Do just one thing
USE BALE STRAW AS MULCH If you decorate your home with bales of straw during the fall months, you may not realize that having dry bales by the house actually poses a serious fire risk. But leaving them out in the elements to become wet bales can be problematic, too, over time. When you’re done using them as decor, the best thing is to break up the straw and use it as mulch. It’ll insulate plants or protect your vegetable garden, and come spring, it can be tilled right into the soil to break down into compost.
STAY UNPLUGGED
If you work with a laptop computer, it’s imperative to not keep it plugged in all the time. A fully charged laptop that’s still plugged into an electrical outlet creates a lot of extra heat, and that heat can cause damage to the rechargeable battery inside the laptop. The best routine for preserving the health of your battery is to charge your laptop when it needs it, then leave it unplugged overnight and when not in use for a long period of time.
COMPOSTING LEMONS
Can you compost lemons? There are two sides to this argument, but like so many other things in life, the answer is: in moderation. Lemons are acidic, and as any good composter know, having too much acid in a compost pile can cause problems for the beneficial bacteria that break down organic matter. If you do compost lemons, be sure to also cut them into small pieces to help speed up the degradation process. Even creating a slurry with water and lemons in a blender can help.
RENT A TREE
This holiday season, instead of choosing between a live or fake Christmas tree, consider renting one instead. Many landscaping centers will rent you a live balled evergreen tree. They’ll deliver it to your home, where it can be inside for about a week (or even longer if you keep it outside — on the front porch, for example). When the season is over, they’ll come pick it up. You can also rent artificial trees from prop houses, which are the places where set designers rent items for photo shoots.
USE LED LIGHTS
LED holiday string lights are very common now, and they are a great innovation to help save energy and create safer string lights that stay cool when lit and last a long time. If you still have traditional string lights, here’s another incentive to replace them with LED lights: You can save money. Many national home store chains not only offer free recycling for old holiday lights, but they’ll give you a steep discount when you purchase new ones, too. The old lights are shredded for their recyclable parts like glass, plastic and copper.
RENT PARTY SUPPLIES
Are you planning to throw a party at your house with a lot of guests? Instead of buying all new tableware, flatware, glasses, napkins and other linens, why not rent them instead? The party renting process has been made easy with websites that literally put everything you need to throw a party in a box. And when you’re done, you just pack it all up and send it back. When you rent, you save resources by reusing items, and you also save money, since you don’t have to buy everything new. And often you can rent expensive, top-of-the-line linens for just pennies on the dollar.
CHANGE PILLOWS EVERY YEAR Bed pillows, on average, should be changed every year if you sleep on them every night, or every two years if you sleep on them periodically. Over time, they can become a breeding ground for dust mites, creating an unhealthy sleep environment in your bedroom. But what to do with your old pillows? Use the old filling to freshen the pet bed your dog sleeps on. Simply wash the pillows and tumble dry them in the dryer; rip open the pillow and use the fill to replace the old fill in the dog bed.