Environmentally-friendly lifestyle tips and tricks are the main topic of many publications and web sites created in the last years. Though being a professional realtor gives me plenty of opportunities to talk about the many ways of eco-friendly living with my clients, my topic today will be a bit more specific. My aim today is not to cover the whole topic of environmentally conscious living, giving all the advice you’ve probably heard already. Instead, I would like to contemplate on groceries, water and electric current – as the three fundamental resources that we, who live in developed countries, tend to use without further thinking.

Groceries

Since the majority of people (I hope!) regularly recycle paper, glass and tins, most of your common waste is probably composted of food. The bulk of the food that we throw out is in most cases in flawless condition and in some cases even in the original wrapper or box. We can find out that out of all the groceries that Canadian families pick out and pay for in stores, 20 to 30% eventually ends up in the dustbin. Together with the food thrown away in stores and restaurants, it makes between 7 and 14 billion tonnes of food dumped annually. That is worth $3 to 5 billion Canadian dollars every year.

Now you are probably shocked by these figures, aren’t you? The main paradox is that we throw away so much food every day and at the same time so many charity societies are working hard, trying to help people who don’t have enough to eat. While it wouldn’t be too smart to pack unused foods and send it to countries hit by famine, there are other ways to avoid food being thrown out in vain. 1. Do you have any food left from yesterday? Try to use it for today’s lunch. For instance you can stuff some peppers with some remaining rice. 2. In your larder or food cabinet, try to stick to a simple rule: the food closest to the expiration date is always stocked in front of the fresher ones. 3. It may happen that you know beforehand that there is some food you are not going to be able to consume before its expiration date. Instead of throwing it away, try to find a local charity or soup kitchen and bring your food there when it’s still serviceable. Let some people eat it – hunger isn’t only to Africa. 4. If you have some leftovers anyway, try mulching it instead of just throwing it away. Always try to think in the way that food just shouldn’t be dumped. If you don’t own a garden yourself, try to find someone who does and can do the mulching.

Water

There are plenty of ways to avoid wasting water and you can probably name many of them yourself. But there is one interesting side of home water saving – toilets, as places we use to get rid of our faeces. Nowadays, toilets are absolutely fundamental – when they are working alright, we don’t even need to pay any attention to them. But try to find out the amount of water your family uses every month just for flushing the toilet. You might be amazed by the big number you get out of this. And has it ever occurred to you that this quantity is not essential, that flushing your toilet can be done using less water? You can try these two tips to using less water for flushing: 1. Substitute your old lavatory by a new model that has been designed to use as little water as possible. You might think that there is not much to choose from when buying a new lavatory, but just stop by at your nearest shop and see for yourself, you might be surprised! 2. If you place a couple of plastic bottles full of water into the tank of your lavatory, it will help you to save some water for flushing too. Keep testing to discover how little water is enough for the lavatory to function properly.

Electric energy

Just like with water, many tips on electricity waste prevention are accessible only and elsewhere. But one of the appliances that uses up great amounts of energy is one that you might be using daily: a tumble dryer. We got used to having anything we like or need immediately, that we no longer care how much superfluous resources are wasted just because we don’t want to wait. Of course we no more want or have the time to wash our clothing by hand, and it is true that by using dishwashers we can waste less water. However, think about tumble dryers. Would it be such a great problem if we just waited 1 – 2 days for our laundry to get dry? For people who are trying hard to make their lives less of an ecological burden, using a tumble dryer is acceptable only in acute cases. Even a better solution is to dispose of the dryer at all, or sell it. Apart from the environment, you will save some money on your electricity bills as well.