What You Can Do in Your Living Room
or Home Office

If you live in a cold climate, one of the great things you can do is to use your fireplace (if you have one) to heat your room instead of an electric space heater.
 

Here are some ways to use the 3R's (reduce, reuse, and recycle) in your living room or home office: 

  • Don't throw away the batteries used in the remote controls for your TV and other equipment. Batteries contain hazardous materials that leak into our ground water supply in landfill sites. You should throw away your used batteries at hazardous-waste collection sites. Also, it's much better to use batteries that can be recharged.
  • Read the label of products used in your room such as furniture and carpeting. Make sure the products don't contain anything that is bad for the environment or hazardous to your health.
  • Take good care of your furniture and carpeting. If you get tired of these things, don't just throw them away. Recycle them at a garage sale.

Here are some ways to save electricity in your living room or home office: 

  • Use compact fluorescent light bulbs which last longer than regular light bulbs and keep your electricity bill low.
  • Plug all of your electronics into outlets that can be turned on and off with the flip of a switch. Most electronics use electricity even when they are turned off.
  • Use a laptop computer instead of a desk top computer since it will probably use less power.
  • Use a power surge strip to plug your electronics into and turn off the strip when you’re not using it. 
  • Turn off lights when you leave the room.
  • Turn off computer, television and radio when not in use.       
  • Set your computer to automatically go into sleep mode when it hasn’t been used for five or ten minutes.

Here are some ways to save trees in your living room or home office: 

  • Use every piece of paper twice. Papers with typos or errors can become drawing paper.
  • Recycle each week’s newspapers.

|Using the 3R's At Home| |Stopping Global Warming At Home|
|Saving Water At Home| |Saving Electricity At Home| |Using Solar Energy At Home| |Saving Trees At Home | |Bathroom| |Bedroom| |Living Room| |Kitchen| |Yard|

Breese, Kristine. "28 Ways Your Family Can Protect the Earth." Parents. March 2007: 107-110.

Elkington, John, Julia Hailes, Douglas Hill and Joel Makower. Going Green-A Kid’s Handbook to Saving the Planet. New York: The Penguin Group, 1990.

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