Personal sustainability
Greening your condo complex is an excellent goal. And it can take a long time and a lot of work to implement complex-wide green initiatives. In the meantime, there are ways you can decrease your own carbon footprint — and most of them will also save you money. A few high-impact steps you can take, besides recycling and taking reusable bags to the grocery store:
- Car maintenance: Have your car tuned up regularly, and check the tire pressure once a month or as needed. The latter is amazingly effective and could save 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline a year if all done by all Americans.
- Electronic devices: Unplug electronic devices when they’re not in use — they might still be drawing power. To make this easier, you can plug in multiple devices to a smart power strip, which cuts off the power when your devices are off. See this Treehugger article for specific recommendations.
- Unwanted mail: Did you know that the average adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail a year? Some good sites to help you reduce that amount are dmachoice.org and CatalogChoice.org. For a small fee, 41pounds.org will do a lot of the work for you. You can opt out of receiving the Yellow Pages at http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/. And you can also try returning unwanted mail, unopened, to the sender — on each piece, write “Refused – Return to Sender.” If the mail says “Return postage guaranteed,” you can also write “Remove me from your mailing list immediately.”
- Towels and napkins: These days there are many alternatives to paper towels and napkins, such as reusable, washable microfiber dish towels.
- Bottled water: A lot of energy — and water — goes into producing plastic bottles, and they may have toxic effects on your health. Consider switching to a reusable aluminum bottle.
- Cleaning (see more here):
- Use cold or warm water in the clothes washer, rather than hot water. Your clothes will still get clean, and you’ll save up to 90% of the energy used by the washer.
- Dry your clothes on a line. You’ll save energy and extend the life of your clothing.
- Give up dry cleaning — and you’ll also save money!
- Switch to more natural soaps and detergents. You can find more details on these here.
- Fully load your dishwasher before running it — you might actually use less water than if you washed the dishes by hand. And if you let the dishes air-dry rather than using heat, you’ll save even more energy. Most dishwashers have a setting for this.
- Toilet: Check for leaks in your toilet, which are more common than you might think and can result in a huge waste of water. It’s also a good idea to use recycled toilet paper.
- Water usage: When you live in a condo you probably can’t install rain barrels or a gray water system. But you can conserve water by reusing where possible; see this article for some simple ideas.
- Refrigerator: Lower the temperature in your refrigerator, which uses 10% – 15% of your home’s energy. A temperature of between 38 and 42 degrees F is enough to protect your food from spoiling while saving electricity.
- Solar shades: Many window shades are available that reduce glare and improve energy efficiency by limiting solar heat gain, while also blocking harmful UV rays.
- Lighting: See the Lighting page for energy-saving bulb options.
I’d like to hear your ideas! Enter them as a comment below or at our forum.
For more, see The Carbon Concierge’s list of top 10 things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, The Daily Green, The Zero Waste Home, and Simple Steps.
