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Just a few small changes in our everyday activities can enormously help our environment. In our never ending campaign to help bring a better world to our customers and others IDT Energy in New York has collected a few easy to do suggestions for making our world a better place to live.
1. Adjust your thermostat. Just a slight increase in temperature in the summer and decrease in the winter, let’s say about two degrees Fahrenheit, can make a big difference. Not only do you save on the cost of electricity but over a year you will have saved lots of energy, too.
2. Adjust the temperature in your fridge. The recommended temperature to store food is 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 5 degrees in the freezer. Keeping the refrigerator’s thermostat set to maintain these temperatures will help lengthen the life of your fridge as well as saving you money and energy.
3. In nice weather let the sun shine in. Turn off lights during the day and use natural light and save. When it’s hot outside you can use curtains and blinds to block out the hot sun and keep your cooling bill down. Switching to CFL bulbs (compact fluorescent light) saves electricity and reduces the amount of heat produced by ordinary incandescent bulbs.
4. Clean more efficiently. Shorter shower can save lots of water. A ten minute shower uses about 50 gallons of water. By just taking five minutes less you can save about 25 gallons of water. Be careful to only use your dishwasher and clothes washer when full to get maximum efficiency of water use. And cold water washes using cold water detergents also saves energy, as does air drying your clothes and dishes whenever possible.
5. Rechargeable batteries can also save you lots of money and they are much more energy efficient.
IDT Energy believes that people helping people help the environment is a worthy goal and we are glad to be here to help you.
IDT Energy is committed to improving awareness of the effects energy use has on the planet. As an ESCO IDT Energy empowers its customers so that they can make informed choices about how much they spend on their energy as well as where their energy comes from: whether it is from traditional sources such as coal or other fossil fuel, or to begin to make the move to renewable energy sources, such as wind or sun.
But people don’t always have to leave this movement to the big guys like public utilities. Each individual can make a difference. Here are some tiny ways each of us can help improve the quality of life here on planet earth.
1. Turn off your car’s engine. When you let your car’s engine idle it emits 6-7 grams of pollutants into the air each minute, and you’re not even getting anywhere! And you’re also wasting precious gasoline. You can drive a full mile on the amount of gas wasted by idling for just two minutes.
2. Eat less meat. Raising livestock, processing, packaging and shipping of meat products has been estimated to cause 18% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. By just eating one less meat meal per week the Environmental Defense Fund estimates that there would be the equivalent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions as if we took off one-half million cars from the roads.
3. Use less electricity. It takes about two cars worth of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions to power the average house. Reduce your electric bill whenever possible; by turning of lights when not in use, unplugging appliances when not needed such as cell phone chargers and other appliances which continue to use energy even when not in use, as long as they are still plugged in. A power strip lets you turn off and “unplug” several appliances at the same time.
4. Pay bills on-line and save on paper consumption. You’ll also save money on postage and it will be even easier to keep track of your bills and payment history.
More tips next time.
