February 24, 2022 – Russia invades Ukraine and we have been in conflict for more than 70 days under the horror of war and its harshness on the civilian population with thousands of deaths and completely devastated cities. Nobody thought that this, in the year 2022, could happen… and just after spending two horrible years with Covid-19. From vaccines to weapons in the blink of an eye, coincidence?
In this context, in Europe we are immersed in a huge energy crisis with skyrocketing prices. The liter of gasoline, from paying around 1 eur per liter in 2019 in the middle of the pandemic, we have gone on to pay 2 eur per liter (and it continues to rise) right now. The price of electricity and gas through the roof. Bills of 60-70 eur we go to 100-110 eur per month. Inflation rises and in turn food prices… and the population, simple puppets under the protection of the decisions of our country’s politicians in a totally globalized world.
It seems apocalyptic, right? Well, that’s how we find ourselves today.
For more than 10 years we have been reporting a way of life based on the 3 Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) mainly due to environmental aspects and to avoid excessive consumption of materials that we are not capable of recycling. Let us remember, for example, that only 25/30% of the plastic packaging that we deposit in the yellow containers is actually recycled.
In the current context we also add, and with greater relevance, the part of energy savings in the face of the exorbitant increases in costs.
We are talking about small habits that you will have heard or read about at some point and surely you will have thought about whether the savings really show. At this time there is no doubt, the more habits or measures you adopt together, the greater the result will be. Without a doubt, they are measures that today we should all be using, yes or yes:
– Use light strips with a switch to be able to turn off as many appliances as possible. Televisions, music devices, even the router, … when you go to bed turn off the switch. All the devices will be disconnected, even in «stand by» mode. All this whether we go to bed or, for example, if we are away for a few days or on vacation.
– Optimizes the use of household appliances: Fully loaded washing machines and dishwashers or with appropriate programs depending on the load, energy saving (ECO mode). Washing machine with a cold temperature program, if we stop to analyze, most of the clothes that we throw out to wash are usually due to bad odors in a higher percentage than due to dirt itself. The fridge: if you go on vacation you can raise the temperature of both the fridge and freezer by a few degrees because you are not going to open them and therefore they will maintain the temperature and we will save consumption. Air conditioning and heating: surely we are fed up with the recommendations but there are still people around me who raise their hands if I recommend having the air conditioning temperature at 26-27º and the heating at 20º (instead of 22- 24th and 22nd respectively). These are comfort temperatures that will help you save energy, keep in mind that on an intensely hot day we can find ourselves at 35-40º outside and we go to an instance with 27º, differences of more than 10º, and the same happens with the heating, … the energy waste that is necessary to be in short sleeves in winter in your home, is it necessary? at this time of course not. Induction hob or gas: if we put a saucepan to boil, it will do so in less time if we use a lid than if we leave it open.
– Cheapest hours of daylight. Regardless of the price of electricity, the cheapest time slots per day are on weekdays between 2:00 and 6:00 in the morning and between 15:00 and 17:00 in the afternoon. Logically we are not going to put the washing machine at night but if we try to program them (washing machine and dishwasher) between 3 and 5 p.m. on weekdays or during the weekend.
– Use water savers in all the faucets in the house (water outlet thread)
– Simplify as much as possible. If we analyze in many cases, we have habits such as taking a shower every day, throwing clothes in the washing machine, changing sheets, towels… Habits that, if we analyze well, lead us to energy consumption, water consumption and logically if we multiply this by the millions of citizens that we are and thinking about the current situation we can try to change them (I repeat, always to the extent possible). For example, if you shower daily and work in an office and have careful hygiene, can’t you do it every other day? new next week? . With this I am not saying that if you go to the gym every day do not go with the same tracksuit or if for work you need to shower every day and change clothes logically. But surely for many other people modifying these habits a bit contributes to greater energy savings without detriment to hygiene.
– Use public transport. In addition to contributing to less pollution and use of resources, at this time, it is the most economical option given the prices of fuels.
Contribute to these habits. Thanks