February Top Tips // ways to easily save energy

Hello everyone!

January is over, and today we have top tips for you on how to save energy in February. Because it is such a big topic that you can do so much with, we will be exceeding our normal number of 5 tips to 10 or even 15 this month! With Covid going on all over the world, it is important more than ever before to protect the planet in every possible way. The smallest acts count, if everyone commits to them. Now, it seems like most people are up to changing small things in their lives, so we will be focusing on different ways you can save energy in your daily lives. These tips will be easy to apply and might even hold advantages for you. Have fun saving energy this February!

Introduction

Every day, millions of people wake up on this planet. Every day, thousands get up, turn on the lights and flick that switch on the coffee machine. Every day, thousands waste energy consciously. Every day thousands more energy unconsciously. You can do better. Many, many sources say that we waste an extraordinary amount of energy throughout a single year and that that is easy to change. By simply altering the smallest habits, a massive amount of energy can be saved, along with the amount of money you usually spend to pay for it. The good thing is that, out of the experience, I can tell you that changing energy-wasting habits like this, is surprisingly easy. You can probably ask anyone around you that has developed energy-efficient habits, and they will tell you the same. Here are the top ways we all waste a whole lot of energy every day:

Lights

When talking about energy consumption, lights are a topic often addressed. Many people might discard it, thinking that you can save energy more efficiently in other places. That is the wrong thing to do. There are at least two great ways to save energy with light:

1) Use energy-efficient light bulbs (LEDs). They save a lot of energy, save money over time and hold a lot longer than an average light bulb! You can literally look it up anywhere.

2)If that for some reason is not an option for you, simply turning off the lights when you leave a room is a very good habit, and very easy to adapt. I used to leave on the lights where ever I went, but now I don't even think about turning them off anymore. Often people leave their houses and apartments without turning all the lights off, wasting masses of energy when they are gone for the entire day for example! It's crazy!

Dishwasher, Washing machine and Tumble Dryer

1) Do not run the dishwasher, tumble dryer or washing machine half full! You waste energy running it, for heating the water, for running the extra water that you use to wash by hand and lots of detergents. Fill them to the brink of explosion and then run them!

2) When washing your clothes, it is often unnecessary to do so with really hot water. Instead, just wash with cold or rather room-temperature water

3) Instead of drying all your clothes in the tumble dryer, just hang them up on a washing line to dry. In summer (in most countries) you can also just hang them outside and they'll be dry in no time at all!

4) Only wash what needs washing. Honestly, who doesn't sometimes just throw something in the washing that isn't actually dirty? But try not to do so much! Wear your trousers two or three days in a row before washing them, or clean the tomato stain with a wet towel. But don't throw all your stuff in the washing every day. Now, please do not use this as an excuse to wear your underwear three or four times in a row :).

Heating

Please do not heat unused rooms

Do not continue to heat when you are away or asleep

Insulate your home, so you don't have to heat as much. For example, draught stoppers under the doors and an insulated roof are great ideas.

I can vouch for this. We moved into a single-glazed bungalow with very little insulation. We renovated it, adding a lot to the size of the house. But we insulated it and put new windows in. Despite the house being much bigger, we now pay much less for energy.

Avoid opening windows or doors when the heating is on, that is no use.

Dress weather appropriately, inside and outside, so you don't have to have the heating on full power all the time. Maybe a belly top isn't the right decision for mid-winter.

When you do turn on the heater, don't have it on full power all the time. You can turn it down once there is a base warmth.

Water

If you avoid wasting water of any kind, you always save energy. There are many places you can save water, just don't start in the wrong place, your drinking water for example. Don't save that. You need it.

Everyone knows taking a long, hot shower is the best thing in the world, that is absolutely understandable. It is fine to do so, but only from time to time. If you can make it short and cool, that'd be amazing, since almost every person wants to shower every day. Imagine how much energy that saves! Shower time also makes a huge difference. Limit each shower to a certain amount of time. There are so many timers you can get. In the UK, you can even get one for your household for free!

Now, I'm not going to make a list of occasions where you can save water, but you probably have lots of ideas yourself! We would love to hear what you can think of, if you want to, you are very welcome to leave them in the comments.

Devices

Unsurprisingly, the use of devices uses up a massive amount of energy. So please unplug your:

-Telephone

-Computer

-Powerbanks

-Drones

-Etc

Before leaving your house. They do use up lots of energy!

