Being green is something you can do in all aspects of your life. There are plenty of ways you can make your home be more carbon efficient, and the more you do to cut down the CO2 emissions caused by your home, the more you’ll be helping the planet.
You can also do things like insulate the loft and put lagging around the hot water tank, so that energy you’ve used warming up your home and water isn’t then wasted.
The tumble dryer creates an incredible amount of CO2 emissions and if you stop using it for a year, you could cut your home’s CO2 emissions by 632kg. Line drying in the garden is great during the summer, but in winter it can be a pain having the washing draped around the house. You might want to make some space in a little used room like a spare room or the dining room and let the ambient heat from the radiator help air your clothes. Of course, you’ll have to time your washing so that you don’t have your undies out drying when guests come round, but that’s easy enough to organise!
You can also adopt a green attitude in the things that you bring into your home. For example, if you’ve been thinking about getting some of the very trendy recliner sofas that are in so many furniture stores today, you should make sure you do some research and find out where the materials were sourced to produce them. Similarly, if you’ve spotted a cheap dining table that would look good in your house, make sure it’s manufactured with renewable wood supplies before you buy it.
Planting trees is also a great way to offset your home’s carbon emissions. Once established, a native tree native to your area can absorb as much as 2,268kg of CO2 a year. So, you can adopt a two pronged approach – cut down on your home’s CO2 emissions and plant trees in the garden at the same time!
