It’s good to be green
If you’re keen to be green the good news is that there’s lots of little ways to cut down on energy wastage in our every day lives. Follow these simple tips and you can improve your carbon conscience and save money, all without hugging any trees…unless of course you want to.
Don’t over boil - when you use the kettle, only boil what you need, if you’re only making one cup, you don’t need to fill up. You’ll find it boils quicker and you’ll be using less energy and wasting less water. In fact, if we all only boiled what they needed, we could save enough electricity to run practically all the street lighting for the entire country.
Switch it off, or better still, unplug completely - mobile phone chargers, the kids’ console chargers, hairdryer…it all adds up. As long as they’re plugged in and the switch is on, they’re using energy. A home with 10 adapters left plugged in round the clock could easily use 360 KWh of energy a year - enough to keep an energy efficient light bulb burning constantly for over two years.
Shower more, soak less - filling a bath can use around 150 litres of water (or more) whereas a shower uses around 30. And taking more showers will mean that when you do go for a long soak, it feels all the more indulgent.
Buy local. 100 years ago, most of the food we ate came from within 20 miles of where we live, nowadays our food labels read like a holiday brochure. Nearly as much greenhouse gas is creating by moving food as is generated by all the power stations in the UK. Buying local, in season produce from farmers markets will mean you’re cutting down on carbon emissions, and there’s less packaging too. Plus, food picked and eaten locally is richer in nutrients than something that’s traveled thousands of miles to get to your plate.
Have legs, will walk
It’s all to easy to jump in the car for short journeys, but as well as the pollution aspect, using cars on short journeys, like popping to the local shop for bread, or taking the kids to school, isn’t very fuel efficient. So as a rule, if you could walk it, you should. You’ll be reducing emissions, saving money and shaping up too.
Go paperless. Most banks and lots of utility providers now offer paperless billing, so be sure to sign up for it wherever you can, you’ll be helping reduce paper wastage as well as the carbon emissions of the postal service. And you’ll have a whole lot less clutter round the house too.
Recycle, reuse, reinvent. Most of us have got the hang of what goes in the green bins, but recycling goes beyond sorting your domestic rubbish. Giving clothes to charity shops, taking household rubbish, garden refuse and old appliances to your local council tip will all reduce your carbon emissions. And be sure to look for websites in your area that let you post ads offering furniture, kids toys and more - and give your old junk a new lease of life.
Compost your kitchen waste, get a small composting bin to keep in your kitchen and a larger one in your garden (check your local council website as they can often supply them) and chuck your vegetable peelings and food scraps in. You can even compost garden waste, coffee grounds, paper and cardboard - you’ll be feeding rich nutrients back into your soil, saving money on expensive compost and making less trips to empty the bin too.