SGS: Electricity Vampires

Yesterday, one of my friends and avid readers of this blog mentioned that he's going to learn how to be green from my posts. As this friend of mine is an avid computer geek, I think that this post will be interesting to him.

This article tells you some ways in which you may be using extra electricity and not even realize it. Did you know that such things as the clock on your microwave uses more electricity than you using to heat up food. These sort of Energy Vampires can represent a significant part of your electricity bill, up to 20% in the article posted.

For a while, we had a hot water thermos that was always plugged into the wall. It's a device that you plug in, you put water into it, and it boils and keeps the water hot indefinitely (as long as it's plugged in). Instant hot water when we needed it. We got it as a gift from one of Hubby's friends. Well, within a month or so of using it, I noticed that our Hydro bill shooting up significantly. We finally figured it was the thermos and have kept it unplugged ever since. In fact, we now use a stainless steel kettle on the stove to heat any water we need. It takes some time to get the water heated, but it's well worth it in my mind, and after a while, I don't notice the wait.

Some other things that we have done to lower the Energy Vampires around our house:

• Our cell phone chargers are left unplugged unless we need to use them.
  
• We have also identified a number of other adapters which we have unplugged or shut off. The adapters are essentially transformers, and actually suck a bit of electricity whenever it's plugged in and not charging anything.
  
• We had three appliances in our kitchen, right next to each other, which told the time and heat food. We've since unplugged one of the them when not in use, after all, we don't need three clocks.
• Except for our PVR, our entertainment centre (TV, DVD player, receiver, etc) gets switched off during the day when we're out of the house.
• I actually unplug my work laptop adaptor when I'm not using it at home. No small feat for me as it requires a pregnant woman to crawl under her desk each time she wants to plug and unplug the adaptor.

I'm hoping in the future to arrange all the things that we keep plugged into walls and that are in a standby mode onto a power bar and to turn off the power bars when we are out of the house, or at least somehow get them off the grid when not in use. But baby steps is better than nothing at this point.

Some Green Stuff: Plastics

One of my original intentions before I got all knocked up was to green myself and my household as much as I could, lighten my "carbon footprint", and somehow be frugal while doing it. And to that end, create a separate green blog to document my thoughts, struggles, frustrations and triumphs. Well, that idea pretty much flew out the window because, frankly, I don't have the time and energy right now, or for the next few years to do so. So I've decided to stick these topics on this blog. I'm naming this series "Some Green Stuff".

Today's topic is plastics. I've been doing a fair bit of reading about plastics. Plastics are everywhere. Plastics are in places where you least expect them. And plastics can be toxic, to both you and the environment.

This article has a good summary of the most common types of plastics out there, what kind of harm it can do to the environment and to your body, and lists some alternatives that you can try out. I'm certain that there are nay-sayers out there who don't believe in this stuff, and that's fine, that's your opinion. However, the evidence is growing that plastics in general are not good.

I will admit that even within my own household, I haven't really taken a lot of steps to reducing my plastic consumption. What steps I have taken, I will blog about at a later date and time. I figured for myself, it will be baby steps, reduce plastic items slowly, one item at a time.

A couple of blogs that I read:

Fake Plastic Fish: I one thing I like about this blog is that the blogger shows all the plastic she encounters in her life. And it's surprising where some of the plastics she finds.

Life Less Plastic: Another person's quest to de-plasticise her life.