Despite the recent trendiness (or admittedly, maybe because of the recent trendiness), I’ve been putting more of a focus on living green. I’m an outdoorsy, environmentally-aware gal and I feel I should do my part. But where do I start? There’s so much conflicting information and it’s all a little overwhelming. I’ve decided to help focus my efforts and get better at it each week, I’m going to blog every Tuesday about one more thing I’m doing to live green.
This week, I did two things:
1) I switched all my light bulbs to CFLs. Over the past year, I’ve been replacing bulbs as they burnt out, but after reading this article, I decided to stop waiting and do a whole-house inventory. For those of you who hate to link off (do it anyway, Pablo writes good stuff), here’s a quick summary:
- CFLs are almost 3x as efficient as incandescent bulbs, making it more than worth the money and sunk (environmental) cost of having to produce and transport that old bulb.
- CFLs produce less heat and thus are less of a fire hazard.
- While CFLs contain some mercury, they may cut down on mercury emissions - read the article for more details.
- Old drawbacks of CFLS, such as slow light up times and dim lighting, have been improved upon recently and are hardly different from incandescents.
- And if all of that isn’t enough, you’ll save money.
2) I started unplugging appliances when not in use. Most appliances, even while off, still drain electricity while plugged in. Unplug those suckers. I unplugged the following:
- coffee maker
- toaster oven
- blender
- paper shredder
- roomba (I plug it in to charge on the day I plan to use it)
- rarely used old PC
- VCR (why do I still own this?)
- xbox 360
As soon as I figure out how to make it easy to plug back in, I also plan to unplug my tv, stereo receiver and dvd player. But right now they are stuffed behind an entertainment center. If anyone has any good suggestions I’d love to hear them in the comments.
Tags: cfl, electricity, energy-savers, Green
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