Help the planet: Choose LED
The first step towards sustainability
Thinking green and behaving sustainably. These are the mantras of today. The problem is that the most of us do not have a clue how to behave sustainably. Many understand it as being a reasonable buyer and use fewer resources where possible. There are actually also cases of people bathing once a week in an attempt to save resources. Here comes the problem though: if we truly are as green thinking and responsible as we claim why have we not made the most obvious and easy step towards a more sustainable life?
Light matters more than you expect
At our homes we use different kinds of resources but electricity is the one that by far surpasses costs and environmental impact of other resource use as water or heating. Furthermore, whereas water and heat use can only be reduced a little without impacting our lifestyles, we can cut electricity down with amazing 10-15% at the moment and expectedly even more in a few years time.
Most importantly though, it is incredibly simple and does not require big investment to achieve such savings. All you have to do is switch your old fashioned incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs. According to a new research by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on the environmental impact of lighting sources, such a switch from incandescent bulbs to LEDs will reduce the total environmental impact of lighting 3 to 10 times. This will be furthermore an economically sound decision. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (US) if all incandescent bulbs in the US are switched with CLFs or LEDs the saved energy will total at 3 000 000 000kWh a year costing 600 mill USD.
Light up the LEDs and minimize your CO2 footprint
The research focuses not only on energy efficiency which is dramatically enhanced in LEDs and CLFs but also on the life cycle of the light bulbs all the way from sourcing raw materials to disposing of them. So if you are looking to make a positive environmental impact you have to start by doing the obvious and switching to LEDs. Efficiency aside, the Pacific National Laboratory is adamant: LEDs are the most environment friendly choice. LEDs came indeed as a winner in 14 out of 15 researched categories including also health impact. The conclusion was that even though LEDs and CLFs use almost the same amount of energy, LEDs are the better choice.
Furthermore, the prognosis about the development of the lighting sector gives yet another reason to choose LEDs: while it is not expected that CLFs will develop in the years to come, LEDs are expected to undergo a rapid development leading to mind blowing results: by 2017 LEDs are going to have 50% less environmental impact than today’s LEDs and 70% less than today’s CLFs.
Therefore, if you want to behave sustainably, why have you not changed to LEDs yet?
Switching to efficient LEDs pays out
It is definitely worth to point out once againg that making that change at home is not only for “green thinkers”. As switching to LEDs is going to save you a lot of money. Estimations show that when buying LEDs you will get up to 50 000 hours of operation for your money. You will also get as low energy consumption as 300kWh for the whole period. If you, however, buy CLFs you will have to replace them around 5 times to match the life span of a LED bulb. Your energy consumption for the whole period will be ca. 600kWh or twice as much as if you choose LEDs. And if you make the decision to “go cheap” with incandescent bulbs, you will have to change the bulb 40 times and your energy consumption will explode to around 3000kWh for the whole period.
Making the calculation here is easy: LEDs may cost you initially but are the most economically sound decision. So how about that – you save yourself a lot of money and time maintaining light bulbs and in the same time earn the right to label your lifestyle as sustainable. You would then agree that LEDs are a good deal.
by mylight.me
