SUSTAINABILITY TIPS & TRICKS

Studies show that a hole in a water pipe as small as 1.5 mm can waste up to 3,570 litres of water in 24 hours, costing $14.54 a day. Toronto for example, loses 10-15% of total drinking water to leakage every year which amounts to about 103 million liters of water per day. It is important to check for leaks in your pipes, water faucets, toilers etc. and repair them.

On average, our showers lasts 8 minutes and every minute of shower time equates to 7 litres of water. If we reduce our showering time by 1 minute (assuming we shower everyday), we will reduce our water use by 210 litres a year which is equivalent to 7,000+ glasses of water. All those minutes really do add up!

LED lights use up to 90% less energy than conventional halogen bulbs and last at least 15 times longer. Lighting accounts for 15% of an average home’s electricity use and a household can save about $225 in energy costs per year! You could be using that $225 towards something else.

Smart thermostats allow you to program your heating and cooling settings to align with your routines. For example, if you head out to work every weekday, you can program your thermostat to use less electricity for heating and cooling when you’re out and it will also optimize the heating and cooling output as it prepares for your arrival back home.

Heat pumps help Canadians reduce anywhere from 45%-70% of energy use. In Toronto for example, heat pumps reduce 53% of energy used in heating and cooling and create an annual saving of $1,700. Heat pumps extract heat from a source such as the surrounding air, geothermal energy stored in the ground, or nearby sources of water. It then amplifies and transfers the heat to where it is needed. Since most of the heat is transferred rather than generated, the pumps are far more efficient compared to conventional boilers or electric heaters.

According to a university study, eliminating food waste will create a large impact to reducing your carbon footprint. Wasted food accounts for about 8 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. When food ends up in the landfill, it creates methane which a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In Canada, almost 50% of food waste is generated at the household level.

Running a load of laundry uses the most water compared to the rest of the choices which uses 47 litres of water per cycle. Taking a 5-minute shower is next which uses 35 litres, followed by running an automatic dishwasher at 15 litres, and lastly flushing a toiler which uses 4.8 litres. Note that the toilet is a common area which wastes water throughout the year through leaks.

Running an LED lamp for 300 hours (13 days straight) produces around the same amount of carbon emissions as running one load in the clothes dryer. You can save energy by hanging your clothes and linens out to dry instead of running the dryer.

Heating and cooling use the most energy in your household and makes up 46% of your energy use. Appliances only use 13% of your energy footprint.

If you wash your clothes using hot water, your energy use will look to be around 4.5 kWh. This is compared to running your dishwasher which uses 1.5 kWh of energy. With improvements to clothes detergent products, we rarely need to use hot water to wash our clothes and now you can save that energy for your next dishwasher run!