Clever electricity management is not only ecological, but also economical. Energy bills can really surprise and become a huge burden on the household budget. Among the many methods, it is worth choosing those that will be easiest to introduce in life everyday. Learn more about how do it.

Using daylight!

The best way to save money is to use daylight. It is worth organizing space in your home to best light the rooms. If you work at home at a computer, place your desk next to the window. In that you will guarantee greater access of light to the workplace.

Turning off the lights!

Many of us forget about a simple habit that helps saving energy. Unfortunately, we easily ignore the fact of turning off the light in rooms where there are no household members. It is worth paying attention to this habit, which will help us save electricity.

Energy-saving bulbs!

The third way to save electricity is to replace the bulbs with those that consume less electricity. Although energy-saving bulbs are slightly more expensive than decent ones, they consume less electricity. Replace such bulbs start from the places where you light most often.

Disabling unused equipment from switch! 

Did you know that unused equipment very often continues to draw electricity? Therefore, turning off equipment that we do not use is very important. Try not to use standby mode. Although it’s very convenient, the console or laptop will start in a few seconds, the financial benefits of completely turning off the device will compensate you for temporary discomfort.

In short:

• A good way to save energy is to invest in appropriate lighting.
• In that the proper use of devices, we can save electricity at home.
• Saving electricity also helps to protect the environment.

What bill subsidies are available?

Households can apply for subsidies to recompensate for increases. In 2022, it is especially an “energy supplement”. The surcharge can range from 20 PLN up to 1437.50 PLN.

Ways to save without changing your habits:

An interesting way to save money is to choose the proper electricity tariff. We distinguish two tariffs: night – it could be helpful when you heat the house with electricity or have an electric car; weekend – it is useful in the event that we consume more energy on Saturdays and Sundays.

When we save electricity, it does not need to be produced in larger and larger quantities, in that we pollute our environment less. For lower electricity consumption, we pay smaller bills, i.e. we save both our money and electricity.

Mądre gospodarowanie prądem jest nie tylko ekologiczne, ale i oszczędne. Rachunki za energie potrafią naprawdę zaskoczyć i stać się dużym obciążeniem dla domowego budżetu. Spośród wielu metod, warto wybrać te, które najłatwiej będzie wprowadzić w codziennym życiu. Dowiedz się więcej, jak to zrobić.

Wykorzystywanie światła dziennego!

Najlepszym sposobem na zaoszczędzenie jest wykorzystanie światła dziennego. Warto zorganizować przestrzeń w swoim domu, by jak najlepiej doświetlić pomieszczenia. Jeśli pracujesz w domu przy komputerze, ustaw biurko przy oknie. Dzięki temu zagwarantujesz większy dostęp światła do miejsca pracy.

Wyłączanie światła!

Wielu z nas zapomina o prostym nawyku, który pomoże zaoszczędzić energię. Niestety łatwo pomijamy fakt gaszenia światła, w pomieszczeniach, gdzie nie przebywają domownicy. Warto zwrócić uwagę na ten zwyczaj, który pomoże nam w zaoszczędzeniu prądu.

Żarówki energooszczędne!

Trzecim sposobem na zaoszczędzenie prądu, jest wymiana żarówek na takie, które mniej go pobierają. Choć żarówki energooszczędne są nieco droższe od zwykłych, zużywają mniej prądu. Wymianę takich żarówek zacznij od miejsc, gdzie palisz światło najczęściej.

Wyłączanie nieużywanego sprzętu z kontaktu! 

Czy wiesz, że nieużywany sprzęt bardzo często dalej pobiera prąd? Dlatego wyłączanie sprzętów, z których nie korzystamy jest bardzo ważne. Staraj się nie używać trybu czuwania. Chociaż to bardzo wygodne, konsola czy laptop uruchomi się w kilka sekund, korzyści finansowe związane z całkowitym wyłączeniem urządzenia wynagrodzą Ci chwilowy dyskomfort.

W skrócie:

Sposoby na oszczędzanie bez zmiany nawyków:

Dobrym sposobem na zaoszczędzenie jest dobranie odpowiedniej taryfy prądu. Wyróżniamy dwie taryfy: nocna – może być ona pomocna, gdy ogrzewasz dom prądem lub posiadasz samochód elektryczny; weekendowa – jest on przydatna, w przypadku, gdy zużywamy więcej energii w soboty i niedziele.

