Residents of the OHIO Ecohouse engage in weekly, in-depth conversations regarding their own interests in sustaining personal, communal, and environmental health. Following the basic principles of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Revive,residents may adopt specific behaviors while living on the property to ensure a sustainable lifestyle is followed. Offsite, the OHIO Office of Sustainability encourages all campus and community residents to engage in these sustainable living practices and follow the principles detailed by the "four Rs". More information on home composting, natural cleaning solutions, and energy conservation can be found below.
Reduce
Conserve Energy
Although reducing your dependence on fossil fuels can seem like a difficult task, simple changes to daily actions are often an easy and approachable place to start. Consider the following tips when thinking about ways to conserve energy in your own home:
- Turn off lights and unplug appliances when not in use
- Use natural lighting whenever possible
- If you have a difficult time remembering to power down devices at the end of a day, consider placing them on a timer or setting them up on a smart strip device
- Limit your technology upgrades. By reducing the number of devices (such as computers, phones and ipads) that we own or upgrade each year, we can significantly reduce our personal demand for the fossil fuels involved in production, use, and disposal of such products
- When shopping for new appliances for your home, compare the energy consumption of each device and include the cost of energy in your decision. Consider this for lightbulbs as well!
If you feel ready for a bigger change, investing in alternative energy solutions is a larger-scale way to begin reducing that reliance on finite resources.
Conserve Water
Water is a finite resource and should be conserved for the health of our environment and society. Here are a few quick tips for conserving water in the home:
- Install low flow shower heads
- Limit your shower length to no more than 3-5 minutes daily
- Place a brick or 2 liter soda container into your toilet tank to reduce the amount of water utilized per flush
- Use rain water for watering your plants
- If you wash your dishes throughout the day, fill one bin with soapy dish water and use all day rather than filling the sink multiple times for just a few dishes.
Waste Reduction
Thinking about the life span of any product is a great way to begin thinking critically about the ways in which our individual actions impact our local environments. Ecohouse residents are challenged to consider the following items in their onsite seminar:
- Reduce:Source Reduction is the most important behavior in reducing landfill waste. Residents are tasked with questioning their purchasing power. By analyzing whether or not a purchase is needed, we can easily reduce the amount of products we buy and, in turn, the packaging those items come in.
- Reuse:When a product is necessary, reuse is a viable practice. Residents must get creative with their reuse efforts by donating unneeded items to thrift stores, using boxes from packaging for storage or class projects and much more. It's important for us to creatively use the items in our lives in order to ensure the products are being used to their fullest ability.
- Recycle:Once an item reaches the end of its life, it is important to responsibly dispose of the items. Many households, including the Ecohouse, recycle plastics, paper, glass and aluminum. Weekly road-side pick-up is offered to our residents for such recycling practices. Additionally, residents compost organic wastes such as food scraps and landscape waste...
- Composting:is a process where organic matter decomposes at an accelerated rate. This is different from biodegrading because composting is accelerated due to a higher temperature and controlled environment. This is an aerobic process that requires the correct carbon to nitrogen ratio for proper breakdown to occur. Composting is temperature dependent and determines the speed at which the material breaks down.
Food Waste
While Ohio University has the largest in-vessel composting facility in the nation, the goal should be to reduce the amount of food waste initially generated. Here are some tips for improving your food consumption efficiency:
- Properly store fruits and vegetables for maximum freshness and shelf-life. Unsure about how to store a specific good? Look it up!
- When grocery shopping, make a list of the items you need before going to ensure you don't purchase duplicates. Recipe planning or meal-prepping for the week ahead can also help take advantage of the food available and reduce post-consumer waste.
- Learning how to turn fruits into jellies and vegetables into pickles can be a fun and unique way to use up excess produce before it goes bad. These recipes often require minimal time and ingredients.
- According to the EPA, 21% of all waste in the landfill is food waste, so limit the amount of food that goes bad by eating what you have first before buying more. Following the "FIFO" - first in, first out - rule is a classic trick of the trade.
- Try using every part of the food you purchase. Vegetable scraps can either be composted or frozen to use for stocks, the ends of bread loaves are perfect for french toast, and beet or radish greens taste great when sautéed.
Natural Cleaning
Store-bought cleaners typically contain dangerous chemicals, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and are packaged in petroleum-based products. Avoid bringing those dangerous fumes and environmental harms into your home by making your own low-impact cleaners. Simple solutions and recipes can be found online and in books such as The Naturally Clean Home: 150 Super-Easy Herbal Formulas for Green Cleaning. The best part? These simple solutions are made with easily accessible products such as baking soda, white vinegar, essential oils, and lemon juice, making them perfect for a quick and easy DIY.
