Lights Out.

It’s 10:15 pm, midweek. 

My two flatmates are watching television while I slave away on my brief that is due the next morning. Suddenly it all became dark. AGAIN! This is the second time this month that we ran out of electricity, and this time it’s not funny. The very convenient cell phone-banking service did come in handy, until we realised that our prepaid meter has also died in the process. It is pandemonium in 601! My laptop is going to die, Anna has to straighten her hair and Marianne has to have her coffee in the morning (your typical first world problems). After endless calls to the City of Cape Town and hours of holding on for someone to assist, we finally got a knock on our door that night at 12:30 am. Two middle aged, friendly electricians, came to our rescue!

Yes, we should have checked our electricity usage more often, but the main reason behind us running out of electricity was because electricity prices had gone up without us noticing. Usually we would just buy our standard R300/month voucher, punch it in and we’re good for the month. As discovered lately, we now use approximately R450/month, which buys us only 389 units to be precise.

This made us think twice about our electricity usage and how we in truth waste electricity. We started doing the following to save some electricity in our apartment, note that this is scientifically proven to improve on electrical consumption, but surely did help us crop our electricity down to R350/month.

• ·         Only open the fridge once you know what you want, and close it immediately.
• ·         Don’t leave your devise chargers in the plugs.
• ·         Take shorter showers and shallower baths.
• ·         Don’t brush your teeth with hot water.
• ·         Go to bed with wet hair, seeing as you are going to straighten it in the morning anyway.
• ·         If possible use the gym’s bathroom facilities.
• ·         Only wash dirty cloths, thus check that your laundry is actually dirty items.
• ·         Don’t use the big light that has five bulbs, put on the side lamp, it is more romantic anyway.
• ·         When making dinner, only use the oven or the stove top, i.e. make everything in one pan or oven tray. It also saves on the amount of dishes.
• ·         Don’t fill up the kettle, only put in enough water for three cups, or the occasional fourth cup.

 

http://www.agencypost.com/the-myth-of-the-light-bulb-idea/ 

P.S we love to think that it will save the world, but what we have learnt from our experience is that we take the luxury of electricity for granted. We should use it sparingly and consider the pollution created by the supply of electricity.

Every bit helps, even if it seems silly or mindless. I challenge you to take steps in your household to bring down your electrical consumption. Who knows, maybe we can save the world after all.