Lower your Carbon Footprint

I recently started a discussion Topic

‘Whats your Carbon Footprint?’

Check yours here  or Try this one

My family have for years taken the steps to cut the amount of power we use within our home.
Being in Tasmania where it snows and is snowing tonight even though it Spring we have been conscious of the power use…
Even with the constant heating (electric) we have manage to keep our household usage including car ( we are a small town 230km from the nearest major centre) down to 3.5 tonnes per year.. the average in Australia is 14.8 tonnes per year… what is your carbon footprint and are you trying to change..?
Btw we only have electricity..

I have been amazed by some of the responses, people asking how is your so low?, what did you do?, what can I do so?, so this post is for anyone who is trying to lower their household energy usage, even if it is to save money on the bills.

The first thing to is make the decision, this sounds easy enough but it does take a conscious effort to change old habits.

We will start with the simple things….Don’t laugh you will be surprised by how many of these things you normally don’t do

Turn lights OFF……. If you are not in a room you don’t need the lights on.

Is it daylight? are there lights on? TURN IT OFF

When a bulb dies change it for the new energy efficent bulbs ( you know the curly funny looking ones) and remember you really don’t need a 100 watt bulb in the bedroom…

Turn off appliances at the plug….

Although it is convenient to have your microwave on standby just waiting to be used it is still using a large amount of energy and you are getting nothing for it….

The TV and DVD Player will work just fine, if you turn it on at the plug when you are watching it and turn it off at the Plug when you are not…

Turning off none essential appliances, instead of leaving them on stanby, you can save yourself upwards of $60 a quarter, on average, on your bill thats a saving of $240 per year at least. Your energy usage will decress very quickly, try it and see.

Open your windows and curtains, let the air flow and the light shine in….

Sounds silly I know! but are your windows and curtains closed and  the air conditioner running?

If it is winter, your fridge and freezer do not need to run on full, you can turn them down!

Composting seems to be one of the things people go on about, sorting your rubbish is a pain I will give you that and what do you do with it when it is sorted…..

Composting for me was annoying, I had no compost bins, no worm farm,  etc

One weekend I went to local tip, and found a few old peice of corrigated iron, and few pieces of wood, came home nailed it together out the back and that is the new composting area…. it took me about an hour, almost everything organic goes in here, paper, cardboard, vege scraps, grass clippings etc, there are plenty of sites to find out….But it was easy to make…four pieces of tin and a few bits of scrap wood and there it is … you can spend as much or as little as you like on this…

Well thats a started, try these few simple things and see how you go..

If you have tips of your own please add them to the comments. I am always interested in new ways to do this…