Earth Week 2020: 10 Ways to Save Energy

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and to honor this milestone anniversary, we are sharing 50 earth-friendly ideas, tips, and activities broken down into five different themes.

Our theme today is ENERGY. Energy efficiency means you use less energy to do the same jobs, reducing your home’s energy waste and in addition, saving you money. To effectively increase your energy efficiency you need to become more aware of how energy is used, where it’s wasted, and how it can be used more effectively and efficiently in everyday life.

The benefits of consuming less energy include limiting the number of carbon emissions in the environment, conserving the earth’s natural resources and protecting ecosystems from destruction.

10 Ways to save energy and contribute to cleaner air quality and a healthier world:

1. Ride a bicycle instead of driving your car.
2. Turn off unnecessary water – especially while you are washing for 20 seconds!
3. Make reminders around the house to turn off devices and lights.
4. Challenge yourself to cutting down your showers to 3 minutes or less! Use cold or lukewarm water instead of hot.
5. Air dry your clothes.
6. Replace inefficient incandescent light bulbs with efficient CFLs or LEDs to reduce your carbon footprint by up to 450 pounds a year.
7. Explore switching to green power.
8. Install low-flow showerheads (save ½ the amount of water!) and fix leaky faucets (they can waste 10,000 gallons of water a year!)
9. Replace your desktop computer every 4 years. (or switch to a laptop – they use up to 80% less electricity!)
10. Paul Hawken’s Project Drawdown lists “refrigerant management” as the No. 1 solution⁠ to global warming, in terms of potential impact. Use Energy Star’s calculator to check energy costs based on the age and type of your fridge. How to choose a new one.