There are countless articles on the web about how to save energy and about how much damage we’re doing to the environment by leaving out devices on, but while these are often very informative and very useful, they don’t always make quite the impact they should. The problem often is that we read the articles and make note of the various suggestions, but that we then often forget about them by the time it actually comes to time to make a change. We learn about how to save energy and how to be more energy efficient, but by the time we are actually using that energy again we’re in a hurry and we’ve forgotten all those tips.
Here then are some tips that you can get up and use right now. As long as you’re at home, these are suggestions for ways you can save energy in the next five minutes. As soon as you’ve read this article, get up and make these changes and you’ll have taken the first steps to saving money and reducing your carbon footprint.
Your Phone Charger
Many people will get up in the morning and unplug their phone from the charger, but what they don’t necessarily do is to unplug that charger from the wall. This is bad news because the charger actually wastes a lot of energy just by being plugged in – so if that’s the case go and unplug it now and try to remember to remove the whole thing every morning.
Your TV
This is one everyone knows, but again not everyone does. If your TV is on standby right now though then you’re wasting energy unnecessarily so get up and turn it all the way off to reduce your carbon footprint for the day immediately. This also goes for any other technology that may be on standby – perhaps a sky box for instance or a CD player. Make sure that anything you are not using is well and truly off rather than just on standby and you’ll save more energy than you might think.
Lights
If there’s a light on currently in another room then that once again is a light that you’re powering unnecessarily. Turn any you aren’t using off, and likewise even in the room you’re in turn off any that you don’t necessarily need – if you have a corner light on for instance that isn’t making any difference to the brightness in the room then you may as well switch it off.
Laptop/Phone
Are you reading this article on a laptop, phone or tablet? Is that device unplugged? Because if so you may be able to make it last longer before you next need to charge it from the mains. There are several things you can do to accomplish this, which include turning off unnecessary connections like Bluetooth, and lowering the screen brightness.
Heating
This is more complicated than just turning your heating off – because if you leave the heating off too long when it’s very cold you can actually end up reducing the overall temperature of your walls which then use a lot of energy to heat up. If it’s coming up to winter then make sure you are using your heating to warm your property so you’re not playing catch up later.
About the author: Jamie Kirk is an expert in environment conservation and green energy. He recommends the use of “solar power” for solving the global problem of energy crisis.
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