Entertainment

Movies, Video Games, VR, TV, Drones, Videos and Clips are wonderfully entertaining (and addicting) but also really energy-consuming ways of spending your time. here are some good ideas for things you could do instead:

-read a book

-Hang out with a friend

-Do some sport

-Play board games (Did you know that chess grandmasters burn up to 6000 calories a day?!)

-Go to a concert

-Visit a museum

-Learn an instrument

-Write books

-Start an initiative

Cooking

Here's a fun fact to start this with: I hate cooking. But I like baking. Here are some tips to make cooking and baking less energy-consuming!

-Cook with a lid on

-Turn the oven on when you need it, not hours before

-Turn the oven off when you're done, not hours after

-Keep your kitchen clean, means you find things quicker and the oven doesn't run while you're looking for that stupid spoon

-Carry your ingredients up the stairs, it's good for your muscles and you don't use elevator energy!

-browsing the fridge for something edible add up to a lot of wasted energy! It's like heating but always keeping a window open for fresh air. People actually do that, I don't know why. So, know what you have in the fridge. Maybe you can memorize it while carrying all of it upstairs!

Sharing

Here is the one word, along with the one sentence:

Sharing always makes a difference, share your knowledge and you did good!

Your Green World Blog Team💚

Sources

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/12/seven-things-you-do-every-day-that-waste-energy/
https://www.ase.org/blog/10-biggest-energy-wasting-habits-home
https://www.energysage.com/energy-efficiency/101/ways-to-save-energy/
https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2020/03/how-to-save-energy-at-home

Image:
This image is owned by a blog editor.

Comments

Coral reefs

Hello! We would love to introduce you to the topic of coral reefs and especially coral reef bleaching, as it is a greatly ignored but certainly significant topic. Have fun! 5 coral reef facts 1. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and is 2300 km long! 2. Less than 0.1% of the world's ocean surface is covered in coral reefs. 3. At least 25% of all marine animals live there. 4. Coral reefs are often known as the rainforests of the ocean. 5. In 1 square kilometre of coral reef, up to 35 tons of fish can be 'produced'. The 5 biggest coral reefs in the world 1. Great Barrier Reef (near Australia) 2. Red Sea Coral Reef (near Egypt, Israel and Djibouti) 3. New Caledonia Reef (Pacific Ocean near New Caledonia) 4. The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (near Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras) 5. Florida Reef (Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico near Florida) What is coral? Coral is actually made up of small anim...

2021: How Our Year Went, Favourite Posts and Some Goals For 2022 | a wrap up

Hi Everyone! Today we wanted to share some thoughts on how our blogging year went in 2021 and some goals for 2022. We are now at the end of January, which is very scary, but we hope you will still enjoy this slightly belated wrap-up. In 2021, we published 36 posts in total. This is pretty good, we posted on average roughly every 10 days. However, there was a lot of time when we didn't post at all and our posts became increasingly just the monthly fact file. Many of you enjoyed the fact file, and for the most part, we enjoyed writing it but it became a bit of a chore by the end, hence the change we have made over to top tips. We think it would be nice to change our monthly post every year, and we will of course involve you in that just as we did this year. Our best posting months were by far August and September, which is understandable because we were on holiday for August and could schedule a lot of posts for September! Something we want to wor...

Announcement: Factfile

This image is owned by a blog editor.

Ozone layer

Hi everyone, What even is ozone? And the ozone layer? Where does the hole in the ozone layer come from and what does it mean? Is it dangerous? What can be done? Often the ozone-talk can be complicated and confusing, keeping an overview is hard and understanding all the problems always difficult. Let us break it down a bit for you: What is the ozone layer? We'll start with the basics: The ozone layer is part of the stratosphere, which is the second layer of the Earth's atmosphere, between 10 and 50 km above the Earth's surface and made up of protective gases. One of these protective gases is ozone. There is not much ozone in the atmosphere, only 0.3 molecule of ozone per 1 million molecules of air. This is because ozone is chemically unstable and only forms when ultra violet radiation (UV light) hits oxygen and breaks the bonds between the atoms. It fact it is so unstable that even when it has formed, it breaks down again relatively quickly. This leads to ozone turning back ...

