Economic and Environmental Incentives For A Sustainable Household

Here are 5 steps to make your house more environmentally friendly, and the benefits that come along with them. These are all simple implementations you can find around the @ecoswell house, that anyone can accomplish in households or workspaces of their own. These are especially beneficial in rural and developing areas, and we have even begun promoting them throughout the Lobitos community to improve sanitation, reduce waste, and manage water scarcity.

Picture taken by Sami Murphy, EcoSwell volunteer, one of the pages in her notebook

1. Compost
   Just about everyone is a culprit of food waste. In fact, “Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted”, according to the FAO [cite1]. Whether this means forgetting about produce in the back of your fridge until they're rotten, or discarding undesirable leaves and stems, we are all contributors to this daunting statistic. However, the ability to change this is much simpler than most may think. Composting is a great alternative that makes use of leftover food and cycles nutrients for other purposes. By mixing leftover food with mulch (dry material such as fallen leaves or straw), you can create your own organic fertilizer in no time. This simple process virtually eliminates your food waste footprint, and generates an entirely new product in the end; a win-win!
   Not to mention, you can save on products other than food as well...
   1.Trash bags: Think about the proportion of food waste to trash that is typically deposited in your garbage bin. Even if it is a small percentage, these daily amounts accumulate and increase the frequency of which bags must be replaced. Overtime, this will save you trips to the store, out of pocket expenses, and plastic waste.
2. Fertilizer: With your own source of organic fertilizer that is nutrient rich, there will be no need to purchase expensive fertilizers or manure. Additionally, you can cultivate an organic garden free from harmful chemicals.
   
   The compost bin in the EcoSwell kitchen, photo by Sami Murphy
3. Dry Toilet
   Bathroom usage is a huge producer of waste (besides your own, of course). It produces tons of sewage annually and each flush can use anywhere from 1.3-7 gallons of water [cite 2]. Multiply this number by daily trips to the bathroom and number of users in one household, and you’re looking at thousands of gallons of water used for this function alone annually. This usage is especially worrisome for developing and drought ridden areas, who have limited water availability. To combat this, dry toilets help conserve water while giving value to your waste. By accumulating and decomposing excrement in the wastechamber, the dry toilet actually produces nutrient, bacteria, and microbial rich material that can be used as manure. As for urine, it can be applied for irrigation purposes. At the @ecoswell house, we’ve connected the urine pipe to a drip irrigation line that waters a growing hedge of Vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides). Like us, you can grow plants that handle high toxicity environments and absorb contaminants through their roots, such as urine. Plants like these not only give your urine a new purpose, but can increase soil fertility, decrease top-soil erosion, and provide extra green space around your household.
   
   * The pilot dry toilet at the EcoSwell house, photo by EcoSwell*
4. Reuse gray water
   Grey water (aka domestic wastewater) anywhere from the kitchen sink to the washing machine can be reused to irrigate plants in your garden. This cuts down on excessive and expensive watering from sprinklers that often miss the target area or run for too long. Not only this, but gray water has extra nutrients and organic matter in it that can improve the health of your plants and facilitate increased soil decomposition and quality. Since promoting gray water reuse throughout Lobitos in late 2016, about 56,688 liters of water have been reused. Additionally, approximately 375 liters of water are saved weekly per family.

*At the @ecoswell house, our sink water drains into a gray water bucket that we dump about 3 times a day. We use this water to grow papaya, passion fruit, melon, and much more.
Reusable bags
Plastic is one of the environment’s biggest threats. With massive oceanic “plastic islands” and inland “plastic forests” dominating once pristine landscapes, it is exponentially degrading nature everywhere. Despite microplastics threatening wildlife and toxic leakage from landfills, plastic production is inevitable. A very easy way to cut down on plastic waste however, is to purchase reusable bags. These are excellent for trips to the market, and are often more spacious and durable than plastic bags as well. With more efforts like these, we can increasingly impact global plastic waste.

Every week at the @ecoswell house, we bring about 7 reusable bags to the local Talara produce market, where we fill them to the brim with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Some of our reusable grocery shopping shopping bags, photo by Sami Murphy
5.Water Filters
In many places, drinking tap water is not a safe or favorable option. Because of this, many rely on plastic water bottles to supplement their needs. Not only does this up the plastic waste count per household, but it can incur water wastes as well. Think about all the times you have seen unidentified, half drunk water bottles lying around that ultimately get thrown away. Purchasing reusable water bottles and a long lasting water filter is a simple and effective solution to this. Another bonus, is all the money you can save without needing to purchase water on a weekly basis.
Ecoswell has given water filters to various households in the greater lobitos community, who live with contaminated and scarce water sources. Normally, they must boil their water, which doesn’t eliminate as many contaminants as filters, produces a stale taste, and uses up more water due to evaporation. We hope to continue onward with sanitation and sustainability initiatives like these with money we raise from steemit. Steemit is a great platform for us to showcase our work, encourage environmental consciousness, and generate extra money to fund our projects.
In response to the destructive El Nino events of 2017, EcoSwell teamed up with Waves 4 Water to donate water filters to community members living with contaminated water.

The water filter in the EcoSwell kitchen, photo by Sami Murphy

*A water filter donated by Waves 4 Water that was given out during El Niño, photo by EcoSwell *
@EcoSwell is a for-impact, sustainable development organization based in Lobitos, Peru. Since 2014, we have been working everyday to help coastal communities thrive in unison with nature. All the revenue generated from our SteemIt posts go directly back into our projects. If you would like to learn more, please visit our Facebook, website, and follow us on SteemIt!