Households and the Environment

Statistics Canada has a great study on Households and the Environment. It's a 96 page document, but well worth the read. I wanted to point out some of the highlights.

When it comes to drinking water, the proportion of households that drink primarily bottled water has dropped from 30% to 24% in 2007. Also, 63% of households have low-flow shower-heads and 42% have low-volume toilets.

With heating and cooling, about half of Canadian households have programmable thermostats, but only half of them actually use the programmable features to lower temperature when they are sleeping or are away.

Interestingly, only 3/4 of household have at least one CFL bulb while 64% of us use a clothesline or drying rack instead of a energy wasting drier.

Household hazardous waste
-More than half of the households that had expired or leftover medication (57%) returned the medication to the supplier or retailer for disposal.
-Most households (62%) took or sent their unwanted paints and solvents to a depot or drop-off centre.
-Thirty-six percent of Canadian households had unwanted electronic devices to dispose of in 2009.
-Twenty-two percent of Canadian households reported that they had dead or unwanted compact fluorescent lights to dispose of, of which over half (56%) reported they put their dead or unwanted CFLs in the garbage, while 24% reported they took or sent them to a depot or drop-off centre.

If you are a glass-half-full kind of person, looking at this report is rather encouraging. There are about 50% of households that can be changed to be more environmentally friendly which will have an huge positive impact on the environment without having to make any drastic changes in lifestyle choices.