Electricity, Electricity

My siblings and I grew up with our mom telling us we needed to turn lights off to ‘save electricity.’ The primary reason behind this was to reduce our electric bill every month. But did you know that by saving electricity, you also save other resources, such as water? By reducing the amount of electricity you use, you also reduce your use of the resources required to create it. Here are some ways you can reduce your electricity use, carbon footprint, and your monthly bill!

• Turn lights off when you’re not using them. Don’t leave lights on in another room because you’re ‘coming right back.’ It takes almost no effort to flip a switch so you might as well turn it off as you leave the room.
• Unplug things when they are not in use. Even though your charger isn’t charging your phone, it’s still connected to the current, and is basically sending electricity nowhere. This raises your bill and your carbon footprint. (I had a lot of trouble starting this habit, but that was because the outlet I used most often was in a really inconvenient place. Once I found a better placed outlet, I plugged my items into a power strip and now I just unplug the power strip before I leave the room.
• Buy energy-saving lightbulbs and invest in power-saving appliances, if you can.
• Dry your clothes on a line, rather than using a dryer.
• Don’t leave your electronics plugged in all night. If you have the time, charge your phone/tablet/device before you go to bed and then unplug it. Leaving these items plugged in all night is bad for the battery anyways (it reduces the life of the battery much faster than unplugging it once it’s fully charged).
• Open your windows and change your thermostat. If the weather’s nice, ditch the AC! If not, then raise your thermostat by two degrees in the summer and lower it by two degrees in the winter from what you normally use it at. Your AC will turn on less often and won’t have to work for as long.

Straws are the Beginning

I’ve seen a few posts ranting that stopping our usage of straws isn’t going to save the planet. And that’s true. But the point of it is that straws are a good starting point because almost everyone uses them. They’re commonplace in restaurants, cafes, and even in some households. However, straws themselves aren’t necessarily the problem. The problem is single-use plastic. In reality, we should be focusing on cutting our usage of any item we use once and throw away, but everyone’s focused on straws because of how many are used. But if we can get society to cut them out, it’s one less thing to worry about. After straws, it could be plastic cutlery or unnecessary wrapping on food. If you’re angry that the anti-plastic movement is primarily about straws right now, don’t be. Understand that it’s an easy way to bring about the banishment of single-use plastic in everyone else’s everyday lives and it’s also a gateway for unconcerned people to learn about what their usage does to the planet and feel inspired to make a change in their lives. If you still want to be angry, boycott the corporations that don’t care about their impact and support those that do. You can also work to educate those around you that while cutting out straws is a good start, we need to be making more drastic changes if we want to stop the catastrophic course we’re on right now.