1. Return bottles and cans to a recycling depot.Go to any Return-It depot to recycle your bottles, cans, or jugs. You will get the money back that you paid at the point of purchase for the deposit, and you can get rid of a lot of material that may just go into your garbage. This reduces the need for more plastics, conserving resources and reduces the amount of plastic in the environment.
Visit http://www.return-it.ca/locations/ to find a location near you in Canada.
2. Carpool whenever you are able to.
Carpooling may seem like a bit of a pain, but not when it's well organized. If everyone sets up a place to meet, when to meet, and how much money to pay it works really well. To find out how much money each person has to pay, find out the distance to your workplace using the travel odometer. Then divide that amount by how many kilometers your car can go per liter of gas.This will give you approximately how many liters of gas it takes your car to get to your workplace. Then multiply that number by the price of gas to find how much money it takes to get to work. Lastly, divide that number by how many people there are in the car to find out how much each person has to pay.
For example, your workplace is 15 kilometers away and you and three others are carpooling. If your car can go 5 kilometers on 1 liter of gas and the price of gas is $1.50/liter, your costs would be:
15kilometers/5kilometers per liter of gas = 3 liters of gas
3 liters of gas * $1.50 per liter of gas = $4.50 per trip
$4.50 per trip/4 people = $1.125 per person
This would amount to $22.50 per person, per month. That's a savings of about $70 per month because you're not paying alone! Also, this helps cut down the pollution in the environment.
3.Use cold water when washing clothes.
Some people may think that certain types or colours of clothing demand warm or hot water. In fact, almost all types of clothing can be cleaned in cold water. There are detergents out there that are made to be used in just cold water, such as Tide Cold Water Detergent (http://www.tide.com/en-CA/product/tide-coldwater.jspx). This can save you money because you wont have to waste energy heating up water!
4. Replace single paned windows with double paned windows.
Though it may be costly to install it, the money you'll save from not needing to air condition/heat your house will pay itself off in the future. You'll also be saving energy by not having an air conditioner running or a heater on all day. You also wont need to get up and change the heat or air conditioning settings if it gets too hot or too cold. All this while being more green!
5. Replace regular light bulbs with CFLs.
Ever see those swirly, ice cream like light bulbs? Those are CFLs, or Compact Fluorescent Lamps. These light bulbs use around three to four times less power than regular light bulbs, and last eight to fifteen times longer than ordinary bulbs. Although CFLs are more expensive, the fact that you have to buy new ones less and they use less power actually saves you money!
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