Eco-Tip of the Week: Energy Saving Tips
The average American spends over 8 hours a day looking at screens on various electronic devices. From the office, to the store, to our homes, electronic devices are everywhere, and we use them constantly.
Now, we have already discussed the mountains of e-waste that accumulate from these electronics and how devastatingly toxic they are to the health of ecosystems and people . Of course it’s vital to dispose of electronic devices responsibly when they’re no longer useful. But before they reach that point, there is a lot we can do to make our practices more eco-friendly. Case in point: reducing the amount of energy our thirsty gadgets use.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of helpful energy saving tips, when using electronics in your home or office. They’ll put you in control of your energy usage and your bills:
1. Enable the energy saving settings on your computer and peripherals: Find these settings in the Power Options menu in your computer’s control panel. An idle computer used 20 to 50 times the power of a computer in standby mode. Energy Star estimates that power management can save up to $75 per desktop computer and monitor each year.
2. Reduce the time delay before your equipment reverts to a power saving mode. This can also be set in the Power Options menu in your computer’s Control Panel.
3. When this equipment is not in use for extended periods, turn off the switch on the power strip to prevent them from drawing power even when shut off. If you don’t use a power strip, unplug extra equipment when it’s not in use.
For more tips on how to save energy when using electronics, click here.