Pulling the Plug

 

 

 

 

I have always thought of myself as a fairly environmentally friendly person. I have been raised to do all of the little things for the environment my whole life so by this point many of them are second nature to me. I Always take short showers, I turn off the lights when I leave the room, I wash my clothes in cold water, I always reuse old sports drink and soda bottles for weeks until I finally recycle them. So finding a new sustainable behavior was not the easiest task in the world for me.

So after some thought I have decided for my Sustainable Behavior Change to finally do something i have been meaning to do for a long time. Pull the Plug. The typical US household wastes over 140 kilowatt hours of electricity a year by simply leaving their TV, phone charger, desktop computer, and anything with an external transformer plugged into the outlet. I am as guilty of the subtle but bad habit just as much as anyone my computer is almost always plugged into the outlet and charging (it’s been stuck on 99% for ages). In fact each and every one of my electronic devices has its charger plugged in at all times whither it is charging something or not. This needs to stop.

By keeping all of my electronics unplugged when they are not being used I will be able to reduce my carbon footprint by up to 400 lbs. per year. To put that into some context; if everyone in my age group (18-24) in the United States did this with me that would reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 10 BILLION, yes with a B, pounds yearly assuming most people my age leave their electronics plugged in. So, this seemingly trivial act can have an impact on a large scale.