Everywhere you go now, you see or hear something about “Going Green”. While I think that a lot of it is just lip-service from corporations that want to be seen as progressive, there are others that are really trying to make a difference for the right reasons. There are many facets of Going Green. Automobiles and all other transportation, green in the workplace, manufacturing, energy production, pollution, etc. But since this site has a real estate flavor, I thought I’d limit the scope of any focus to homes.
I’m not going to pretend to know everything one must do to if you want your home to be environmentally friendly or that I do everything right myself. I don’t. What I sense though is it’s time to at least do something. The consequences of not doing anything far out way any benefit of continuing with past methods. New ideas take some getting used to, but I’ve learned that just like other projects you want to finish, the important thing is simply to start…and keep going one step at a time. Eventually, after you look back, you can see the progress made.
Here’s just two basic ideas to get started going green around the home. Recycling and energy use. It seems like one of the most obvious things would be to recycle ALL plastics, paper, glass and metal. If any of that can be reused then so much the better. It’s a waste not to. Anymore, it makes me cringe every time I see a can, newspaper or even the smallest piece of plastic in the trash instead of in a recycle bin. Another would be energy efficiency. For a start, using the small CFL fluorescent bulbs in lamps and other home light fixtures makes sense. The cost of these bulbs is coming down from when they first came out. LED lights are good too. I saw a presentation recently that convinced me that the new bulbs pay for themselves fairly quickly in energy savings. I also heard that the government is going to ban the incandescent light bulb soon…so time to get used to CFL’s and LED’s anyway. Lights are a start, and there are many other things to do to save energy around the home if you just think about it. Saving energy saves money, but it’s also less energy that needs to be created. Important since power plants are one of the largest sources of pollution.
There’s lots of websites that promote and explain the benefits of Going Green…offering tips so you can apply them real-time. Here’s just a few I heard about. Green Guide, TreeHugger, and Earth911 I’m going to keep looking at this and will try to have more the next time this topic comes up.
The basic premise of Going Green as I see it personally is for me to leave a smaller footprint on the Earth as a result of my actions. Collectively, if we all do it, it becomes very powerful. It’s time.
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