It is difficult to be completely environmentally friendly when you run a guest house in Cue, a desert town with a long, hot summer and fairly cold winters. I thought you might be interested to know what 10 things we do to reduce our energy use.
1. We have completed the installation of roof-mounted solar panels. This is already feeding power back into the grid as the sun now provides us with over 80% of our entire electricity usage through the panels.
2. An efficient, reverse-cycle, split system air-conditioner in every room now provides great guest comfort and actually saves water and power as the old evaporative units wasted both.
3. LED globes are used to replace every globe that fails.
4. When we buy new appliances, we buy the most efficient ones we can afford. This applies to vacuum cleaners, washing machines, dryers, toasters, and electric kettles.
5. We use stainless steel cutlery wherever we can, instead of disposable cutlery of any kind.
6. We use bio-degradable rubbish bin bags.
7. We recycle cans and bottles.
8. Whilst we love to have a nice garden that creates a cool oasis for guests at the rear of the building, we monitor the use of water – and mostly water at night.
9. We ask that guests use towels for more than one day so that more water can be saved.
10. We have installed water-saver shower heads in all showers and make sure that no taps are dripping.
It may not be as full a list as we could do, but it is a good start.