Living Green

Shared By Dan Lipsky

It seems that nearly everyone is trying to do some thing to help the environment these days. Whether or not you are taking online classes to decrease the number of papers generated and to eliminate commute time or are trying to come across ways to live greener, there is something you can do-even while living in a dorm. Take a look at the following ideas to understand what you can do to green your dorm life.

Decorating and Furnishing

Your dorm room is a reflection of your personality, so how it looks is important to numerous men and women. Learn how you can decorate and furnish your dorm room so that it looks fantastic and is very good for the environment.

1. Live plants. Unless it is against your dorm rules, invest in a few live plants for your dorm room. Not only will it add a personal touch, but plants are a great way to improve indoor air top quality.
2. Go used. Although the shiny new stuff at the huge box stores looks enticing, it is so a lot much better to go retro and get utilized stuff instead. Visit a thrift shop or check out craigslist to see what is offered.
three. Purchase locally. Don’t mess with shipping or otherwise transporting a ton of stuff from your parents’ home to your dorm. Instead, acquire locally to save on the transportation to and from each dorm move.
4. Get it free. Check out listings such as Freecycle or Freesharing that offer totally free classifieds full of stuff folks don’t want anymore.
5. Recycled furniture. Get creative with your furniture and use recycled parts to make awesome, unique furniture. 1 thought is to place an old door across two file cabinets for an instant desk.
6. Photos. Decorate your walls with personal photos. Either tack them up on their own or produce effortless and fun frames out of anything from tin cans to leather belts.
7. Bulletin board. Make a bulletin board out of old wine corks for a one-of-a-type board that costs almost nothing and keeps corks out of the landfill.
8. Organic bedding. Discover sheets, blankets, and pillows that are organic when buying bedding for your dorm room.
9. Convert a halogen torchiere lamp. A simple conversion can turn a hot halogen lamp into a cool, green compact florescent 1 that looks great too.
10. Love your tiny space. Dorm life means you have limited space. Use this scenario to practice decreasing waste and curbing consumerism. You’ll come across your space is not only cleaner, but you are living greener.

Conservation

These suggestions offer fantastic techniques to conserve energy and water in your dorm.

11. Hang dry clothes. Not all your clothes need to be dried in a dryer. In fact, some clothes actually do far better when not dried that way. Buy a sturdy drying rack and use it for drying t-shirts, cotton and linen clothes, and lingerie.
12. Cold water. Wash laundry in cold water to save on the energy required to heat water. Unless you have stubborn stains or odors, cold water will get your clothes clean. Cold water also preserves the life of your clothes so they last longer.
13. Full load of laundry. Throwing a blouse or a pair of pants alone into the wash is a waste of water, energy, and detergent. Make sure you are running a full load of laundry every time you use the washing machine.
14. No air conditioning. If you can, try to get by with out air conditioning. If this isn’t feasible, turn down the A/C even though you’re away instead of turning it all the way off. It will take much less energy to get it back up to a comfortable temperature.
15. Energy-efficient refrigerator. Refrigerators run constantly and call for lots of energy to stay cool. Be positive the refrigerator you purchase for your dorm room is energy efficient.
16. Showers. Save both water and energy when you take shorter showers.
17. Report leaks. Immediately report any leaks such as dripping toilet, sink or shower to maintenance. A leak can waste incredible amounts of water in a short time.
18. Water off. Do not keep the water running while brushing your teeth or shaving. Instead, turn off the water until you need it once more.
19. Power strips. Connect all your electronic devices to power strips, then turn every thing off with the flip of a switch when you are not in your room.
20. Sleep computers. Use much less energy to power your pc by putting your pc in sleep mode after 15 minutes and turning it off at night.
21. Light bulbs. Whenever achievable, switch the light bulbs in your room to energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs.
22. Natural light. If you get natural light from your windows, make sure your overhead lights are turned off whenever achievable.

Personal Care Products

Even though making your own toothpaste and hair conditioner may not appeal to everybody, these suggestions are great techniques to save the environment by eliminating packaging, transportation, and harmful chemicals.

