5 remarkably easy things you can do to help Hamilton’s environment

1. Use your green bin as much as you can

You’d be surprised how much can actually go in that thing. Food scraps including meat, tissues, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, yogurt, wood, egg shells and much more can go in.

If you use your green bin to its capacity, you should be able to go weeks without having to take out an actual garbage bag—and it won’t stink either because all you’ll likely have in it is non-recyclable plastic bags and packaging.

2. Buy some reusable canvas grocery bags

Most people have these bags already but some people tend to forget them when they take a trip to the store. They don’t want to have to buy more, so they settle for a couple plastic bags.

Two solutions: 1. Most people make a list before they go to the grocery store. When you start a new list, write ‘bags’ at the very top of it and you’ll begin to form the habit or remembering. 2. Buy more canvas bags anyway, and if you find yourself with a surplus, give some away. You could start a bag bin at your office for anyone who needs them. Get creative.

3. Hand-wash your small dishes

Most of our meals in a day aren’t very messy. Cereal bowls, sandwich plates, etc. don’t need to be power washed in a machine; a couple wipes with a soapy sponge will do the trick to clean a dish with nothing more than some milk or crumbs on it. Save the dishwasher for messy plates covered with spaghetti sauce, and take a couple minutes each night to hand-wash the little things. You’ll end up using the dishwasher far less and saving water.

4. Turn down your heat

If your house only needs to be around 18 C in the summer, it logically only needs to be around 18 C in the winter too—you’re probably wearing sweaters anyway. Your house doesn’t need to be hot in the winter, just comfortable. You’ll save on hydro or gas if you just turn it down a couple degrees.

5. Drying rack

You can buy collapsible drying racks for very little. Just hang your clothes on it for a couple hours before putting them in the dryer and they’ll only need to go in for five or ten minutes. This will drastically alter your energy usage and, let’s not forget, your energy bill.

Share post

Tags

• environment
• green
• Recycling