Calculate Your Atlanta Apartment's Environmental Impact

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Calculate Your Atlanta Apartment’s Global Impact

 

I have taken carbon footprints for myself as an individual, but I just found this impact calculator at Low Impact Living and thought it would be fun to see what my household’s impact is.  The best part?  After you’re finished with the calculator, Low Impact Living gives you a list of projects to make your house even greener!  You get a LILI score, which is comprised of your water use, energy use, waste, etc. and the aim is to be closest to 0 that you can be. 

I was at 83 (sob) but then I saw that when your score is 200 or greater is when you are having a negative impact.  Right now I’m just below having a neutral impact (score of 100), so I felt encouraged.  It helps that my home is new and I have energy-efficient appliances, but there are lots of other things to be done.  Here are some examples of things I can do to be greener:

 

1.                    Install low-flow showerheads and take shorter showers.  I have since started putting on music and giving myself 1-1.5 songs to take a shower.  This is approximately six minutes and has cut my shower time in half, which uses far less water.

2.                    Wash sheets and towels together.  I used to wash my sheets by themselves, which didn’t quite fill up the washer.  Now I wash my week’s bath towels and sheets together and it fills up the wash basin perfectly.

3.                    Find more to recycle.  I am good about recycling cans and bottles, but I have started breaking down all of my cardboard boxes to recycle, as well as recycling old magazines, newspapers, phone books and junk mail.

4.                    Use green cleaning products.  Let’s face it, I was a chemical girl.  I loved the smell of Pine Sol on my floors and Comet in my toilet.  I have now switched to green products, which happen to smell even better and clean just as well.

5.                    Set my thermostat to 76.  Some people can commit to 78 or even 80 degrees, but 76 is about my max in the spring summer and fall.  I will inevitably turn it to 68 this winter, which will cut down on my energy use and greatly diminish my heating bill (which is usually pretty outrageous).

 

Now that you know how to calculate your apartment’s impact on the environment, it will be easy to put these changes into effect.  If you’re moving or relocating to the Atlanta area, PROMOVE can help you find an Atlanta apartment complex with energy-efficient policies in full force.  If there is not a recycling program already in place, you can help start one.  Step one is finding the perfect place, and if you want to take the guesswork out of it, check out PROMOVE’s free apartment locating service.  Their dedicated team will work hard to ensure you are placed in the perfect neighborhood and apartment.