Eco-Friendly Ways to Change Your Home

Is your home as environmentally friendly as it could be? Probably not, and we have a few suggestions that most people could implement to make their home safer for themselves and their families while reducing their negative impact on the environment.

Use Safer Cleaners

A lot of the cleaning supplies people use in their homes are not very good for the environment or for the people who use them. They contain chemicals and toxins that can leave behind a dangerous residue or that can contaminate the air we breathe. It’s important to choose natural, safe cleaners as much as possible. This often means buying cleaners from different stores or just paying closer attention to the labels.

When hiring a cleaning company, make sure they use eco-friendly cleaning solutions. A lot of people sue professional cleaning companies to take care of their homes these days, and yet they don’t take the time to ask what kind of cleaning chemicals are being used by these companies. They may be cleaning the house, but are they leaving anything unpleasant behind? Eco-friendly homeowners should be checking with their cleaning companies about what they are using to clean with.

Reuse Packaging

How much waste is created by all the packaging that we discard. The packaging for our food and other consumables usually goes straight into the trash, but what if we were to reuse it and recycle it? Plastic, paper and glass can be recycled easily enough, if you have bins set up for each of these products and then faithfully take them to the recycling centers near you. If you don’t have a recycling center in your area, you can always reuse the items yourself, turning class jars into storage containers, paper and cardboard into compost and plastic into variety of planters, wrappings and other item based on what kind of plastic it is.

Conserve Water

One of the biggest wastes in the home is the water we use. How much of it is simply washed down the drain, never to be seen from again? That can be remedied mostly by using water less. If we take shorter showers, wash dishes in a sink of water instead of using running water and brush our teeth with the water turned off as much as possible, we could save gallons every day. We can also save water by only running the dishwasher or clothes washer on a full load and doing some of those chores by hand that we usually use a machine for.

Insulate the Home

This one will take a bit more work, but if people install proper insulation in their home and ensure there are no place that air can enter or leave, then that can cut down on electrical bills considerably. Insulation helps to keep the house cool in the summer but it does even more to keep it warm in the winter. We could use far less electricity by properly insulating our homes and then not needing to use the heating system so often.

Read our previous article on keeping your laundry clean.