Gdy oszczędzamy prąd, nie trzeba go produkować w coraz większych ilościach, dzięki czemu mniej zanieczyszczamy nasze środowisko. Za mniejsze zużycie prądu płacimy mniejsze rachunki, czyli oszczędzamy i nasze pieniądze, i energię elektryczną.

Our natural environment is still in terrible condition. One of main problems is littering caused by an increasing consumerism in many countries (including Greece). We – authors of this article – asked the Greek a few questions about issues like waste sorting or plastic recycling. We wanted to see how good their knowledge of those problems is. Following this article, you’ll learn more about results of this survey and implications we made of it.

Methods of collecting data

Our survey consisted of five simple questions we asked people met on streets of Larisa – one of the largest cities in central Greece. We took care of finding diverse statistical sample by choosing people of different gender from different age groups. Among answerers. Even though we had problems caused by language barrier, citizens of Larisa were eagerly answering our questions. 

Results of our survey

Results of our survey definitely aren’t optimistic. At the beginning, answerers estimated their knowledge of recycling. Opinions were very different. The most common were answers between 5 and 8. Plastic bottle needs between 100 and 1000 years to decompose but only 4 out of 15 asked gave answer from that range. The most common answer was “10” – three answerers gave this number. On second place there were two answers with an equal amount of votes – “20” and “100”. We can clearly see that the Greek tend to underestimate an amount of time necessary for natural environment to get rid of waste. Only one out of all answerers knew where an empty milk carton should be thrown away even though two out of three declared that they’re sorting trash, which is very worrying. It’s worth mentioning that people who answered correctly to our questions tend to overestimate their knowledge, while people rating it very high often had all their answers incorrect. At least, citizens of Larisa are aware of the problem as only one out of 13 found level of education in Greece about climate advanced enough.

Next steps

In this tough situation we should consider what should be done to end this climate crisis. In Greece, education seems to be the weakest link because even though most of the Greek are aware of this problem, they don’t understand the scale and don’t have enough knowledge to properly protect natural environment. Incorporating this education into compulsory lessons and launching an informational campaign would bring about positive results. Right now, the most important thing for Greek people to do is attempting to gain knowledge on their own to improve this terrible situation caused by the lack of knowledge. 

At the beginning of November, in one of the high schools in Sieradz, we conducted an anonymous survey to check knowledge of the environmental protection. Almost 200 people took part in it and results of the poll are surprising (read to the end).

Climate changes- school community’s knowledge

We started the survey by asking respondents how they rate their knowledge of climate changes. Most of them (almost 60%) described their knowledge as average. Quite a lot of participants replied that their knowledge was at a high level (about 32% of people) and only 8% of them claimed that their knowledge in this area was poor.

The mistakes of society

There were many different questions in the field of ecology in the survey. We mainly referred to problematic issues and frequently made mistakes disadvantageous for the environment. We asked the students, e.g. how often they segregate waste, leave open taps, lights turned on and chargers and power adapters in the socket. In most cases, they describe their actions as preventing the degradation of nature. However, they believe that people and their actions on Earth are the most responsible for climate changes.

How to take care of the environment?

Our main goal was to find out how, according to the respondents, people should protect the environment. Their responses mainly referred to activities that they themselves can undertake and propagate in their households and surroundings. Examples of the proceedings they have proposed are:

• waste segregation

• saving water and energy

• reduction of plastic consumption

• using of bicycles and public transport instead of cars and planes

• increasing students’ awareness of climate changes in schools

Is the meat reduction in the diet important for the climate?

We asked in the survey: Will less meat consumption have a positive effect on climate change? Almost 50% of the respondents said that this is a significant issue in the fight for the environment and they are absolutely right! Few people know that meat production causes the emission of methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, each of which has a negative impact on the climate. Interestingly, almost 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions are gases produced during the digestive processes of farm animals (mainly cattle and sheep). However, beef and dairy production cause 65% of all derived from farm animals emissions.

Education of young people

Despite the upward trend in the knowledge of climate change among students, their knowledge base is still incomplete. We have to strive to broaden horizons and increase the knowledge of this topic, especially among young people, on whom the fate of our planet depends the most. What makes us content is that young people are aware of the seriousness of the drastic situation in which we are. We have to remember that we only have one Earth and we must all take care of it!