Let’s Create a Green and Healthy Home

There are a lot of things you can do to create a green and healthy home these days. Once protect the environment meant separating paper from plastic in your recycling bin and buying organic greens that you carried home in a reusable tote.
Global warming and soaring energy costs are some of environmental concern we have in our front page news almost every day. Conserving natural resources whenever and however we can means we are living in ecofriendly life. In this case, we are changing our lifestyle to help save the planet. These changes will keep our family healthy too.
Going green doesn’t have to mean expensive investments like nontoxic paints, solar panels, and sustainable wood flooring. “Simple changes in your everyday life are all it takes to make your home a healthier, safer, greener place to be. But don't forget that human beings are creatures of habit, and change takes time. Begin with small steps. For example, make a commitment to change just one habit every month,” Expert says.
Green home is about turn the home by simple changes. There are some tips on how you can turn your home sweet home into home green home:

Save Energy
Turn off the lights when it doesn’t need. You can install movement sensors so lights only activate when needed. Another way is to install automatic timers for lights frequently left blazing in empty rooms.
Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs that just use a quarter of the electricity of regular incandescent bulbs.
Set cooling and heating temperatures correctly. Be sure to close the fridge and freezer doors. Leaving them open for just a few extra seconds wastes a lot of energy. Set your fridge temperature at around 20 degrees Celsius and set freezers at minus 3 to keep things nice and frosty. Get an electronic thermostat so your furnace heats your home to a lower temperature while the family sleeps and returns it to a toastier temperature before you get out of bed. In the winter, set your thermostat at 25 degrees in the day and 28 degrees at night. In the summer, keep it at 25. Water heaters work most efficiently between 50 and 60 degrees.
Get Electronic appliances unplugged including TVs, computers, and CD players can consume almost as much energy when in standby mode as they do during the relatively small amount of time they're being used.
Use appliances efficiently. For example: turn on the washing machine after it’s fully loaded, use the air-dry function on your dishwasher, preheat your oven only when necessary.
Open blinds, drapes, and shutters to let solar energy warm and brighten your home naturally by let the sun shine. It’s the cheapest and most environmentally sound heat and light source.
Plug, insulate, replace, repair, caulk, or seal to make your home as leak proof as possible and watch your utility bills drop.

Clean the Air
Never let anyone smoke in your home. “It’s like inviting diesel bus into your living room,” expert says. Cigarettes are full of toxic chemicals, and second hands smoke exposure can cause cancer.
Live plants can act as natural air filters if you grow it at your home, and some plants are particularly effective absorbers of harmful pollutants emitted from carpets, furniture, and electronic equipment. So clean your indoor air and ”green” your living space by filling your home with spider plants, Boston ferns, rubber plants, and palm trees.
Shun Toxic Products
Choose non toxic cleaners. Find eco friendly alternatives to harsh chemical cleaners, which can cause health problems and pollute the environment as well. Baking soda is a cheap and effective all-purpose cleaner, scourer, polisher, and fungicide. Switch to natural disinfectants such as tea tree oil or citrus oils. Try borax and white vinegar as a toilet bowl cleaner.
Use cloths instead of cleaners. Skip the cleaning products altogether and switch to micro fiber cloths designed to attract dirt on their own. Used damp, the cloths clean most surfaces like glass, stainless steel, brass, wood, and ceramics. When dry, they give off a natural positive charge, which attracts dust. Simply wash the cloths after each use, and you can reuse them again and again.
Keep insects out by sealing cracks and holes around doors, windowsills, and baseboards. And keep food stored away and kitchen and eating areas as clean as possible. So you can minimize the use of pesticides in your home.

Grow a Greener Garden
Plant an edible garden: Grow your own salad greens, veggies, and herbs. A garden can help reduce soil erosion and reduce air pollution. Aim to plant a plot that doesn't use a lot of water and tend your garden without using toxic pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Instead, purchase organic and earth-friendly garden products at your garden store.
Compost kitchen scraps: Eggshells, tealeaves, coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable peelings — pretty much any organic matter can find a home in a compost pile or bin. Mix with yard trimmings and add water and presto — you have a nutritious soil enhancer, and you're doing your part to reduce landfill waste.
Water your garden in the early morning or evening when it's cooler — water evaporates more slowly when it's cool. Water that's been used in sinks, bathtubs, showers or the washing machine — known as gray water — can be used again to water the garden but only it’s contain biodegradable soaps.
Leave grass clippings on the lawn: Grass cuttings act as natural fertilizer when they decompose. So take advantage of them.
Beyond Paper, Plastic, and Glass
Ditch disposable razors for reusable ones. Swap plastic cups and paper plates for ceramic ones. Choose reusable food containers over plastic wrap. Choose rechargeable batteries over the conventional single-use kind.
Look on labels for products — like writing paper and toilet tissue — with the greatest percentage of post-consumer recycled content. Choose food items like cereals and crackers packaged in recycled cardboard.
Donate used toys to a worthy organization, or start a toy library in your community, rather than tossing them in the trash. Host a clothing swap for grown-ups, and set up a kids' clothing exchange. Do the same with books. Before you toss that cardboard box in the recycling, let your child turn it into a space ship, robot, dollhouse, or secret hiding space for hours or even days of earth-friendly fun.

Conserve water
Don't turn on the washing machine or dishwasher until it's full. Each washing cycle uses more than 25 gallons of water; make sure that every drop counts.
A shower uses about half as much water as the average bath — as long as you keep it to less than 5 minutes.
Think before flushing. Don't waste water flushing tampons, or flushable wipes down the toilet, where they can block the sewage system. Dispose of these items in the trash, and save flushing for when you really need to (hint: not after every pee).

Household hazardous waste
Inside nearly every household's garage, basement or kitchen sink cupboard lurks harmful substances like old paint cans, used motor oil, garden pesticides and weed killers, used batteries, old computers or electronics, harsh cleaning chemicals, or pest killers. If you dump this noxious stuff down the drain, you'll pollute the water supply. And if you dispose of it in landfills, they'll leak dangerous chemicals. Instead, do some research to find the best way to dispose of your household toxics.

Who will save our earth if not us? So go green can be start from our home. Go green, saves the earth for our next generation.