Top 5 Ways to Green Your Home

Making changes to have a more green home is more than recycling your waste here and there. Adapting your home and daily life to be more environmentally friendly and sustainable is a lifestyle choice. Creating a green home will help the planet and your wallet at the same time.

Whether you own or rent your home, your habits influence the environment of where you live. With some simple modifications and changes in your habits, you’ll find that going green is simple.

Here are our top 5 best ways to make a better green home. 

5.) Choose Local

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Support local businesses by purchasing products manufactured or harvested in your region. According to the LiveScience website, produce may travel 1,500 miles or more to reach the shelves in your supermarket, adding to greenhouse gas emissions.

Get Produce Close to Home

Support your local farmers by purchasing food at your local farmers’ market. Buying from local farmers market means that the food will have less on a carbon footprint as it reduces the miles the food has to travel to reach your plate.

Better yet, grow a garden in your yard or at a community garden.

Buy Suppliers From Local Home Improvement Stores

Whenever you start on a new home project, look to local vendors for supplies. You may find that the nearby quarry, for instance, has the materials for a price that beats the franchised home improvement store.

4.) Choose Green Materials

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Choosing to buy and use green materials for your home will cause less of an environmental impact on the planet.

Buy Recyclable Products

When making purchases, look for recyclable items, things made out of recycled materials, or options that are Forest Stewardship Council-certified. Choose pieces that you can reuse instead of those that you throw away after one use.

For example, use cloth towels instead of paper towels, rechargeable batteries, and containers made with non-toxic materials that you can refill with a beverage.

Buy Eco-Friendly Products

Opt for cleaning and personal care products made out of natural materials, and use integrated pest management instead of pesticides and poisons. Eco-friendly products are a healthier option for both your home environment and the effect that it has on the planet.

3.) Reduce Household Waste

reduce waste for a green home

Recycle whatever you can instead of automatically throwing items in the trash. Here are our favorite ways to reduce household waste.

Make Do and Mend

If something breaks like an appliance or piece of furniture, see if you can repair it before shopping for a replacement. It is far better to upcycle or mend a broken piece of furniture or home appliance than throwing it away. Otherwise, it’ll end up on the landfill and add to the already existing problem of excessive waste.

Use the Thrift Store

When you do need a new item, check out garage sales, thrift stores, and classified ads. You may find an almost new or gently used item that works well. Purchasing used and repurposed items reduce the need for raw materials and keep usable products out of landfills.

For example, the sturdy plastic boxes that your take-out meals come in can make excellent food storage containers.

Create Compost

If you have a green thumb, compost yard debris, dry food scraps, and shredded waste paper.

Those kitchen scraps and leftover food that piles up every day and gets thrown away can be composted. It is supervising how much of the food that gets thrown away can be recycled and put to good use as compost.

All you need to do is put a compost bin in your garden and fill it with any food waste. In time you’ll have plenty of compost a hand for those gardening days.

2.) Conserve Water

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Consuming water can have a significant impact on water demand in your local area as well as saving you some money. Follow these essential tips to help you consume less water.

Collect Rain Water

Unless it’s legal to do so in your state, install a rain barrel. Use the water that you collect to water your plants, wash your pets, and clean the car. You can even use the water to wash clothes or to fill the toilet tanks in your home. By adding a filter, you can drink the rainwater that you harvest.

Use Lawn Alternatives

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggests replacing your lawn with alternatives that require less water, such as moss or a lawn mix of half grass and half clover. Clover naturally uses less water and produces nitrogen, a natural fertilizer, so you don’t have to fertilize the lawn with chemicals.

1.) Reduce Energy Use

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Managing energy consumption is important as it will help reduce your household costs and will minimize any impact on the environment. Here are a few energy saving ideas.

Insulate Your Home

One of the best ways that reduce your energy consumption is to weatherize your home. Seal all the cracks on the interior and exterior walls of your home, install weather stripping around the windows as needed, and install sweeps on doors that lead to the exterior or garage.

Consider Solar Power

If your home is eligible, consider installing a solar system to reduce your dependence on the local power grid. The sun gives out more energy than we need to use each day so we might as well use that power to the best of our advantage and save the plant too.

Solar energy emits no greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and is a renewable energy source making it a more sustainable source of energy than say fossil fuels.

Install a Smart Plug

Heating is one of the most significant ways to consume energy, especially during the winter months. Leaving the heating on longer than you need it to is easily done, but it can also be costly for your wallet and the environment.

A smart plug is a solution to this issue. A smart plug can be programmed to turn on at certain times of the day, and they will turn themselves off without you having to worry about them. Smart plugs are a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and reduce energy bills.

Top Tip: Make it a habit to turn off the lights and unplug chargers when they’re not in use.

Cook Energy Efficiently

When cooking, you should consider if you need to use the oven for each meal. An oven uses much more energy than a toaster oven or slow cooker. If a meal can be cook in a smaller kitchen appliance, then use that as a more energy efficient method.

Consult a Sustainability Consultant

Every home is different. There may be some changes that you can make to your home that others can’t.

If you want to do everything you can to achieve the best green home as possible, you could consider taking to a sustainability consultant. A sustainability consultant will assess the property and provide a detailed report of the changes you need to make to create an ideal green home.

By following these top tips to make a better green home, you are well on your way to having an eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyle, and in turn, help save the planet.