21 tips on how you can become greener

We are living in a world that is becoming more and more green, but how can You help yourself make a difference without changing a lot? Most people don’t have time to demonstrate together with Greenpeace or use 4 days to cook a chicken using your brainpower. That is why I have written down these 21 tips on how you can become greener and make a huge difference.

1. Insulate your house
   The first step You can take to become more green is to make sure your house is insulated properly. Many people live in old houses with old standards of insulation and this results in your spending more energy to heat your house. By insulating your house You can save lots of money on either your heating or electricity bill.
2. Install a heat recovery system in your house.
   It is a really good idea to install a heat recovery system in your house. A system like that will reuse the heat from your house to create more heat and in that way save money on your electricity bill. If you have a water heater in your basement heating up water for the whole house, the system will help heat the water and in that way save you money.
3. Buy 100% green / sustainable energy.
   It can be hard and difficult to choose the right electricity supplier and almost all of them promise you stuff that will make you choose them. The mistake that many people do is to choose the cheapest one to save money on your electricity bill. The reality is that we use lots of electricity in our homes and it is important to know where that electricity comes from. Lots of suppliers promise you cheap electricity but they get electricity from polluting methods. I recommend that you buy your electricity from a supplier that gives you 100% green and sustainable energy. Tip: Read the text thoroughly to understand it. Many suppliers will provide green energy during the day and polluted energy at night.
4. Install solar panels on your roof.
   Green energy is the future and solar panels will be one of the primary ways of generating electricity using nature. In some countries, You already get great benefits if you buy and install solar panels on your roof. To give an example: In Sweden, you get tax-reduction when you have solar panels on your roof. More and more appliances are driven by electricity so to fill the demand world-wide everyone will have to participate and do their part. With solar panels, you will be using your own generated electricity when you are home and when you are not home you will be selling the electricity to your supplier.
5. Set indoor temperature to 20C (68F) in the winter.
   In the winter we spend lots of money on heating our apartments or homes and you can help your electricity or heating bill by setting your maximum temperature to 20C degrees (68 Fahrenheit). By setting your temperature lower you use less energy to heat your house or apartment and that way you help to lower the production of electricity.
6. Set the temperature in the freezer to -16C (3.2F).
   A ton of tests has shown that you can set the temperature of your freezer to -16C (3.2 Fahrenheit). Most people set it to a temperature between -20C (-4 Fahrenheit) and down to -28C (-18.4 Fahrenheit) which is unnecessary. The food will stay fresh and you will lower your electricity bill significantly by lowering the temperature of your freezer to -16C (3.2 Fahrenheit)
7. Set the temperature in the fridge to 7C (44.6F).
   Studies have shown that a good temperature in the fridge is 7 degrees Celcius which will keep milk and food fresh. Most people have the fridge set 2–4 degrees Celcius (35.6F — 39.2F), but it not necessary to keep the food fresh. You will experience such low temperatures that food being stored in the back of the fridge turn to ice. By setting the temperature to 7C you will get a lower electricity bill.
8. Switch out all your lightbulbs with LED.
   A giant step in the right direction of becoming more green is to switch out all of your old lightbulbs with LED bulbs. LED is using very little energy and therefore it will reduce your electricity bill significantly. Tip: It is a good idea to pay a little extra to get LED bulbs that last 25.000 hours (7–13 years). Normal LED bulbs from the super marked last about 3000 hours. The difference between these two types of bulbs is approx. 4–5 USD, so in the long run, you will be saving the planet lots of broken bulbs and also your wallet.
9. Buy and install WiFi sockets.
   WiFi sockets are great and they don’t cost much. They make it easy and quick to turn on/off electronics in your home and you can even do it using Google Home or Alexa. Turning off unused appliances can save you up to 20 USD a year and if you have more than the usual amount of electronics it can save you even more.
10. Turn off lights or dim them.
    We often forget to turn off the light in a room that we are no longer in, but if You do it every time you will save significantly on your electricity bill and in the long run you will also save money on buying bulbs. When You think about it there is absolutely no reason to have the lights turned on when you are not in the room. It doesn’t benefit anyone and it only increases your electricity bill. Also when you are in a room you can dim your lights a bit. Often we don’t need full light to see, so lowering your bulbs for example to 70% will give you a 30% saving.
