Bring Clean Tech to Your Home and Office

Author: Angela Ash

Updating to clean tech is a continual effort, with an increasing number of businesses, but people as well, attempting to live more sustainably.

The primary issue for many people is how to finance all that, but the truth is that going green is so much more than just investing in new technologies. In addition, there are subventions set in place aimed at helping the population breach the gap.

Continue Learning About Clean Tech

First of all, learning about the challenges is crucial. Picking clean tech blindly without a clear idea on how it can benefit you is not the best way to go about things.

The good news is, there are free options in this matter, courtesy of the internet. A careful search will help you find a number of online courses on the topic — one of the many advantages of eLearning.

Learn as much as you can about clean tech and the challenges humankind is facing so that you can make the best and most cost-efficient decisions.

Look Closely at Equipment

On top of helping the planet cope with global warming, energy-saving equipment also helps operations run more smoothly. Take only multifunction equipment into account: instead of using one printer, one scanner and one copy machine, you can use only one multifunction printer. Do some math: one machine is cheaper than three.

Following this logic, you can also add additional hacks to your daily routine. E.g., re-fill used ink and toner cartridges and print on both sides of a sheet. Apply the same approach to office supplies; start with using staple-less staplers and pens that can be refilled.

Finally, use recycled paper, mugs, and plastic products. Replace standard bulbs with CFLs or LED bulbs (which use ca. 75% less energy than standard light bulbs).

Ditch the Paper

The excess use of paper has been considerably downsized with the introduction of innovative technologies. Remember the days when each business meeting was relying on piles of paper? Nowadays, mobile devices have replaced them, with digital docs ruling supreme.

This, in itself, is a huge leap towards energy efficiency, but you can go one step further. Take printers out of individual offices and install multifunction machines in shared spaces. Oh, and give up on paper mugs — bring your favorite glass mug from home instead.

Go Electric

When the time comes to buy a new car, consider a hybrid or an electric model. In case you didn’t know, there are federal incentives for EV chargers, that can see you getting up to $7,500 to buy a new qualified plug-in EV.

The IRS uses the size of the battery pack to calculate the EV tax credit. The minimum battery capacity is 5 kilowatt-hours (kWh). $2,500 is allocated for a 5 kWh battery pack, plus $417 for all battery packs. Finally, there is $417 for every kWh of battery capacity in excess of 5 kWh.

Conclusion

Clean tech is the future, there’s no doubt about it. Even more important than buying all kinds of devices is to keep informed. Trends change all the time and technology evolves rapidly. Keep learning and keep an eye on new alternatives.