Category 5, the last section to this great energy diet involves the importance of water use and also waste disposal reduction.  These elements are crucial to consider and embrace if you truly want to reduce your carbon footprint. The importance of the water-energy relationship is growing significantly due to the increase of resource constraints. There are so many limitations to consider and in order to proceed, allocate, treat, recondition, discharge and consume water, energy is needed. By saving water, you are saving energy and by saving energy you are saving water. Reduce, reuse and recycle are 3 crucial components to waste disposal and reduction.  Reducing waste results in fewer resources used needed to transport and manage that waste.

WATER USE TIPS:

• Sacrifice: We are all lovers of bottled water, but in attempt to achieve the great energy diet, try to give up bottled water and make use of tap water. If the fear of chemicals and other toxins prohibit you from doing so, purchase a top of the range water filter; they are relatively cheap and long-lasting.
• Drip, drip, stop: Often when we brush our teeth, or clean our dishes we leave the tap on; make a conservative effort in not doing so
• Challenging but definitely achievable: Set yourself a fun and challenging goal of shortening your shower hour by one or two minutes every day until you find yourself running out of time for proper cleaning. There are several different shower head types that we can make use of, try to purchase and set up a shower head with a low-flow model.  Another challenge for you to try is to build and create a rain barrel that will essentially collect water for your garden and other plants.

WASTE DISPOSAL REDUCTION TIPS:

• Recycle: when it comes to waste disposal reduction, there are endless materials suitable for recycling such as glass, aluminium, plastic, paper and tin-like materials. Other objects that can be recycled include batteries, tiers and even food (best for compass and gardening purposes).
• Simplify: Mailing lists make up a fair amount of waste; opt out of receiving advertising mail from contacting corporations and other businesses by removing yourself off their database. Research other methods of contact; direct mailing is a legit alternative.
• Eco-friendly billing: For your bank account, credit card and phone bills revert to paperless billing as a means to decrease your personal waste disposal.
• When shopping and working around the house, abolish the use of plastic and paper bags, Use biodegradable bags for trash at home AND for other things like picking up poop from walking your dog around the block.
• Give back: Nurture your garden and start composting. Another way to give back is to gather anything old, from computer equipment to running shoes, and start to get into the fun habit of donation.