Reuse
Limit the amount of waste you send to the landfill by reusing products whenever possible. A few easy ideas include:
- Bring your own reusable bags with you to shop whenever possible
- Invest in a single reusable travel mug or cup to bring to your favorite coffee shops rather than using disposable cups
- Wash and reuse plastic storage bins as containers or tupperware
- If you no longer want salvageable items (such as furniture, clothing, housewares, jewelry, etc.), give them the opportunity to lengthen their life by donating them to a locally owned thrift store
- Rather than throwing away old t-shirts or fabric scraps, try converting them into unique quilts, bags, or upcycled clothing items
Use Grey Water
Collect used water from chores such as dish washing or from the waste tray of your dehumidifier to help facilitate other household needs such as flushing the toilet and watering the flowerbeds. Place a rain barrel under your home's gutters to collect rainwater to use for similar purposes.
Recycle
Instead of throwing all of your waste materials in the trash to be transported to a landfill, recycle everything you can. This includes paper, cardboard, newspaper, aluminum, glass, plastics (only #1 and #2 in Athens), and mor e. Avoid a stinky trash can by instituting compostingat your home. Peelings, stems, leaves and skins from fruits and vegetables and leftovers than cannot be eaten can be added to a mixture of "brown waste" such as leaves, grass clippings and wood. Proper aeration and mixing of this organic waste can, ultimately, create a nutrient-rich soil used in your garden or landscape. Compost may be managed in a small vessel such as a barrel or in an open air bin system. Be sure to check with your town's ordinances to see if they have special requirements for compost pile s.
Revive
Air Quality
Improve the quality of the air in your home by instituting a few simple rules:
- Vacuum regularly using an energy efficient vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter
- Take shoes off at the entryway and place them on a large mat to avoid tracking in chemicals, dirt and other toxins through your shoes
- Keep humidity levels low by drying clothes outdoors on a clothesline, not over-watering house plants, avoiding lengthy showers and fixing leaky faucets. This will reduce the mold that develops in the home
- No smoking indoors (or, at all, if possible!)
- Nurture house plants that have air purifying qualities
- Bonus: Many of these plants are surprisingly easy to care for!
- Avoid synthetic fragrances; use essential oils instead
Food and Kitchen Work
Many of life's sustainable living lessons occur in the kitchen, a space where residents proactively approach the following tenants of sustainable life:
Local Food Preparation:Residents frequently experiment with the preparation of local food items in the kitchen. In fact, the house has been known to host a number of cooking workshops, potlucks and community meals; all of which feature locally produced foods.
Communal Space:The house features a welcoming and spacious kitchen and dining table that plays host to a number of community events and potlucks throughout the year. Fostering a sense of community is an essential piece to the sustainability conversation.
Food Preservation:The Ecohouse kitchen serves as the location for occasional canning and food preservation workshops. Canning/preserving is a practice that allows us to continue to eat local, wholesome foods year-round while saving money.
The food you eat and where you shop can have a large impact on the community as well as the global economy, so we encourage residents to consider the following when procuring and preparing their food:
- Grow your own:
- Reduce the stress on the environment from the mass production, packaging and transportation of most produce by growing your own. The OHIO Ecohouse offers free garden plots to the campus community (must be affiliated with the university) on a first-come, first-served basis.
- Shop at the farmers market and/or locally owned shops:
- Support the local economy by purchasing your food products from local merchants.
- Preserve your own:
- During the growing season, when your garden has more food than you can eat, be sure not to let any of it go to waste by canning/preserving produce. The process is actually quite simple and there are numerous organizations in the region that offer helpful workshops for learning how to master this skill.
- Limit your meat intake:
- The manufacturing of meat products has a significant drain on our environment and economy. Meat production is, actually, an alarmingly inefficient process. By reducing (or eliminating) the meat in your diet, you are able to reduce your carbon footprint and help the environment. When done responsibly, this practice can also have a positive effect on your health!
Stay Healthy
Maintaining personal health and happiness can have lasting impacts on our own personal sustainability and the vitality of our communities, environment, and economy.
- Exercise regularly and eat a diet rich in fresh produce
- Take a proactive approach to your health:
- Preventive approaches to personal health can reduce your dependency on medication. The production and distribution of medication has negative impacts on the environment and the medicine in our systems can find its way into local waterways, contaminating the water we ingest and leading to other health issues.
- Create boundaries in your life that will limit your stress levels:
- Creating filters on your email, practicing meditation, instituting regular personal appointments, and many other techniques can create boundaries that assist in the reduction of stress we experience.
- Allow yourself to get consistent rest by following a regular bedtime and rising time.
- Ask for help:
- Seek the support of friends, family or staff at the university if you feel you may need assistance achieving mental and physical health.
Build a Community
Teaching, caring for, and sharing with our neighbors helps build a more sustainable community by encouraging shared resources and collaborative problem solving. By investing in our own personal and collective development, we help build a more compassionate society that cares for the health and safety of our community, our environment and our collective prosperity. Seek help when you feel you need it, accept it when offered to you and offer it when you can.