5 Eco-Friendly Hacks For Renters

Keen to reduce your home’s environmental footprint but not sure what’s possible while renting?

Making your home more environmentally friendly is easier than you might think (and often doesn’t require your landlord’s permission).

Renting doesn’t mean you can’t make sustainable changes to your home. Picture: Getty

Here are five things you can do that don’t involve installing solar panels, double-glazing your windows or replanting the entire garden with natives.

1. Assess your energy provider

Chat to your energy supplier about their commitment to renewables and consider joining one that’s investing in this space.

At Origin, their ambition is to lead the energy transition through cleaner energy and customer solutions. They have set some ambitious sustainability targets and are evolving their energy portfolio to include more renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydrogen.

They’re also helping every day Aussie’s make the switch to a lower emission future with their involvement with GreenPower, a government led program that’s all about putting more renewable energy into the grid. When you sign up you can choose 25%, 50% or 100% GreenPower.

Whichever option you choose, the equivalent percentage of your electricity consumption is annually matched with renewable energy back into the grid, helping to reduce the amount of non-renewables overall.

2. Use the three Rs

The three Rs are reduce, reuse and recycle. The concept is fairly straightforward: it’s all about curbing the amount of waste your household sends to landfill.

Reducing involves minimising the overall waste you put out. It could mean phasing out single-use items like plastic bags, bottles and packaged goods such as flour or cleaning products, and replacing them with reusable or refillable alternatives.

Looking at the three R’s can significantly help reduce your waste. Picture: Getty

Reusing is finding new functions for items you no longer use. Old clothes, homewares, appliances and toys can be donated, sold or given away, or even repurposed into something else.

Lastly, recycling doesn’t just apply to the items you throw in your kerbside bin. You may find recycling options in your local area for all kinds of household goods, including electrical items, batteries, white goods, mattresses, clothing and furniture.

3. Switch out energy- and water-sapping fittings

They may seem small fry, but fittings such as light bulbs and shower heads require a lot of energy and water. In fact, lighting alone makes up 10% of the average Aussie home’s electricity budget.

To significantly cut your energy use, replace all your light bulbs with LEDs. These bulbs use around 75% less energy than traditional halogen varieties, and they last up to 10 times longer.

As far as your shower head goes, consider installing a low-flow solution. Don’t let the name fool you – low-flow shower heads use up to 60% less water but often deliver the same level of pressure by mixing the water with air.

Just make sure you keep the old shower head in case you need to reinstall it when you move out.

4. Look to the outdoors

Even if you’re renting, it’s possible to set up a greener garden or balcony (at least, as far as the environment is concerned).

Purchase a compost bin where you can place discarded items like fruit and vegetable scraps, bread and cereals, coffee grounds, used tea leaves and garden waste.

It’s entirely possible to set up both a veggie garden as well as a food waste system in a rental – even a small one. Picture: Getty

Just avoid animal products like meats, fats and dairy. You can then use the compost as fertiliser on your indoor or outdoor plants.

Another way to make your outdoor area more eco-friendly is to collect rainwater. Don’t worry, there’s no need to ask your landlord to install a rainwater tank.

Simply place a large barrel in your garden or on your balcony to harvest water, then use it to irrigate your plants.

5. Smarten up your devices

Smart devices are incredibly handy tools – not least because they can help you monitor and curb your home’s energy consumption. Products like smart thermostats and smart energy meters can be tricky to install if you’re renting (because they can involve some finicky hard wiring) but there are several other options that don’t require any electrical work.

Smart plugs with in-built energy monitoring are a great example; they sit between your wall and appliance to turn any device into a smart one. You can then check how much energy it’s using andoperate it remotely via your smartphone or tablet.

You’re probably also familiar with the dreaded ‘vampire power’. This is when appliances are turned off but still consuming energy in standby mode, which is estimated to contribute up to 10% of your energy bill.

Forget spending ages each night switching everything off at the wall. Using a smart power board, you can plug in multiple devices and schedule individual ones to turn on and off (completely) when you want.

How do Aussies feel about energy-efficient features?

In partnership with the REA Group, we’ve launched the PropTrack Origin Australian Home Energy Report, analysing the motivations and challenges for Aussies to adopt energy-efficient initiatives at home. The report aims to help understand the sentiment of all Australians, whether they rent or own, towards energy efficiency.

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