your plastics or choose reusable plastics made of refill safe material.

Rather than buying music CDs, download albums form online sources. The jewel cases that CDs come in are made from polyvinyl chloride, which is a dangerous material that cannot easily be recycled. Downloading also cuts down on production costs and energy used to create the discs.

When refueling your car, avoid the hottest part of the days as the heat can cause the gas to evaporate which leaves less in your tank.

Now that you can get important numbers online or through free phone sources, cut back on your phone book and yellow pages use. To stop the delivery of these bulky and space consuming books, contact the manufacturer and ask to be taking of the mailing list.