Hobbies And Interests
Reducing Waste
Items that are put into a landfill are items that have lost their potential for usefulness. Starting a recycling program at home is a way to find another purpose for plastics, glass, metals and paper that would normally go into the trash. Organizing the waste into recycling groups is the first step in reducing waste at home. Another way to reduce waste at home is to start a compost pile. Compost is a mixture of organic trash, like coffee grounds and fruit peels, that breaks down over time, which can then be used to fertilize the garden.
Create a Habitat
Creating homes and buildings for humans often means losing the natural environment that another animal might have been using. Creating a small habitat at home or school allows you to give back a home and environment for those animals to flourish. Making a birdhouse is one way to make a home for birds. Planting flowers that bees prefer helps give a pollen source that may not have been available before. Picking up trash at your local park is another way to make an existing habitat safer for animals to use.
Energy Conservation
Using energy is a daily ritual in nearly all aspects of our lives. From heating our homes to transporting our food and products, energy is being used all the time. Reducing the amount of energy spent can be as simple as turning down the heat. Turning down the heat in a home by a few degrees can help prevent carbon dioxide pollution and save money over the course of the year. Installing a reprogrammable thermostat can also be used to heat or cool your home an hour before you arrive instead of maintaining a temperature throughout the day.
Laundry
Cleaning out the lint trap from your dryer can help save energy to dry your clothes. When the trap is clean, the machine can dry clothes more efficiently and in return use less energy. Also washing a load or two in cold water rather than hot water can save on energy used to heat the water for the wash. Laundry detergents are being made to be effective in cold water, so you can still get your laundry done and not have to use hot water all the time.
Refill Your Water Bottle
Plastic water bottles are everywhere, even when we are at home. Consider investing in a water filter for the kitchen sink to use when you are at home. Buy a stainless steel water bottle to refill with water when you are away. If you know that you will drink more than one bottle of water while you are out, then think about buying another bottle so you can carry more. The investment will pay for itself over time as well as reduce the amount of plastic you are buying. Even if you recycle the plastic, it takes energy to bottle the water, for transportation to the store, storage of the water at the store, and energy to recycle the plastic once again.