Have you ever heard of Earth Hour? It’s one hour (from 8:30-9:30pm your local time), one day (Saturday, March 29 this year), each year where we turn off all our electric appliances and do non-electric things! It can actually be really fun, with candles and actual TALKING to another person. We have to make a few modifications over here because we have some little ones who will be in bed but are afraid of the dark and sleep with sound machines. But my husband and I have turned off all the other appliances in the house for ourselves.

Some of the goals of Earth Hour 2014 include raising awareness of our energy use, giving us time to reflect, and even offering the opportunity to donate the money you might have saved on electricity to worthy causes (after the hour is over, of course!). Another great outcome of Earth Hour is to help us continue to change our habits going forward, in a positive way.

For example, you’ll probably turn off your devices during Earth Hour, but what about the chargers for those devices? eCycle has provided an infographic below which illustrates how much more energy we can each save if we just make sure to unplug our chargers when not in use!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really turn off my gadgets AT ALL, and I am very guilty of leaving the chargers plugged in. I will make sure to unplug in the future! Join me?