Eco-Friendly Upgrades to Your Home
You don’t let the faucet run while you brush your teeth. You recycle. You even compost your food scraps. There are plenty of ways that you can be more eco-friendly, but upgrades to your home solidify your dedication to the cause. If you’re considering making your dwelling greener than ever before, check out the following six potential upgrades. Choose the one that will make the biggest impact on your life and stock up on the greenest supplies you can find to make it a reality; no matter what you choose, the Earth will appreciate it.
- Fix Up Old Floors
Perhaps tile or linoleum floors just aren’t up to par with your design vision, or you’ve always dreamed of having sleek, shiny wood floors running through your home. Either way, you can breathe a little bit easier knowing that you won’t have to sacrifice a forest for your own design desires.
If you do a little research, you can find brands that sell reclaimed wood with which to cover your floors. These materials are often clearly labeled as reclaimed wood, though you might have to hurry to get our hands on them: they’re flying off the shelves, as people seem to appreciate the fact that their new wood floors won’t require anyone to cut down more trees.
You can make this option even greener by ensuring that the installation is green, too. That means that you won’t use any adhesives that contain formaldehydes or other chemicals that pollute the air both inside and out of your home.
- Branch Out From Granite
In recent years, it seems that granite has become the be-all, end-all of kitchen countertop materials. Sure, it’s beautiful to look at and every slab is unique. Clearly, though, mined granite requires more resources to extract, transport and install than other countertops created from recycled materials.
You won’t have to sacrifice style for your peace of mind, either. Check out a material like terazzo, for example. It brings together recycled consumer glass and concrete for an extremely durable surface that’s also extremely eye-catching. You’ll find that there are plenty of colors and styles to choose from, too, so you won’t feel like you’re getting a cookie-cutter kitchen.
- Spruce Up What You’ve Already Got …
You still like your patio furniture, but its rusty metal facade makes it look old and out of style. You might consider tossing it and buying a whole new set, but think again: You can rely on environmentally friendly products to spruce up many of your things to make them like new.
In the case of your patio furniture, you could try something like an eco-friendly powder coating, which professionals use to keep industrial metal and public works in great shape for decades. In fact, it’ll keep your furniture safeguarded for up to 20 years, which saves you money and saves your local landfill some space. Seek out these types of options wherever possible — you’re sure to find materials, design techniques and other tricks that’ll have you saving green and going green simultaneously.
- … Or Buy Smartly
Of course, if it’s impossible to give your existing furniture a facelift, you can always check out secondhand stores and flea markets to find products that have already been built and used to ensure that no resources are harmed in the redecoration of your home. If you must buy something completely new, you can research its origins to ensure you’re purchasing from a responsible artisan who uses the most Earth-friendly supplies as possible.
- Keep Things Hot When It’s Cold Outside
Those who live in old homes know that good insulation is the difference between a cozy night’s sleep and one spent shivering under layers and layers of blankets. Although many old houses have the sturdiest of foundations, their building materials are not as effective at keeping heat inside when temperatures have dropped outside.
A great investment in your beloved old dwelling is in its insulation. It’ll fix this problem and can even help lower your heating bill. There are plenty of green insulation options, to boot. One example is GreenFiber Cocoon, which is made mostly of recycled newspapers.
- Clean Up Your Rainwater
No umbrella or rain boots required here. In fact, you don’t have to put much manual effort into cleaning up the rainwater that drains from your lawn. Often, this runoff picks up pollutants, salt, chemicals and other unsavory additions that run right into your hometown’s water supply – nobody wants to drink that.
By strategically placing plants into the depressions where rainwater collects, you’ll be doing as much as you can to keep things clean. That’s because the plants will soak up a good portion of the water that would otherwise absorb into the ground, thus keeping it from entering the water supply.
With these simple yet effective home upgrades, you’ll be doing yourself – and the planet – a favor.
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