What can you do to help the environment?

There are many publications & websites with more than enough guidance on how to live green. Even though being a Toronto realtor 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. Most people have already heard the most important eco-tips, so we are not going to try to summarize them here again. Our today's topic will be the three everyday items that we usually don't even consider to be an issue: food, water and electricity.

Food

Suppose that the majority of people are used to recycling part of their litter - at least paper, glass and metal, then we can say that most of the remaining household rubbish is comprised of food. The bulk of the groceries that we throw out is in most cases in flawless condition and in some cases even in the original wrapper or box. We can find out that out of all the food that Canadian households pick out and pay for in stores, 20 to 30% eventually ends up in the dustbin. Adding stores and restaurants' waste, that's 7 to 14 billion tonnes of food per year. In Canadian dollars, that's $3 to 5 billion per year.

Now you are probably shocked by these numbers, aren't you? With so many organizations trying to help people suffering from lack of food, while at the same time so much of it is being wasted straight under our noses. Now you might decide "OK, so I will take our leftovers, pack it and send it somewhere else where people are hungry." But hold your horses, that is not the best thing to do, we have some more practical recommendations for you. 1. Do you have any food left from yesterday? Try to incorporate it into today's lunch. For instance you can stuff some peppers with some remaining rice. 2. In your larder or food cabinet, try to keep a simple rule: the groceries closest to the expiration date is always stored in front of the fresher ones. 3. If you realize you will not use food that's just about to expire and would consequently throw it out, just bring it to your local charity or soup kitchen or similar place while the food is still in good state. If you cannot use up all the groceries you have bought, there are enough people even in your community who will be happy to eat it - hunger is not limited to Africa. 4. Do not dump leftovers - mulch it. Always try to think in the way that groceries just shouldn't be dumped. If you don't own a garden yourself, try to find someone who does and can do the mulching.

Water

There are a lot of ways how to save water in your home, and I suppose you know at least a few of them too. One issue that occurs to me when thinking about reasonable water usage is the way we manage human waste: toilets. Nowadays, toilets are absolutely inherent - when they are functioning alright, we don't even need to pay any attention to them. However, have you tried to estimate how much water your household needs every month for flushing the lavatory? Wow, that's a lot of water, isn't it? Now suppose you could lower that by simply decreasing the amount of water your lavatory needs every time you flush. You can try these two tips to using less water for flushing: 1. Buy a new type of lavatory that needs less water for flushing. Go and check out the assortment in your local store, it is amazing how wide it is nowadays! 2. Decrease the amount of water needed by your own lavatory simply by putting plastic bottles full of water into your toilet's tank. You might have to keep trying a bit before you discover the right amount of water needed for the toilet to keep functioning fine.

Electricity

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 now let's focus on tumble dryers, as I see these myself as one of the biggest energy-eaters in our homes. The popularity of tumble dryers comes from the practice that modern people want everything to be done in the shortest time possible, regardless of the amount of resources that are wasted in the process of speeding things up. It is quite obvious that in our modern lifestyle, there is not enough time for washing our clothes manually, and that dishwashers do really save some water. Though the advantages of a tumble dryer might be less obvious. Ask yourself - do you really need your laundry to be dry immediately, instead of waiting one or two days for it to dry by itself? In case your environment-friendly ambitions are serious, try to consider turning your tumble dryer on in urgent cases only, or even think about saying goodbye to it at all - you can sell it or give it to someone else. Apart from the environment, you will save some cash on your electricity bills as well.