11. Use an air fryer instead of an oven.
    This is one of the parts that are often forgotten, but by using an air fryer instead of an oven when making food such as fries you will save lots of energy. An oven has to heat a large space to cook your food and unless you are using the entire space of the oven it is simply not worth it. An air fryer is small and only heats a limited space to cook your food, therefore it will be the best option to save electricity while cooking.
12. Set the TV to automatically set the backlight.
    One thing in your home using a lot of electricity is your flatscreen TV. Most families have either one or several flatscreens and as standard, they often have the backlight set to 100%. If you use a 55” flatscreen with a 2000 lumen backlight then it becomes pretty expensive even though it is using LED. Therefore you can save significantly on your electricity bill if you set your Tab to automatically dim the backlight to fit your current light level.
13. Wash clothes at 30C and use the ECO mode.
    It has been proven many times that you can easily wash your clothes at 30C (86 Fahrenheit) because the soap is more effective than in the old days. If you set your washing machine to 30 degrees Celcius and use the ECO mode you are as green as possible using your machine.
14. Use the drying rack instead of the tumbler.
    By using the drying rack you will save lots of electricity. New A+++ machines today use approx. 1kW for every 8kg drum that they dry. If you do this once it might not cost a lot, but if you do it often it starts to cost. Something completely different is that every time you use a kW of electricity it has to be produced somewhere else. In the wintertime, you not only save on your electricity bill and help the supplier fill the demand, but you also give yourself a better indoor environment by applying humidity from the clothes.
15. Sort plastic and paper.
    It is not only cutting down on the electricity consumption that will make you greener. Also by sorting your trash you can become better. For example, plastic shouldn’t go into your normal trashcan. It should be in its own container so that they can reuse it when making new products. Also by sorting your paper you will contribute to fewer trees being taken down around the world. Your reused paper will be used in productions to make toilet paper, wrapping paper, and even newspapers.
16. Sort leftovers.
    In countries like Sweden, they have started to sort leftover foods into a separate trashbin. Every week they pick it up and take it to a plant where they produce fuel for public busses. Leftover foods are a problem in many countries, but by sorting it and using it in the right places you can take a step in the right direction of becoming more green. If you don’t have a pickup service like Sweden, You can also create compost in your backyard.
17. Use Ecosia instead of the Google Search Engine.
    What you do on the internet can actually have a great impact when you try to become greener. Such a small thing as switching your preferred search engine can change everything and the best of it all, it doesn’t cost you a dime! By using the search engine Ecosia, You will be planting a tree for approx. every 45 search requests and if you take a look at their Startpage You can see that they have already planted millions of trees around the world. You can use Ecosia both on your desktop, tablet, and mobile.
18. Use Apple products.
    It might sound strange that I recommend You to buy and use Apple’s products, but it is actually because they reuse aluminum instead of using new each time they build a product. So by using Apple products you contribute to reusing old materials instead of having to produce more all the time. Also, all of Apple’s services such as Apple Music, Itunes, etc are running on 100% renewable/sustainable energy and even their headquarter is running on green energy. Apple is invested in the green energy wave and their goal is to have a zero CO2 impact all the way from production and to your living room in just a few years. Apple’s products might cost a bit more, but by using them you will be helping the environment.
19. Use dark-mode on websites that support it.
    Most phones and computers today use AMOLED screens or similar technology that only uses power when the screen is showing anything else but black. This means if half of your screen is lighted up, it will only be half your screen using energy. A few years ago all screens were using backlighting, and this resulted in no difference between a white and a black screen, but the new technology makes a difference. Imagine when you visit a website using dark-mode, then it is only images and texts on your screen that uses energy. This means you will save tons of battery life just by making this small adjustment.
20. Use services and websites that are driven by 100% green energy.
    Every time you search the web or watch a movie from for example Netflix, a server somewhere in the world has to use electricity to provide you the requested data. You might be green and environmentally friendly, but the server you are requesting data might not be. Therefore I recommend using services and websites that are run by 100% green energy. To figure out if a service is running on green energy you can mostly simply search their website. Companies know people like green energy, so they often brag about it. Also by banning services that are not running on green energy You help showing the world that a change has to be made.