5 alternatives to make your home more eco-friendly
To deal with global climate change and its adverse effects, it is more crucial than ever to adopt eco-friendly options instead of regular wasteful ones. Individual’s simple act in their daily life may not be a silver bullet, but these small steps will surely take us to our goal of zero waste as a whole. Here are 5 eco-friendly alternatives that you can opt for in your home.
Replace traditional light bulbs with LED lights
LED lights are far better lighting options than incandescent and other traditional lights as LEDs are more energy-efficient. It implies that they produce less carbon dioxide, a harmful product generated from electricity. For example, a 60-watt incandescent light bulb uses approximately 525 kilowatt-hours of energy annually, whereas a 60-watt LED bulb only uses 65 kilowatt-hours of energy. Another environment-friendly aspect of such lights is that they have high conversion efficiency, near 90% in most cases, which means a negligible heat loss in the environment. Besides, LEDs are free of toxic chemicals such as mercury and good for plants as they do not increase the temperature of a particular area like traditional bulbs. Unlike incandescent bulbs and CFLs, LED lights contribute significantly to reducing light pollution as well as your electricity bills.
Set up smart plugs for less vampire energy
Electronic devices such as TVs, laptops, microwaves, phone chargers, printers, and desktop computers use electricity even when they are on standby. It is very little in terms of the annual electricity use for each device. But when this minimal amount gets multiplied by several other products of households, it is no longer negligible at all. This standby or vampire energy is responsible for 1% of global CO2 emissions. To control such energy, smart plugs can come in handy. A smart plug is kind of a power-point adapter between the power socket and the appliances that are plugged in. It lets you control your appliances through any app suitable for this smart plug. You can switch off the connection of the appliances when you are going to sleep or about to leave the house. You can even schedule them to turn off automatically according to your convenience.
Use water filters than boiling water
Pure water is a must for our survival. And to have clean water, you can choose to boil it on your gas stove or use a water filter in general. Boiling water on a gas stove requires a lot of natural gas, which is a non-renewable source of energy. This boiling process produces particulate pollutants in the environment and it is not a significantly efficient way to remove contaminants. On the other hand, water filters are way more reliable at purifying water. A high-quality water filter can do much more to ensure safe water than the boiling process does. As we have a habit of overfilling the kettle of water or overboiling, it wastes both energy and water in traditional boiling on a gas stove. Filtering is also faster compared to such a process. Consider Reverse Osmosis (RO) and UV water purifiers as alternatives against boiling.
Eco-friendly paints for a non-toxic home
Most regular paints have a high level of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that cause adverse effects on the environment as well as on human health. VOCs are responsible for causing unpleasant health conditions such as difficulty in breathing, skin irritation and allergy, nose and throat discomfort, etc. Moreover, these VOCs of traditional paints affect the air quality of your home by continuing to off-gas for many years. The waste of such paints is also detrimental to the environment that leaves a significant carbon footprint. Eco-friendly paints can be a considerable solution in such conditions, which are made of non-toxic and natural materials, and have low levels of VOCs and other harmful chemicals. These paints are a good alternative to clean up the indoor air quality of your home, keeping it free from toxic fumes.
Kitchen compost bins to recycle organic waste
Kitchen waste is a goldmine of various multivitamins which can support plant growth or improve soil productivity. Kitchen scraps such as potato peelings, used tea bags, banana peels or eggshells are full of nutrients needed to decompose properly to produce a useful organic material. Kitchen compost bin is a convenient indoor solution for that. Collect and compost your food waste in the compost bucket as per its capacity and recycle organic waste into nutrient-rich food for plants. Just make sure that you do not add fat or non-organic wastes in such an indoor compost bin. And the bin that you have selected has a proper lid to resist bad odour and air pollution.