You may immediately decrease plastic waste and ensure the freshness and organic nature of your food by growing it at home. One often overlooked aspect of being more environmentally friendly at home is managing clothing waste. Use seasonal closet cleanouts to examine and remove items you no longer wear or need. Rather than throwing them away, donate them to a charity store or sell them to extend their life. Moreover, ensure that your outdated products, including mattresses, are recycled or repurposed rather than dumped in landfills. Attempting to rehome or sell items not only helps to reduce trash but also encourages sustainability.
Good insulation helps hold in the heat, meaning you don’t need to burn energy reheating the home all of the time. There are plenty of places that can and should be insulated including within the walls and in the roof. It can also be smart to consider double glazing any windows that don’t already have it. Also, consider covering any exposed hardwood floors in southwest area rugs. Area rugs are a cost-effective and stylish way to help insulate your home and prevent air from slipping out through the cracks in your floors.
Simple home changes to support your sustainability goals
Adopting smart meter technology in the energy sector can provide real-time feedback on consumption patterns, allowing for more informed energy use. One of the innovative approaches to how to be more environmentally friendly at home is harvesting rainwater for gardening purposes. It’s an excellent method to make use of a natural resource while reducing reliance on treated water.
- Using no mechanical or electric equipment, passive solar design relies on building materials that reflect, absorb or transmit the sun’s radiation.
- Some people, particularly those building from scratch, choose to fit triple glazing – and this is likely to be essential if you are aiming for Passivhaus standards.
- U Switch recommends replacing your fridge and/or freezer if it is over 10 years old.
- Adding a water filter is a quick and easy way to drink water without buying plastic bottles.
A lot of the plastic we use around the home and office is for single use. A lot of plastic utensils, paper napkins, and plastic water bottles end up in the trash. Where you can, replace everything you use once with reusable items. Use the cold setting on your washing machine and you’ll save around $115 every year. Turning off appliances and electronics not in use is another everyday habit that will save you a lot of energy. You can also use power strips that efficiently distribute energy to your appliances when in use wasting less energy.
Turn off the Lights
In today’s climate, much more emphasis is being put on energy efficiency — meaning modern upgrades like fresh windows and solar panels not only save you money but also save all that lost energy. Because of this, most of my 10 options include updating your existing features to be more modern and energy efficient. When drafting your sustainable house design blueprint, taking energy efficiency into account can make a huge difference to the building’s impact on the environment.
- But instead of sending items to a landfill, drop them off at a thrift store, such as Goodwill or Housing Works.
- So, are you thinking about switching to a more eco-friendly home?
- You can build an eco-friendly home or retrofit an existing one to make it more environmentally friendly.
- The traditional incandescent light bulbs use more energy and generate more carob dioxide emissions, making them very inefficient.
- Get rid of your plastic wrap and replace it with the eco-friendly beeswax alternative.
They are designed to be environmentally friendly, and they use as many renewable resources as possible. The goal of eco-friendly homes is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide they produce, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. An “Eco-friendly” home uses energy-efficient appliances and technologies, such as LED lights and energy-efficient heating and cooling systems. Choosing paperless billing reduces paper waste, provides ease, and may result in provider savings. If you must use paper, make sure it’s recycled to save energy.
Construction tips for building a sustainable house
They came from somebody finally doing a spring cleaning, and then taking the stuff to be repurchased. Turn some of that CO2 into O2 just by potting a Ficus or Dracaena (and actually caring for it. Honestly, your bras and undies and crop tops will last longer if you let them air-dry anyway. Helps https://ecosoberhouse.com/ to have a good-looking drying rack, but a plain old clothesline works, too. Get a long, skinny brush like this one and use it to gently scrub loose any lint and scuzz from the coils under your fridge. We’re not saying no paper towels—that move takes serious commitment—we’re saying fewer.
- If your electrical appliance really is beyond repair, Rhoads suggests you “call the manufacturer or company of purchase to see if they will take back items or packaging for reuse or recycling”.
- If you live in a small space, a tankless electric water heater is perfect — they’re a third of the size of a gas heater.
To truly live an eco-friendly lifestyle, practice buying just want you NEED. For more ways on minimising your water usage read out article on how to save water. The more time you spend in the shower the more water you use. It may just be a drop but it will add up to gallons of water lost. Fix all leaks around your home or get a plumber to do and save water.
Traditional turfgrass lawns need lots of water, but xeriscapes can be a great sustainable alternative. “Xeriscaping is increasing in popularity and involves using native plants, turf, gravel or other materials to reduce or eliminate the usage of grass,” Raboine says. Joe Raboine, vice president of design at Belgard, says rainwater harvesting reduces metered water use.
If you do happen to own a cat, make sure it stays inside for every other animal’s sake. If the stuff you make at home is actually delicious, you won’t be as tempted to pick it up at the coffee shop (paper How to make your home more environmentally friendly cup and plastic lid included) instead. No, you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on one—a basic French press will do the trick. All those great treasures in your secondhand shop down the street?