By Anitra Krishnan
Okay, so this isn’t the most ideal way of expressing a core issue, but I thought that if people could relate to some of these stories, maybe they’ll actually take the advice provided. So let’s get started.
As you can see just by looking at the title, I’m going to talk about saving energy. Now, this is something that has been taught to us ever since we were tiny tots in our crib watching TV Shows like “The Good Night Show”. Look it up if you can’t remember. On these specific shows, there would be stories about how kids save energy by turning off drippy faucets and by turning off lights when the sun was out. See, back then we were all good little eggs who listened to advice given by an electronic box and winded up helping the environment. But now that we’re all grown and times have changed, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen and heard in regards to saving energy.
When I went to my friend’s house for the first time, I walked inside and I literally became blind since they had every single light bulb in their home turned on to the maximum brightness. I ask them to turn the lights off and open the curtains to let sunlight in because these rays coming from light bulbs aren’t healthy, to say the least. Especially if you’re basking in them from the minute you wake up till the minute you go back to sleep. They listened to me and then said “Wow! This is so much nicer! Why haven’t we thought about this before?” And I was very shocked. I, being the naive self that I am, never thought that ADULTS would have a difficult time in saving energy and that their teenage children would say nothing about it.
I went up to my friend’s room and I saw multiple different devices on at once. Did I mention that my friend was stinking rich? Anyways, I asked her why her laptops, her iPad, her kindle, and her phone were all on, when she was just reading a book (Not on her kindle). And she responded with “Oh… I must have forgotten to turn them off. Oh well.” Oh well? Is that all you can respond with? I was just completely shocked.
Honestly, saving energy isn’t that hard. There are three major things anyone should consider when saving energy. Since I’ve noticed many people struggling to notice them, I thought I’d help everyone out. So here are the three major points to consider when saving energy.
Conserving Water
If you don’t know, water is a major source of energy. Water has many roles in electricity. From thermoelectric plants which help to create steam from boiling water to simply powering your dishwasher. This is also one of the main energy sources that we waste the most. According to another article “How Much Water Do We Waste?”, “ United States households lose over 1 trillion gallons in total each year. Ten percent of American homes squander 90 gallons of water on a daily basis.” That is extremely high. So, here are some very easy ways to prevent this from happening.
Make sure you do not have a leaky faucet. 3,000 gallons of water are lost per year due to leaky faucets. That’s enough water to take more than 180 showers. This leads to my next point.
Take short showers instead of baths. Now this is just common sense. Showers use way less water than filling up a tub. But it won’t if you take 1-2 hour long showers, which many people actually do. So, try to take a 20 minute shower or less and every once in a few months if you want to relax in a bath, go for it.
Put Dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Instead of washing dirty dishes in the sink and then putting them in the dishwasher to waste more water than need be, just put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. It gets clean either way.
Electricity Usage moderation.
As you all probably know, electricity is what aids us throughout our day. We use it to power light bulbs in order to see in the dark, to power our phones for the day, to charge out laptops and computers, etc. But we seem to forget that sometimes, using too much energy can be harmful. With the amount of electrical energy that the United States wastes, it could produce 96 gigawatts of electric power. Which is a whole lot. Here are some ways you can prevent Electric Energy wastage.
Make sure that you TURN OFF the lights after leaving a room or if there is a good amount of sunlight coming through the window. A 75 watt bulb burning for 10 hours consumes 750 watts. That is way too much. So the best way to cut that amount down would be to use light only when it is dark outside or if your room doesn’t have a window. Even so, turn off the lights after you leave a room so electrical energy isn’t wasted.
This one is more for teenagers and adults who use electrical appliances throughout their day. The average screen time for a teenager is 7 hours and 22 minutes and for an adult it is 11 hours! To make things worse, multiple devices are left on during the same 7 or 11 hours. This is such a stupid way of wasting electricity and it also ruins your eye-sight. In order to take care of this, try using one appliance at a time and before switching to another, turn that appliance off. If possible, try to minimize the amount of screen time and go read a book or write some homework on paper, but since it is difficult to do so at this age, it’s understandable.
Thermal Energy Regulation.
This might sound crazy, but it is possible to waste heat energy. It is caused by dangerous gases being released into the atmosphere such as Greenhouse Gasses. Another form that most of us are familiar with are gasoline, diesel, large fires that are used to burn trash in landfills, and energy used to power our home heaters. Now, heat energy being emitted are the main causes for air pollution, global warming, and ocean acidification. There are three easy things that can be done in order to lessen these emissions.
Use the heating in your homes less. It is very unhealthy and also emits radiation. This is pretty easy. Instead of turning up the heat, try wearing more layers. It is a better way of keeping warm. During the night, turn off the heater and use a warmer down blanket. Take hot showers as well.
Try to cut down the number of times you use vehicles that burn diesel or gasoline. 21.3 billion tonnes (21.3 gigatonnes) of carbon dioxide (CO2) are produced per year by burning fossil fuels.Try using vehicles that are solar powered if necessary, or just try driving your vehicle to places that take more than 20-30 minutes walk. Maybe use a bike.
Recycling is another easy thing to fix the trash-pile fires that happen to burn excessive trash in landfills. 251 million tons of trash are produced per year and if burnt, a great amount of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere and into oceans. So by preventing trash piles from stocking up, heat emissions with other toxic chemicals will be lessened tremendously.
And that’s it! It really isn’t that difficult to help keep the environment healthy. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll be an energy saving expert. It may be a bit difficult at first since you have to work these steps into your lifestyle, but it isn’t impossible. Just follow these simple steps and work them into your every day routine, and you can save a whole lot of energy. Good luck!
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