Boston is famous for being a college town, but are its thousands of students famous for being green? Lets make it so! Here are a few tips for Boston's college students, but many of these tips are relevant for apartment living too, so post-grads are encouraged to read-on as well.
Electronics & Appliances:
So by now it should seem obvious to use compact fluorescent lightbulbs rather than incandescent bulbs, but there are a few other little tricks that can help you easily save energy in your dorm room. Firstly, make sure to use a power strip. This way you can plug every thing into the strip and simply unplug the whole power strip when you leave your room. This will prevent your appliances from sucking phantom energy from your electrical sockets. Even when appliances are not in use they still draw energy if they are plugged in. This wasted energy costs consumers $5.8 billion per year according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.[1] So do your part to help prevent this waste and help keep education costs from growing by using a power strip and unplugging it whenever you leave your room. Another thing to remember when using appliances is that anything that creates heat uses a large amount of energy —so if you ever have the choice between hot and cold, like when blow drying your hair for example, always pick the cold option.
These days it’s almost impossible to get through college without using a computer on a daily basis. Make sure you are being as responsible as possible by turning off your computer when you aren’t using it, making sure that your school’s IT department has activated energy saving settings on your computer. In addition, keep in mind that laptop computers use less energy than desktops. If you do have a desktop computer, try to use an LCD screen because they use less energy than traditional screens.
Waste & Recycling:
Recycling procedures are different at each school so the most important thing to do is to educate yourself on the waste and recycling system at your university. If you have space, try to designate four bins for waste: trash, compost, paper, and other recyclables. Use clear trash bags for your paper and other recycling bins so that your waste management team can see what they’re dealing with. It’s also important to rinse your recyclables so there isn’t food waste or sticky residue. Try to fill all of your waste bags as full as possible so you aren’t wasting plastic trash bags (they’re made out of petroleum ew!). And if you have roommates, make sure you are all on board with the recycling system in your room because if your roommate is throwing banana peels in your paper recycling bin, all your effort will have gone to waste…literally!
For more tips visit: http://blog.meridahome.com/sustainability/designing-the-greenest-dorm-room/
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