Questioning Priorities
[Day 01]
The first three weeks of living in a shared flat in Milan were full of surprises — at least in our flat. First, our washing machine broke right after the two-hour-long cold water eco-washing, and our toilet was clogged. Throughout all these events, the first thing always pops up in my head is, “how could I live with our washing machine or toilet?”
Thus this time, when I heard about the challenge, naturally, those incidents popped into my head — how struggled I was not to be able to use the bathroom and had to find it in the public area, how upset I was to know that I have no clothes to wear for the next couple of days…
All this time, I thought of regrets, “if the dishwasher broke instead of the washing machine, my life would be so much easier.”
Thus when tackling the “4KWh challenge,” my strategies to set the priorities straight. Indeed I want to use the toilet when I need to, but I could optimize the frequency of use of the washing machine. I hope to use this challenge as a time to rethink how I spend time and devices at home.
[Day 02]
The challenge started by writing down all this energy consumption in our house on tables. (unfortunately, we had a few rooms whose doors were completely sealed during this challenge, so I only counted the devices I could see.)
Soon I realized the fridge is the most electricity-consuming product among the other electronic devices in our house. (And we have two of them!) But turning off the fridge was not a realistic option for our home, as most of us are fond of food. Though one of the freezers is not usable as the shelves are torn — It might be nice if I could turn off the freezer function to optimize electricity usage.
Also, lights in the shared space area, such as corridor lights in which people only spend a few minutes a day, could be the target. Some mornings, I would wake up and find the lights were still on, so I decided to ask my flatmates for cooperation. Thanks to the talk, we barely use the light now!
Although I love cooking, I have discovered that bars on campus sell sandwiches for half of the price in the evening. They will not heat the sandwich at a discounted price, but microwaves are everywhere on campus. Thus using those could be the option to reduce energy consumption at home. (and top it all that, you can contribute to reducing food waste, plus finish dinner before even going home! )
[Day 03]
To reduce household energy consumption, I decided to spend more time outside. For example, I decided to do as many laptop tasks as possible at school. Use the battery until it runs out of power, then charge it and unplug it when it is complete. I attempted to do the same with my mobile phone and decided not to use my tablet during the challenge.
After a few days, when I went through the battery health in each device, I found that the tablets potentially lasted for 8–10 hours, whereas my laptop ran out of battery after 3–4 hours. This is due to the battery aging of the computer, and tablet devices proved energy-efficient. In addition, it came to my attention that my laptop is constantly processing Chrome render. Still, knowing that searching for a way to turn this feature off also takes up some energy, I decided to deal with that when I have more energy capacity. Instead, I have decided to use more tablet devices for desktop research and writing tasks and my laptop for other work.
Other strategies include spending more time in the shared space, such as in the kitchen at night, and getting up early to use the sunlight as a source of light efficiently. Doing so could reduce the time spent using the fluorescent lights in my private rooms. Spending more time in common areas was challenging for my personality and caused me more mental stress. On the other hand, it gave me more opportunities to have conversations with my flatmates. In addition, having time to work in the morning sun allowed me to experience the feeling of recharging my energy.
