Dear Diary, … — part 1

This two-week diary details a challenge for the Innovation Studio course at the Politecnico di Milano where ‘my daily energy use must be cut in half at home’.

WHERE TO START?

In order to start this challenge, I first had to list what products were at home and how much energy I was expending per day. Frankly, I could see that I was consuming less energy than 8kWh per day, which is considered the average, because I moved to Milan from Turkey 1 month ago and my habits at home, the areas I live in have changed, and my comfort has decreased.

I am currently sharing a house with two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom with my flatmate. When I listed the products that consume energy at home, I saw that we have items to meet our basic needs and some practices have not even settled in my life yet.

When I understood how much energy these products at home consume and how long I use them, I was convinced that I could start this challenge (Yes, I had to convince myself because I saw that I consumed about 4kWh in a day).

I have seen that I consume energy mostly for the use of electric stove and refrigerator in the kitchen, for charging my phone/computer/power bank in my room, and for heating the water and using the washing machine in the bathroom.

At this point, I started looking for small but viable solutions that would change my daily habits, afraid of making radical decisions such as quitting cooking, unplugging my refrigerator, or not doing my laundry.

ABOUT TO START

After reviewing my habits, energy use and doing a little research on the internet, I realized that I could significantly reduce my energy consumption by doing the following:

1. Using less light
2. Shortening shower time
3. Reducing phone/computer usage time
4. Washing the laundry in colder water (30 degrees)

LET’S START, FIRST DAYS OF THE CHALLENGE

After I determined what I could do, I started applying them all in order to my life. I started by applying “using less light” and “taking a shower sooner” primarily because these would affect my daily life.

1. Using less light
   During my stay at home, I tried not to use the lights in the common areas and to use candles when it’s needed. The first thing I noticed was that I actually don’t really need to turn on that many lights, and I use most of them because of my habits. I realized that since my house is on the ground floor, there is no daylight in some areas or I have to keep the blinds closed, so I can’t benefit from daylight and therefore I consume more electricity. On the first day, I started cooking in the kitchen at around 6:30 pm, and when it started to get dark, I almost burned my food when I continued cooking without the light, so I saw that this method was not very safe. Not closing the bathroom door when my roommate was not at home was also a solution for me, but since I could not see and be sure of the water I spent when I was not using the light, I realized that this practice did not make much sense either.
2. Shortening shower time
   Considering that I take an average of 5–6 minutes of shower every day, I decided to reduce this time to 4 minutes. For this, I started using the countdown application on my phone (I think I used this feature of the phone for the first time). When my 4 minutes started, I had to do everything quickly and consciously. Because this challenge gamified my showering practice or imposed a task responsibility, instead of complicating my life, it offered a different experience.
3. Reducing phone/computer usage time
   This is where I think it will challenge me the most. When I saw that I spent an average of 6.5 hours a day looking at the phone screen, I remembered why I spent so much energy to charge it. I think that the time I spend on the phone every day to talk to my family, keep in touch with my friends and social media is too much. Every day I go out, I have to take a power bank with me because I run out of battery while taking photos, videos and talking to my friends. This causes me to blend more energy to charge these devices. And so I begin to explore the different features of my iPhone…
4. Washing the laundry in colder water (30 degrees)
   When I read that I would use less energy if I washed my laundry at lower temperatures, I thought this was the simplest thing I could do to reduce my energy use. Even if I do laundry once a week, when I calculate the energy consumed by the washing machine, I see that there is no small consumption at all. Encouraging my flatmate in this regard, we started washing all our laundry at 30 degrees. In this way, our energy consumption has been greatly reduced, as the machine both uses less energy to heat the water and washes the laundry in a shorter time.

If you want to learn how these methods I have started to try affect my life, I invite you to Part-2 😊