save electricity
Eco-Friendly Tip:Turn off the tap
A simple but useful tip, says Habiba Al Marashi, Chairperson in Emirates Environmental Group in Dubai (EEG) is to turn the water off while you brush your teeth. “This alone can save four gallons a minute and also to avoid the nuisance of a leaky tap, put food colouring in your toilet tank,” she says as if it seeps into the toilet bowl, you have a leak. It’s easy to fix, and you can save more than 600 gallons a month.
Save electricity
Simple things like switching off the lights when you leave the room can make a difference. “Use energy saving light bulbs, they last up to 10 times longer than ordinary bulbs,” says Al Marashi.
Laundry
Always remember to wash clothes in cold water and use hot water only for very dirty loads. Aim to do only full laundry loads however, if you must do smaller loads, adjust the water level in the washing machine to match the load size, especially when using hot water. Use bath towels at least twice before washing them. And most importantly, take advantage of UAE’s naturally sunny climate and dry laundry outdoors.
Reuse and Recycle
Instead of throwing out old food which ultimately makes dangerous gas methane, turn it into compost for your garden. Glass too is one hundred percent recyclable and once melted, can be re-used. Textiles can even be shredded and the fibres made into new fabrics. (Source: Recycle Dubai)
Say no to plastic
Did you know that plastic takes one thousand years to decompose and paper bags use 14 million trees a year? Instead, switch to reusable grocery bags. For plastic bags, recycle them by using them as bin liners and to store food.
Download Your Music/Movies
CD cases are often made with polyvinyl chloride, which doesn’t recycle easily so instead, download new music which reduces production costs and energy. It also reduces packaging and CDs that end up in the landfill.
Use Natural Cleaning Products
Saadiya Ahmad, a journalist from Sharjah switched to natural cleaning products recently; “I use vinegar to clean glass surfaces and lemon juice for grease,” she explained. To clean a murky toilet, pour a can of Coke down it and let it sit; flush and watch the stains disappear! (Source: www.greenusesforwaste.co.uk)
Lose the Paper
In Elizabeth Rogers “The Green Book”, one of the easiest tips is giving up one paper napkin a day. You’ll save a billion pounds of paper waste in landfills a year
Car Pool
Avoid driving to work alone; Marianne Walters from Dubai says she has ditched her car except for weekend outings. “I realized that several colleagues live nearby so we’ve started ride sharing,” she says, adding, “I love not having the headache of daily driving….”
Beauty
LUSH Dry Shampoo ‘No Drought’ is a great product to use as an occasional alternative to shampoo with ingredients such as corn flour and talc to absorb excess oil and fragrance from natural ingredients such as delicious smelling lemon, grapefruit and lime oils.
Save electricity with your computer:
Decrease your brightness :Research has found that power consumption can be as much as halved by simply dropping the screen brightness. For example, an LG L192WS 19-inch LCD monitor consumes 32.4W with the brightness at 100 percent and just 15.1W with the brightness at 0 percent.
Switch everything off at the wall :A standard business PC or LCD monitor and
printer has a power consumption of approximately 9W. Each PC/monitor/printer combo switched off at the wall would save for the conservative eight hours a night they’re not used, saving 26.28 kilo-watt-hours per year.
Turn off your PC after work :According to power consumption tests, the average PC consumes approximately just over 100-watts. Add to that a typical 19-inch LCD screen and you increase that by another 40-watts.If you choose a conservative time frame of 12 hours that a PC is left on and not being used, you can cut the power consumption down from 140-watts combined to around 8W.
