How to Go Green

The time is NOW, the col­our is GREEN and the ques­tion is: "What are you doing to save our Planet?" Eco liv­ing is on everybody's lips and if it isn't, it should be! Recycling, con­ser­va­tion and renew­able energy have been around for many years.

Fossils fuels are pol­lut­ing our envir­on­ment and altern­at­ive energy sources are here! Many estab­lish­ments are already sav­ing the planet 1 kilo­watt hour at a time by using vari­ous energy sav­ing ranges, which are becom­ing increas­ingly afford­able and avail­able in South Africa and the world over.

Do we really need to con­sider mak­ing changes to our com­fort­able lives? Is it really our respons­ib­il­ity? If not ours, then whose?

Do we real­ize the vast effect the human pop­u­la­tion has had on biod­iversity since the start of the indus­trial revolu­tion? It's time to reverse these effects and do whatever we can to cre­ate a sus­tain­able future.

Surely these extreme meas­ures must be for all those hip­pies that chain them­selves to trees in protest against whatever cause they read about in the latest "flower power" magazine? I will admit that chain­ing your­self to a tree is pretty extreme, but it’s time we all star­ted caring for our envir­on­ment and did some­thing to ensure our future!

Here are just a few things that will make a difference:

• Switch lights off when you are not in the room
• Use energy sav­ing lamps for your light fittings
• Only fill the kettle with the amount of water you intend to use
• Use water sav­ing devices such as low flow shower heads
• Incorporate water har­vest­ing in your home (grey water sys­tems and/or rain water col­lect­ing tanks)
• Convert to solar hot water
• Recycle your glass, paper and metals
• Carpool or use pub­lic trans­port when pos­sible, or bet­ter yet, ride a bicycle if not trav­el­ling far (good for your health too)
• Don't use products with volat­ile organic com­pounds in them
• Source local pro­duce, with a lower car­bon foot­print, along with offer­ing sea­sonal menus to reduce high bills needed to keep pro­duce fresh out of season
• Start a com­post heap
• A worm farm for organic waste
• Plant an indi­gen­ous garden
• See "green" estab­lish­ments around South Africa that have already incor­por­ated some of these prac­tices and get inspired.

While not all of these options may be right for you, incor­por­at­ing just one or two of them into your daily life, will make a dif­fer­ence. For example, con­vert­ing just 1 con­ven­tional 200 litre gey­ser to solar, causes a reduc­tion of 2.9 tons of car­bon diox­ide per year.

In South Africa we have an abund­ance of sun­light which dir­ectly trans­lates into free energy, that is ready for har­ness­ing and re-use. Cold Core Solutions can help you har­ness this energy, using innov­at­ive ideas that are cost effect­ive, and give us all a "greener future". At Cold Core Solutions we are as pas­sion­ate about the envir­on­ment as we are about lux­ury and comfort.

Contact Cold Core Solutions for your tail­or­made energy needs.
Tel: (021) 845‑4181
E-mail: info@coldcore.co.za