South Africa is a water scarce country and the recent drought conditions have brought the need for water conservation and environmental awareness into sharp focus, highlighting the responsibility we all have to use available resources responsibly.
Every home can easily be made greener and the impact is vast. From lightening the load on natural resources and preserving our environment, to improving your family’s health and saving money, going green in 2017 is the way to go. Here are 5 top tips to green your home:
1. Harvest Every Drop Of Rainwater
Collecting every drop of water reduces your home’s dependence on municipal systems, empowering you to have more water available while minimising expenditure.Install rainwater harvesting systems to collect rainwater from roofs and store it in a tank. Rain barrels are easy to install, low-cost and an effective method to make sure you don’t miss a drop. The collected water can then be used for various purposes such as filling up toilet cisterns and swimming pools, car-washing and watering the garden. Investing in water harvesting and water recycling technology will pay dividends for years to come.
2. Create a Low Flow
Reducing the amount of water your household uses is the easiest way to going greener. There are a variety of ways to reduce water wastage in your home. Some are simple habits like turning off the water when you brush and shave, taking shorter showers and flushing minimally. Additionally you can also install a low-flow showerhead, an aerator on your sink and a low-flow toilet. Together these technologies can reduce your household water usage by up to 50%.
3. Ditch The Plastic Bottles
The production of plastic is costly for the environment and your wallet – it takes more water to make the plastic bottle than the bottle itself provides, and even though bottled water does not differ much from tap water, it costs you a lot more. Keeping the health and taste benefits of purified water, while cleansing your life of damaging plastic bottles is now easier than ever before with amazing new organic products, such as KURO-Bō Activated Charcoal, a brand new 100% natural, recyclable and plastic-free filter, and the only eco-friendly product in South Africa to soften, purify, mineralise and remove E. Coli from your tap water.
4. Eco-Friendly Landscaping
Shady landscaping can protect your home from direct sunlight during summer and allows more sunlight to reach your home through windows during the winter. Planting trees on southern and western sides of your home can keep your home cooler as they will block sunlight from falling directly on your home. During winter, when trees lose their leaves, they will allow more sunlight to reach your home. Alternatively you can plant a green roof: studies found that a green roof habitat reduces the heat flow through the roof by providing shade, insulation and evaporative cooling. This can reduce a home’s daily energy demand for cooling by a massive 95%.
5. Convert To an Eco-Pool
South Africans all love a beautiful blue outdoor swimming pool, but the large quantities of chlorine needed to keep it clear is costly and not environmentally friendly. By creating an eco-pool you will get the holistic, sensory benefits of water that is bursting with life and colour. If you can, surround your eco-pool with a vertical garden. These beautiful arrangements have a host of eco-benefits, such as helping with climate control, providing a sound-proofing barrier and if you are in an urban area, creating habitats for birds and beneficial insects, increasing biodiversity and filtering air.
