Five Easy Ways to be Environmentally Friendly in Your Home

These days the pressure is on everyone to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.  A daunting task to say the least.  The good news is you can become environmentally friendly in easy, do-able steps.

By taking things one-step at a time you will, slowly but surely, be making positive changes in your home that will effect the environment.  To get you started, here are five easy steps you can take today:

Ø  Feather Pillows.  By switching to a natural fiber fill in your pillows you will be helping the environment by: A> keeping a natural fiber from ending up in the landfill, B> not supporting the processing of synthetic materials, C> reducing the amount of time it takes for your pillows to decompose in the landfill when they are no longer good.

Ø  Reusable Containers.  It doesn’t matter if you are putting leftovers in the refrigerator or packing a lunch to the office, reusable containers are the way to go.  Durable, plastic containers with lids are perfect for storing foods in the fridge or freezer.  They also work better for lunches since your meal won’t end up squished like they easily could in plastic bags.  Reusable containers even work out to be cheaper than plastic in the long run.

Ø  Wash Full Loads.  The washing machine and the dishwasher are designed to wash full loads so take advantage of it.  By washing only when you have a full load you are saving on energy, water and detergent.  Over time this can add up to significant savings.  Take things a step further and do your washing during the off-peak hours to reduce the load on your energy supplier.

Ø  Eco-Friendly Products.  Take time to read the labels on your cleaning products.  Try to choose natural products and products listed as being environmentally friendly to help reduce the pollutants that you are inadvertently releasing into the environment.  You could even look for products that contain an amount of recycled material in its makeup.  This is easy to do with paper products.

Ø  Pull The Plug.  Even when your appliances and electronics are turned off they are still using power.  Your TV and surround sound or stereo systems are prime examples.  To be more eco-friendly plug these components into a power bar and when you are done using them in the evening simply click the power bar off.

These are only five of the simplest ways you can be more environmentally friendly in your home. 

They may seem like small, insignificant things but it all adds up.  Just think of the cumulative effect if even half of the population of the United States or Canada applied some simple environmentally friendly steps into their everyday life.

Here are a couple links to articles that can help you with your environmentally friendly make-over :

Unplug Your Vampire Appliances

Save Your Money Go Green

Five Ways To Re-Use Cardboard