10 ways to Make Home Sustainable

10 ways to Make Home Sustainable

What is sustainable home? Is it a home which is sufficient in itself in all aspect? Or is it a home which do not have a carbon footprint? First type can exist only in imagination but second type can be achieved.

For a home, Carbon footprint is total Green House Gas (GHG) emissions released by that home, expressed in CO2 equivalent. Let’s look at 10 ways to reduce the carbon footprint for a home.

Let’s start from the less costly and easily implementable ways. First way is to optimize the consumption of everything be it electricity, water or any other material. This will reduce carbon footprint in production, supply stage.

Secondly do maximum work during day light. This will reduce electricity consumption and hence the carbon footprint.

Thirdly, use solar cooker to cook food and solar water heater to warm the water. Using such preheated water for cooking will also reduce gas consumption as well as save time on cooking.

            Fourthly, start a terrace garden. It will provide you fresh vegetables. You can use your kitchen waste into the terrace garden as fertilizer for garden plants.

 

Figure 1  Image Source : Google

            Fifthly, whenever you have to go to a place which is less than a kilometer away, walk and if it’s within 5 kilometer use bicycle. This will not only save on fuel but will also reduce consumption of fuel.

            Next is to plant trees around your home. This will keep your home cool and lessen the heat effect. It will also contribute to lessening net carbon footprint.

            Seventhly, arrange for treatment of the waste water generated from kitchen and bathroom before releasing it into drain.

            Eightly, If you have lot of place available around your house, you can look into setting up a mini bio-gas plant. This will give you place for waste disposal and also provide you good quality manure for your garden.

            Ninthly, have solar rooftop PV system. At least it will run your lights and fans. This will save a lot of electricity bill for you and also reduce carbon footprint of your house.

 

            Lastly, if you are modifying the house, try to keep large windows and glass doors with curtain so that maximum natural light can be used.

              Certainly there are more ways than this. Even implementing a minute of these ways will contribute to increasing sustainability and finally to saving our Mother Earth.