Earth Day may come once a year, but there are everyday things each of us can do to protect the environment. As a homebuilder, Taylor Morrison has taken a leadership role by creating eco-friendly homes. This means building with sustainable materials, recycling jobsite waste and taking other steps to design and build energy efficient homes.
Here are some things you can do to celebrate Earth Day every day of the year.
- Leave your car at home. You can cut greenhouse emissions by about 1,600 pounds a year just by leaving your car at home twice a week. Car-pool or take public transportation instead.
- Take care of that annoying leak. Over 1,300 gallons per year is wasted by a faucet leaking just one drop of water per second.
- Switch to energy efficient light bulbs. Replace electric bulbs with LED or compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) lights that are designed to last longer and use less energy, and they don’t cause heat build-up like regular bulbs.
- Wash your dishes more efficiently. Don’t run the dishwasher until it is full. Tests show that pre-rinsing dirty dishes doesn’t improve dishwasher cleaning, so skip that step.
- Don’t bag grass cuttings. After mowing leave the clippings on the lawn. They’ll decompose and enrich the soil.
- Use reusable bags when you shop. Keep a few in your car so you’ll always have them available when you go to the store.
- Take showers instead of baths. A five-minute shower only uses 10-25 gallons of water while a full tub requires about 70 gallons.
- Put the shades down. Closing the shades will help your air conditioner be more efficient. Even without air conditioning closed shades keep your home cooler.
- Recycle waste and other items. Besides recycling trash items there are other things you can do. Donate clothing, old electronics and other unwanteds.
- Use natural cleaning products. Avoid regular household cleaners, which can be very toxic and polluting. Clean with green products instead.
Find out more about the Taylor Morrison Elem3nts™ program and how we build eco-friendly homes.
