Natural Rug Cleaning

A lot of books, articles and web sites have already been published to display information on eco conscious way of life. Although being a realtor in Toronto gives me plenty of occasions to talk about the many ways of green living with my clients, my topic today will be a bit more specific. Most people have already heard the most important eco-tips, so we are not going to try to summarize them here again. Our today’s topic will be the three common items that we generally don’t even consider to be an issue: food, water and electricity.

Food

As I believe that most people don’t just dump paper, glass and metal waste but recycle it, the rest of your household rubbish will be mainly food. The majority of this food waste is often still in its original packaging and in a good state. The sad reality is that on average most households in Canada throw away 20 to 30% of food purchased in stores. If we include all the food that is dumped in stores and restaurants, we come to the conclusion that some 7 to 14 billion tons of groceries is thrown away every year. In Canadian dollars, that’s $3 to 5 billion per year.

Shocking, what we have just calculated, isn’t it? The main paradox is that we throw away so much food every day and at the same time so many philanthropic organizations are working hard, trying to help people who don’t have enough to eat. Whereas it wouldn’t be too smart to pack unused groceries and send it to countries hit by famine, there are other ways to prevent food being thrown away in vain. 1. Try to use the leftover food when preparing your next meal. If you made too much rice for dinner yesterday, you might want to use it in stuffed peppers filling today. 2. In your larder or food cabinet, try to stick to a simple rule: the groceries closest to the expiration date is always stocked in front of the fresher ones. 3. Sometimes you know you have some groceries you are not going to use before its expiry date and you would have to dump it. Try to take these to your local charity place or soup kitchen or any similar place where they can find some use for the food before it goes bad. Let some people have it - famine isn’t only to Africa. 4. Do not dump leftovers - mulch it. Maybe you will oppose that you don’t own a garden. But your neighbour might own one and may be able to help you to get rid of your leftovers.

Water

There are a lot of ways how to save water in your household, and I suppose you know at least some of them too. But there is one remarkable side of home. We got used to using toilets so much that we no longer think of them - as long as they perform the way the are supposed to. But do the math: find out how much water your household used in the last month through flushing. Big number, isn’t it? Now suppose you could reduce that by simply decreasing the amount of water your toilet needs every time you flush. Basically, we can mention two useful recommendations: 1. Purchase a new type of toilet that needs less water for flushing. Just stop by at your local shop - you might be surprised what choices regarding lavatories there are today! 2. Another way of reducing the amount of water for flushing is to put several plastic bottles filled with water into the tank of your toilet. You might have to keep trying a bit before you discover the right volume of water needed for the toilet to keep functioning fine.

Electric energy

Here the situation is similar to the one with water and wasting it - there are a lot of advices on how to save electric energy to be found in books, magazines and on the Internet. What I personally regard as being the biggest electricity waster is the often used tumble dryer. We got used to having everything we like or need immediately, that we no longer care how much superfluous resources are wasted just because we don’t want to wait. Of course we no longer want or have the time to wash our clothing by hand, and it is true that by using dishwashers we can waste less water. However, think about tumble dryers. Would it be such a great trouble if we just waited 1 - 2 days for our laundry to get dry? If you really want to “live green”, use your tumble dryer only in emergencies or get rid of it (sell it) completely. Not only the nature will be happy for your decision, but also you will pay less for electricity.