Energy comparison: Hydroelectricity

Hello everyone, Welcome back to another energy comparison post. Today we're talking about hydroelectricity. This is basically just using the power of moving water for our own uses. This idea has been around for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans used watermills to grind grains for making bread. Watermills were used up until the Industrial Revolution. What is hydroelectricity? There are three types of hydroelectric power plants. Impoundment facilities are the most common. The water is stored in a pool or reservoir normally located at a higher elevation. The dam uses gates or valves to control the water flow. When there is demand for electricity, the water is released. It falls downwards and turns turbines that turn the kinetic energy of the water (movement energy) into electric energy. Diversion facilities don't have a dam. They channel the water towards the turbines using a system of canals. Pumped-storage facilities are...

Evolution

Hi, So today, I am going to talk about evolution. We have mentioned this before in our Galapagos Ecosystem series but we’ve never gone over exactly what it is. So before Charles Darwin thought of his theory of evolution, the majority of people in Europe thought that all species were unrelated and that humans were not related to animals. This was mostly based on Christianity. Darwin studied hundreds of different species and on the Galápagos Islands , he first started to form his theory of evolution. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, as it was later called, is best explained by the example of the giraffe. Let's assume that giraffes have short necks (as they did many centuries ago). Now a mother has two children. By chance, one has a slightly longer neck. This is a coincidence. As the giraffes feed on the lower leaves of the trees, these slower disappear. There aren't enough leaves for the giraffes. Thus the giraffe wi...

January Top Tips // 5 ways you can individually tackle climate change

Hi Everyone! This is the first of our new monthly posts for 2022! We will be sharing top tips every month, near the beginning, for things you can do during that month for the better. It's almost like a whole year of new year's resolutions (though let's hope they are achieved)! In these posts, we aren't just going to talk about climate change , of course, there will also be posts about animals , plants, habitats, plastic pollution and so much more! They will not be huge tips though, they won't demand too much of you (usually!). We need rebellions and people in the public eye spreading the word of course but we also need people like you, who can just do their bit. So, welcome to our top tips posts! We all know that we need to come together to fight the climate crisis, but we don't seem to be doing that right now. So here are our top tips for ways you can individually tackle climate change, even if this means simply spreading ...

Green Pets: introducing Agatha, my "string of pearls"

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to Green Pets, the house plant series on this blog where I talk about my house plants and just house plants in general too. It was my birthday recently and I (you guessed it!) got a new houseplant! Meet Agatha!! This one was gifted by a very dear friend of mine, and for my birthday we visited Agatha Christie's holiday house in Devon together, so Agatha seemed a very fitting name!! She is a hanging plant, which I love, and I've done a bit of research on how to best care for her. There are some very clear signs of when she needs water. The main one is when the "beads" shrivel up or turn yellow. I'm still working out a watering schedule that works for her. I know that I shouldn't water her until the soil is dry again and when you do water her, it has to be a good soak. Light-wise, she needs a fair amount. Luckily, my room is very brig...

Animals 31-35 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to our blog, today we are sharing another 5 incredible animals. This is part of a series to celebrate our 50th blog post, all about unusual animals! Enjoy! 31. Pangolins These creatures are often mistaken for reptiles but they are in fact mammals. They are covered in scales and use them to defend themselves because similar to a hedgehog, they curl up into a ball. They eat ants, termites and larvae. They eat using their tongue, which is very long- sometimes even longer than their body! Sadly, Pangolins are in high demand as their meat is considered a delicacy their scales are used in traditional folk remedies, which means that there is an illegal trade. Luckily, there have been many initiatives put in place to help these animals by WWF and similar organisations. 32. Macropinna Microstoma This is a species of fish that live at about 600m below sea level. They hang nearly motionless in the water and have a very unusual...

29.11.2020 Animal Of The Week: Jaguar

Hello, Today (29th November) is world Jaguar day so this week our animal is the Jaguar. The Jaguar is an animal I know pretty much nothing about so I am going to learn a lot too! Jaguars (panthera onca) live for 12 - 15 years. Their heads and bodies are 150-180cm long and their tails are 70-90cm long! They weigh 45 - 110 kg. Habitat Jaguars live primarily in the Amazon Basin, though they can be found in smaller numbers in Central America. They once lived everywhere from central Argentina up to the southwestern United States but since the 1880s they have lost over half of their territory. They are mainly found in tropical rainforests but can live in savannas and grasslands. Diet They eat fish and turtles as they are actually quite competent swimmers as well as deer, iguanas, birds and monkeys; they will eat almost anything! Are they endangered? Jaguars are classed as near endangered and face several threats. South and Central Americ...

Green World

Search This Blog