Here, we have compiled quick ways for you to lower your carbon footprint without much effort.
Arizona has one of the lowest annual rainfalls in the continental U.S., and with a long-term drought looming on the horizon, it is essential that residents work to reduce their water consumption and keep our available water pure. Although this may seem like an ordeal, there are many simple ways to conserve water that don’t involve anything extreme.
Outdoor Usage
- According to the City of Phoenix, almost two-thirds of all water consumed by Phoenix residences and businesses is used for outdoor purposes. For this reason, it’s important that Phoenix residents re-evaluate what they think a landscape should look like. While this does mean planting carefully, it doesn’t mean abandoning lawns and plants entirely. Too much gravel in a landscape can actually increase the heat that is reflected onto your home, increasing summer energy costs. One of the most environmental things you can do in the desert is xeriscape your yard, a type of landscaping that minimizes water usage. If you incorporate elements of permaculture, you can make your landscape work with your house and the natural environment and you can even reduce household waste and energy costs. For advice on landscaping strategies to get the most out of your land, feel free to schedule an appointment.
- Fertilize sparingly, and avoid doing so just before a storm as fertilizer run-off can contaminate stormwater.
- If you’re going to wash your car, it’s best to do so at a commercial car wash – they use less water than you do at your house. If you really want to do it yourself, though, remember that plants and soil can work as a natural decontaminator for some chemicals. Wash your car over an unpaved surface to minimize the amount of polluted water running straight into your storm drain.
- Consider putting in a permeable driveway that will filter stormwater into the ground. This will purify the water naturally, allowing it to cycle through and eventually recharge aquifers and waterways. When it goes straight into the sewer, it’s often contaminated and diverted away from your home, where you could really use the moisture.
- Consider putting in a gray water system to help you reuse water from your home into your yard. It will save you money and do wonders for your garden.
Indoor Usage
- Consider that everything that goes down the drain eventually gets to your water supplies. Switch to soaps, shampoos, and detergents that are biodegradable so that you’re not just creating a toxic chemical stew. Even better, switch to biocompatible products that will actually benefit the earth.
- Install low-flow fixtures in your home. A regular, six-minute shower generally uses 24 gallons of water, while one with a low-flow head uses just 10 gallons. Low-flow fixtures have gained a bad reputation over the years, and we’ll be the first to tell you that not all eco-fixtures are created equal. Ask us for advice on the best fixtures that give you the water pressure you crave, without using up the resources you care about.
- Use the dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand. This has the added benefit of decreasing dishpan hands and saving you time. Running a full load of dishes uses less water than washing them in the sink. However, this only holds true if you have a reasonably efficient dishwasher and you can get by with scraping, not rinsing, dishes beforehand.
- Reverse Osmosis systems are one of the biggest water wasting culprits in the kitchen. For every gallon of water they produce, they waste 3-10 gallons. Don’t despair – there are many, extremely efficient options for purifying your household water that won’t be so damaging to the environment. Contact us for information on alternative products.
- Check your fixtures for leaks. While this seems simple, remember that leaks add up. If your faucet is leaking at the rate of one drop per second, you can lose up to 2,700 gallons of water each year.
The green movement is, by definition, against over-consumption. One of the best ways to be environmentally friendly is to waste less, make things last longer, even live in a smaller home. If you’re a shopaholic, though, don’t despair quite yet. Many companies are catering to the green consumer in a variety of ways, and your purchasing power could actually make a positive shift in the market if you use it wisely.
- Buy clothing made from sustainable fabrics. Polyester is no longer just a crime against fashion – now we know it’s one against nature too. Synthetic fabrics use fossil fuel during their manufacture, and they don’t biodegrade efficiently. Unfortunately, natural fibers aren’t necessarily guilt-free. Conventionally grown cotton, for example, requires large quantities of water, pesticides and fertilizer to grow at maximum yield, and frequently large plots of indigenous forests are cleared to make way for plantations. Look for products made from organically grown cotton or recycled materials, just to start. The more people who take a stand and only buy fabric made from sustainable sources, the more it will be produced.
- Right now, it’s extremely hard to find fashionable products that are environmentally friendly, though that is beginning to change. In the meantime, though, it’s important to support companies that are trying to make a difference. Although not all of Herman Miller’s furniture is entirely sustainable, for example, the company is making a major effort to transform all of its offices and factories into environmentally friendly spaces. If you find a company that is working towards a better environment, environmentally friendly products will follow in time.
- There’s more to consider in green products than just what is involved in the final product – you also have to consider where it’s coming from. Look for locally made goods coming from local materials. If you buy an “eco-friendly” chair that is made from wood sustainably harvested in Ecuador, assembled in a fair-trade shop in Vietnam, and shipped to you in Phoenix, the product’s travel alone left a pretty large carbon footprint. The Phoenix area has a lot of events designed to showcase what area artisans can do, and even though they’re not advertised as such, that’s pretty green.
- Look into new and innovative ways to multitask. Are you interested in alternative energy? Think about getting an exercise bike with an AC/DC adapter that will power a battery, charge an iPod, or turn on a light. If you’re looking to de-clutter, there are even stands that can transform your regular road bike into a power source, which could save you some storage space and let you use your bike even when it’s 117 degrees outside. If you can’t pull yourself away from your desk to work out, think about taking a page from the Innovate or Die contest, and get a laptop powering pedal desk. Watch how it works here.
- Avoid massive chain stores. Chain stores are about as un-green as you can get, and while they’re not always avoidable, sometimes it’s worth the extra effort to go visit the mom and pop alternative. Chain stores are notorious for taking up too much space, and their products are designed to be one-size fits all. If you want local products, or at least ones that are tailored to be used in your community, you need to look for a more personal touch. Mainstream garden centers offer generic fertilizer designed to work “well-enough” anywhere from New York to Los Angeles, but your local garden center will know what to do about your rock-hard desert soil.