23. No dryer sheets. If you want your laundry to smell fresh with out the chemicals of the dryer sheets, put a few drops of an essential oil on a wash cloth and throw it in with your clothes.
24. Cleaning items. Clean your dorm with simple and all natural products such as baking soda, vinegar, tea tree oil, or lemon juice.
25. Dusting. Use an old piece of clothing or old towel to dust. Instead of 1-time-use dusting clothes full of chemicals, these reusable rags can simply be thrown in the laundry with your clothes. If you miss your furniture polish in a can, try a natural version making use of olive oil instead.
26. Toothpaste. Skip the tube of toothpaste that uses manufacturing, packaging, and transportation to your store and use homemade toothpaste with baking soda and water.
27. Body scrub. Make a straightforward, yet luxurious, body scrub with just a bit of oil, sugar or salt, and a couple of drops of vital oil for scent.
28. Shampoo. No matter what hair kind you have, there is a recipe for eco-friendly shampoo you can simply make appropriate in your dorm room.
29. Hair conditioner. Another way to save on packaging and manufacturing is to make your own hair conditioner with basic ingredients such as eggs, avocado, honey, or yogurt.
30. Facials. For the ultimate in pampering, make your own facial scrubs that are also earth-friendly.
31. Mouth wash. Make your own eco-friendly mouthwash using herbs, mineral water, and crucial oils.

Purchasing, Preparing, Disposing of Food

From buying organic food to spearheading a community garden for the entire dorm, these tips will have your dorm eating green in no time.

32. Crock pot. For simple cooking in your dorm room that uses quite little electricity, try a crock pot.
33. Organic. You can be even greener by purchasing organic foods to cook in your crock pot.
34. Acquire in bulk. Bulk goods typically have less packaging material and price less. Even much better, split up the bulk items with other students and share costs.
35. Drink tap water. Bottled water not only demands manufacturing of the plastic bottle, but shipping that occasionally takes those bottles from half way around the world.
36. Water bottle. Use a reusable water bottle for that tap water you will be drinking instead of paper or styrofoam.
37. Buy locally. Purchase from local grocery stores. If the local stores do not have a location within walking distance, ask them to think about a campus-accessible store.
38. Skip the packaging. Some stores already have stopped packaging their produce. Try foregoing the produce bag and take a reusable produce bag for those times when you genuinely need one.
39. Whole foods. Entire foods are those not processed that come straight from the source. These foods call for much less manufacturing and do not have lots of added chemicals.
40. Eat locally. When you select locally grown food, you are cutting out tons of transportation and handling that may harm the environment.
41. Community garden. Put your leadership skills to work and organize a community garden at your dorm. The food grown in the garden can be supplied to the dining hall.

Decrease, Reuse, Recycle

Follow these ideas to reduce, reuse, and recycle around your dorm.

42. Compost. Create a compost for food scraps for the dining hall and the dorm. The compost generated from this project can be utilized in a community garden or donated to a local charity.
43. Community board. Set up a community board for your dorm that facilitates swapping items so that utilized furniture, clothes, and gadgets don’t end up in the landfill.
44. Recycling bin. If your dorm doesn’t have a recycling program, set up 1 complete with bins throughout the dorm and a way to get the recycling picked up or delivered to a recycling center.
45. Batteries. Old batteries that go to landfills leak dangerous chemicals into the soil, so set up a collection bin in the dorm and take them to a recycling center instead.
46. Cartridges. Employed ink jet cartridges are also harmful for landfills. Put a recycling bin next to the battery bin so you can collect cartridges to be refilled and reused.
47. Rain water. If your dorm doesn’t have a rain water collection system, work with the school to begin one. They are straightforward to install and offer free of charge water for your community garden or any other landscape usage.
48. Recycled paper. When buying paper for your schoolwork, make certain it is recycled. Also, when you are finished with the paper, put it in the recycling bin.
49. Bags. Take reusable bags with you to the store. If you forget and end up with plastic or paper bags, reuse them in creative techniques.
50. Rechargeable batteries. Whenever achievable, select rechargeable batteries in your electronic devices. This reduces the number of batteries that require to be recycled or could make their way to the landfill.

Shared By Dan Lipsky