In Chapter 1, it talks about knowing your impact on the planet. I went to the website it provided and found my carbon footprint. Below is my score...
| YOUR ECP SCORE: | 312 | ANNUAL CARBON OUTPUT: | 12.4 | |
| How Your ECP Score Works Your ECP score is linked to your private Earth Conservation Plan. Generally, ECP scores range from 150 – 900, the lower the better. Your ECP score is calculated based on six categories related to Home, Energy, Work, Commute, Travel and Lifestyle. | ||||
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I don't think I did too shabby but there is room for improvement.
That was Tip #1....
Tip #2, talks about the Litter Factor. This is a no brainer but one thing I did realize is that my husband takes 2 bottles of water to work with him everyday and both our kids take one too. That is 10 bottles a week for hubby, 5 for Emma and 2 for Dillon. I thought, how can I fix this? I answered myself and really didn't like the answer... I will have to use reusable water bottles and wash them....I hate washing dishes but I will try and find one that is dishwasher safe. I run the dishwasher once a day on average.
That should take care of that problem....
Tip #3-8 talks about the type of car you drive, skipping a trip, biodiesel, and vehicle maintenance. I not going into too much detail here. There is not much we can do about the subject personally because my husband lives 40 miles from his job and we live 12 miles from the nearest major town. We are not going to sale our house and move closer because we love where we live in the country. We are not at a point to where we are able to trade in vehicles for a more energy efficient one but hopefully this spring we will be. The only thing I can take from these tips are to minimize the amount of trips I take into town, which is down to 2 days a week (our son goes to preschool in town). I try and get the majority of my errands done on those days. While I am in the car rider line at school, waiting to pick up my daughter, instead of letting the car idle for 20-30 minutes, I let it run for 5 or so then shut it off until we get cold, then start it and let it run till we are warm and then shut it off, so on and so forth....
Tips #9-16 talk about Greening your home. We have slowly started changing out our light bulbs to Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFL). They use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer. The only draw back is that is contains small amounts of Mercury, meaning, they have to be disposed of properly. For correct disposal see this website.
It also talks about lowering your thermostat a couple of degrees. I hesitated doing this. I like my house warm in the winter and cool in the summer. At night we would turn the heat down because we slept better when it was slightly cooler. Right now we are keeping it on 67-68 even though it has been dropping down into the teens at night. If the house gets really chili, I turn it up to 69-70 to get the chill out of the air and then turn it back down. I guess in a couple of months I will see if there is a change in our electric bill.
One thing I must improve on is unplugging appliances when they are not in use. I really need to work on this!
Tips #17 and 18 talk about conservation of water. We are planning on remodeling sometime this year (fingers crossed) so, if I get my way, me might be able to purchase 2 low flow toilets. Considering the older toilets use up to 7 gallons of water each flush and the new ones only 1.6 at the max, I think I could justify the $230 plus price tag.....
Another, would be turning of the tap when brushing your teeth...That's a given people....Stop being lazy. Consider this while you are brushing your teeth, if you keep the water running, your are wasting on average a GALLON of water. You wouldn't go to the store and purchase a gallon of water and take it home and pour it out in the sink would you???? Don't think so!
These are all that I am sharing you with today. If you have anything that you would like to add....Link up below and tell us!
More tips to come next week!
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