Arizona is in the process of becoming the solar capital of the world, and large-scale renewable energy projects are going to make you feel a lot better about using the AC through the summer. Nevertheless, energy conservation is one of the most environmentally friendly things you can do, and it will definitely be easy on your wallet.
- Have your HVAC system inspected once every two years, preferably before the summer. If your unit isn’t working properly, it’s going to waste energy, and it won’t keep you as comfortable. While it would be unreasonable to ask you to forego the air conditioning when the temperatures outside match the one on your water heater, think about raising the temperature you have it set to. Fans can be extremely efficient ways to cool even in extremely hot weather, and if you get a good breeze going, you might be able to turn down the AC. Just remember that fans cool people, not rooms. As the breeze from the fan hits you, it helps evaporate the moisture on your skin, cooling you down. While this feels great while you’re in the room, it won’t do a thing once you leave (unless you have a cross-breeze going), so save even more energy by turning fans off when you leave.
- Lower the temperature on your water heater to 120 degrees F. Turning the temperature down on your water heater just 10 degrees can reduce your household emissions by 500 pounds of CO2 yearly. You can have a very comfortable shower at this temperature, and it might even entice you to finish up in there a little more quickly. Besides, water heated to 120 degrees can’t scald you if someone flushes the toilet while you’re scrubbing down.
- Many electronic devices pull power whenever they’re plugged in, whether or not they’re in use. Your cell phone charger draws power even if your cell phone isn’t attached, and your computer sucks energy even when it’s been shut down. By unplugging these devices when you’re not using them, you can make a huge impact for a very small investment.
- Do you have nightmares about buzzing fluorescent lights that make you look like you haven’t slept in 72 hours? Start dreaming sweetly. Compact Fluorescents (CFLs) now produce natural light and they’re not nearly as expensive as they used to be. Switch the traditional light bulbs in your house for new CFLs, and you can expect to save upwards of $30.00 in energy costs over the life of the bulb. According to David de Rothschild, author of The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook, if every American household replaced one incandescent bulb with a CFL, enough greenhouse gases would be prevented that it would be equivalent to taking 800,000 cars off the road. Unfortunately, these bulbs still need to be disposed of carefully, as they contain mercury. For information on appropriate clean up and disposal of CFL bulbs, feel free to contact us.
- Hang a clothesline. In Arizona, you hardly need a dryer. You don’t have to get rid of it, but consider reducing your dryer load by hanging half of your laundry to dry in the sun. Look at it this way – your favorite t-shirt will last practically forever.
When you sit down to dinner, you probably don’t think about the energy used to put your meal on the table. Unfortunately, food production can be extremely resource consuming, and if changes aren’t made there, not much else will matter. There are some easy ways to minimize how your diet impacts the environment without having to give up the things you love.
- Fill your refrigerator. A full refrigerator retains cold much more effectively than an empty one, and it can substantially cut your energy costs. If you’re replacing your fridge, look for one with a freezer on the bottom, and make use of natural heat flow patterns (heat rises, cold falls).
- In Arizona, we are lucky enough to have the ability to produce an amazing amount of fresh produce. Most people have a citrus tree growing painlessly in the yard already, and if we can’t grow it here, California’s fertile fields are just a day-trip away. So why would we ever buy produce that’s coming all the way from Chile? Most of the food you find at your local grocery store has come from somewhere else, and a typical meal travels about 22,000 miles before you get to sit down and eat it. That means that every ingredient in your dinner has used up valuable resources for packaging and transportation, and there’s no way it’s as fresh as you’d like it to be. Instead, check out one of the city’s many farmers’ markets. Our downtown public market is practically legendary and it’s open twice a week at convenient times. For more information, check out foodconnect.org.
- Bring your own bag to the grocery store. By now, you probably already do this. Some stores are actually rewarding customers for doing this now (think Trader Joe’s weekly raffle) and you probably appreciate not having a drawer full of plastic grocery bags you will never manage to use up. By bringing a cloth bag to the store you’re not clogging landfills or cutting down trees, and you won’t have to worry about your groceries spilling across the parking lot on your way out.
- Don’t worry, we're not going to ask you to become a vegetarian if your greatest joy in life is a hamburger. But before you bite into your next meat dish, it’s important to realize that meat production is one of the single most environmentally destructive practices we, as a society, engage in. Livestock consume an enormous quantity of energy to produce relatively little, where human beings could be simply eating closer to the source (getting more of our protein from plant matter). When you factor in the land used to raise livestock, not to mention the land used to produce food for the livestock, you’re looking at a lot of displaced native species and clear cutting. While animal waste can sometimes be used as fertilizer, the amount produced now has exceeded our need, and we have not developed an effective way to dispose of the excess. Which means that animal effluent is now polluting our waterways, reducing the amount of potable water available. Finally, the amount of methane released by cattle flatulence is contributing at an alarming rate to global warming. If you can’t give up meat, think about cutting back. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the average American consumed 200 pounds of meat per person in 2005, 22 pounds more than in 1970. Challenge yourself to reduce your meat intake by half, or try to cut down and just have meat once or twice a week.
- Buy organic produce. A recent study conducted by Newcastle University and the European Union revealed that organically grown produce is actually more nutritious than conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. Organic wheat, tomatoes, onions, lettuce and cabbage had 20 to 40 percent more essential vitamins and minerals than their conventional counterparts, which means that you’ll feel better after eating less. Now, most chain grocery stores have an organic section, so if you can’t make it to the local farmer’s market you still should be able to choose the organic option most of the time. In addition to making you healthier, organically produced food doesn’t require harsh chemicals that pollute the groundwater (and your body, for that matter).