A lot of books, articles and web sites have already been created to bring information on environmentally friendly lifestyle. Even though being a local real estate expert gives me plenty of opportunities to talk about the many ways of green living with my clients, my topic today will be a bit more specific. My aim today is not to cover the whole subject of environmentally conscious lifestyle, giving all the tips you've probably heard before. Today I would like to contemplate on the three very usual things which people from the modern countries usually take for granted: food, water and electricity.
Groceries
As I hope that most people don't just throw away paper, glass and metal waste but recycle it, the rest of your household garbage will be mainly food. The bulk of this food would usually be in perfect condition, in some cases not even out of its wrapper or container. The shocking fact is that between 20 and 30% of all food bought by Canadian households is dumped later. Adding shops and restaurants' waste, that's 7 to 14 billion tonnes of groceries per year. That is worth $3 to 5 billion Canadian dollars per year.
These figures are quite shocking, aren't they? The main paradox is that we throw out so much food daily and at the same time so many charity organizations are working hard, trying to help people who don't have enough to eat. Whereas it wouldn't be too smart to pack unused groceries and send it to countries hit by famine, there are other ways to avoid food being thrown out in vain. 1. Do you have any food left from yesterday? Try to use it for today's lunch. For example you can stuff some peppers with some leftover rice. 2. A good way of avoiding groceries going past the expiry date is arranging your food cabinet by this criteria: older food, that is going to expire soon, is placed in the front, while the longer lasting products can stay in the back of the shelves. 3. It may happen that you know beforehand that there is some food you are not going to be able to eat before its expiration date. Instead of throwing it out, try to find a local charity or soup kitchen and bring your food there when it's still serviceable. If you cannot use up all the groceries you have purchased, there are enough people even in your city who will be happy to eat it - hunger is not limited to Africa. 4. Have you considered mulching the leftovers instead of wasting them? Maybe you will contradict that you don't have a garden. But your neighbour might have one and may be able to help you to get rid of your leftovers.
Water
There are plenty of ways to avoid wasting water and you can probably name many of them yourself. But now let's focus on toilets, as they are an important part of our household and also may be of key importance in how much water is used in the household. Well, today we can hardly imagine our life without a proper toilet, and we don't even need to care about them at all, if they still work. However, have you tried to discover how much water your household needs every month for flushing the lavatory? You might be shocked by the big number you get out of this. And has it ever occurred to you that this quantity is not inevitable, that flushing your lavatory can be done using less water? There are two different ways to achieve that. 1. Substitute your old toilet by a new model that has been designed to use as little water as possible. Go and check out the assortment in your local store, it is amazing how rich it is nowadays! 2. Another way of decreasing the amount of water for flushing is to fit several plastic bottles filled with water into the tank of your toilet. Keep experimenting to find how little water is enough for the toilet to function properly.
Electric current
Here the situation is similar to the one with water and wasting it - there are a lot of recommendations on how to save electric energy to be found in books, magazines and on the Internet. But one of the devices that uses up great amounts of energy is one that you might be using daily: a tumble dryer. Nowadays, people are not used to waiting before they get something they want or need at the moment, and they sometimes consume too much energy getting it, just because it will be done faster. It's a fact that nobody has time today to wash clothes by hands and dishwashers really save water. But tumble dryer? Ask yourself - do you really need your clothing to be dry instantly, instead of waiting one or two days for it to dry by itself? If you really wish to "live green", use your tumble dryer only in crisis situations or get rid of it (sell it) completely. Except for the environment, you will save some money on your electricity bills as well.
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