So tomorrow, April 22nd, is Earth Day and I have been seeing a lot of news segments and mini documentaries on what everyone can do to help conserve energy and resources which would benefit the environment overall. There were some quotes that I heard which were kind of eye-raising such as in some fully developed countries water will eventually be more valuable than oil if things keep going the way it is. Kind of inspires me to want to do something on a large scale once I am in a more prominent position to do so in order to help people. Anyways, while looking at some of the energy saving tips, to me they sound like it would also in turn help people to save money as well. So, I thought it would be appropriate to make up a post with some energy saving tips off the top of my head for the occasion:
1) Don’t Leave Water Running While Brushing Your Teeth
I always personally found this one to be a little strange as even as a child I would never let the water continually run while brushing my teeth. But I guess a lot of people do this for it to be on a lot of energy saving tip lists. What I was taught to do was that at first you would simply fill up a small cup of water. You first use a mouth full to moisten up your mouth before brushing. After you are done, you then use the rest to rinse out your mouth. It just seems so wasteful trying to imagine myself letting the water continually run in the midst of brushing. This should help with the water heating bill.
2) Use Cold Water To Wash Your Clothes
If you use a washing machine with warm water, apparently 90% of the energy usage comes from heating up the water. Just think about that from a billing point of view as well. That is almost like saying if your power bill from the washing machine was $150 that means by using cold water you can drop the bill to about $15. Quite a huge difference when you think about it.
3) Turn off Your Car Engine If You Are Idle In A Parked Area For A Long Time
We see this all the time such as someone picking up another person and instead of turning off the car they simply keep the engine running as they don’t want to have to turn it back on. If you have to stay there for more than say 30 seconds, it can make more sense just to turn it off and back on later as it should take less gas in comparison to do so.
4) Get Into The Habit of Not Using A Vehicle When You Can
I suppose this is the most obvious one that everyone hears all the time. I personally enjoy it when I don’t have to use a vehicle, though I know a lot of people who cringe over the idea of having to walk say 10-15 blocks to get to a store. I had a funny example before where I convinced one of my friend to walk instead of using the car, since it was less than 15 blocks, and as we walked to the destination and back from it he dubbed my walking as “power walking†even though that was a regular pace I thought. Don’t worry, while he was extremely exhausted he survived. Now whenever I say that he should walk instead he gets paranoid if my definition of walking is “Power Walkingâ€.
5) Turn Off Electronic Equipment When It Is Not In Use
Computers are a great example of this. A lot of people have the habit of simply leaving the monitor and computer on when it is not in use for a long time as they figure it has features like a screensaver anyways. I usually turn the whole computer off if I know that I won’t be using it for another say 30 minutes. Even for the monitor, I have a habit of simply tuning it off even if it is only for say 5 minutes. Using some kind of power bar can be useful too as for some equipment if you turn them off they aren’t truly off as something is still running such as say a glowing red light to indicate that the equipment is off. If they are all attached to a power bar, then flipping that off will ensure that everything truly is off.
6) Try Telecommuting If Possible
This may be a good and viable option for business owners depending on the nature of your business. If you have a lot of employees where their role doesn’t really require them to be onsite, implementing a program to allow certain people to work from home can actually be a good way to save company expenses such as not having to spend as much in building expenses. At the same time, the employee does not have to commute to the office which would provide them with drastic savings as well and ultimately conserving energy resources.
That’s all I can think off the top of my head. Business and financial people are usually creative or very good at maximizing resources to prevent unnecessary waste, so feel free to add anything if you have some good ideas in relation to the energy saving theme for Earth Day.
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