Many students using our footprint calculator said that they could not pledge to reduce their home footprints because they were not making the decisions for the household. Here is your chance to design your own sustainable virtual household!
If you had your own home, what would you do to make it more energy efficient? Where would you get your electricity from? Where would your house be? Would you live near to your school or work or local transit options? Where would you get your food from?
MY Family Footprint >
Incandescent vs. Fluorescent vs. LED bulbs
In my carbon footprint, the home energy and appliances category was quite large and over average. In my house, we have a lot of light bulbs and the majority of them are incandescent. According the article linked at the bottom, all 3 of these bulbs are compared and contrasted to one another. The LED lights are by far better for the environment but they all have their pros and cons. For example, incandescent bulbs produce 60 watts while LED and fluorescent produce 8-15 watts. On the other hand, LED bulbs produce 451 pounds of carbon per year while incandescent produces 4,500 pounds and fluorescent produce 1,051 pounds. The one huge con with fluorescent bulbs is that they have mercury; therefore, if broken, the mercury can be very dangerous to humans the the environment. Fluorescent lights also take a while to get to their full brightness. Incandescent and LED turn on immediately. For more information on these 3 bulbs visit:
http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html
Using LED lights is a good way to reduce your carbon footprint at home. You could also make sure lights, television, and other electronic devices are turned off when they're not used. If you take long showers, shortening them reduces your carbon footprint at home. Washing clothes and other materials in cold water reduces your carbon footprint because you're not using energy to heat the water. Those are a few ways to reduce your carbon footprint.