Want to be eco-friendly and do your bit to help save the planet? Here’s 10 things you can do now to reduce your impact on the environment.
- Reduce!
Buy less stuff – think before you buy. Do you really need it? Can you do without it? - Reuse!
Take unwanted stuff to your local charity shop or give it away on Freecycle. - Recycle!
Recycle as much of your household waste as you can (paper, plastic, glass, etc). - Turn it off!
Don’t leave electrical equipment on standby and always turn off lights in empty rooms. - Make the switch!
Switch to energy-efficient and energy-saving CFL or LED lightbulbs around the home. - Buy organic!
Always buy seasonal and locally-grown organic fruit and veg when it’s available. - Buy recycled!
Always buy recycled paper products (toilet roll, stationery etc) instead of the alternatives. - Take the bus (or train)!
Leave the car at home and use public transport for local journeys and commuting. - Walk (or cycle) to school!
Enjoy fresh air and exercise on the way to school, if walking or cycling is an option. - Subscribe!
Get our free newsfeed or newsletter for more useful tips to help you to lighten the load on the planet – and your pocket.
All of these tips are guaranteed to reduce your impact on the environment. And most will save you money too! Tell us what you would add to the list by leaving a comment for others to read.
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Don’t forget, today is Junk Mail Revenge Day! If you saved up all your junk mail for Junk Mail Revenge Day, today’s the day to send it all back.
A polite note on the envelopes stating that the mail is ‘unwanted’ and instructing the postal service to return it to the sender – at the sender’s expense – will ensure they get the message.
Find out how to stop junk mail to reduce the amount you get in future.
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What do you do with all that junk mail you get in the post? Do you bin it (tut tut!) without opening it? Do you recycle it to avoid sending more waste to the landfill? Or do you return it to the sender – and hope they recycle it – with a note on the envelope asking to be removed from their mailing-list.
I do the latter and it usually works. A polite note on the envelope stating that the mail is ‘unwanted’ and instructing the postal service to return it to the sender (at the sender’s expense) is my preferred way of dealing with it and, it has to be said, I don’t tend to get much.
Junk Mail Revenge Day
This Saturday, 15th November, is Junk Mail Revenge Day! The idea is that you save up all the junk mail you get through your letterbox this week and post it all back to the senders by dropping it in the nearest pillar box on Saturday.
Hopefully, the senders of the junk mail, who have to pay the postage on mail which is returned, will be inundated with all the unwanted items and will pay the price for sending it in the first place! Hitting them where it hurts – on the balance sheet – might make them rethink their strategy. If we all did it, all the time, they’d soon get the message and the junk mail would stop!
Some junk mail facts
- 650 pieces of junk mail are posted through the average British letterbox every year.
- DEFRA estimates that junk mail makes up nearly 2% of all household waste.
- Postcomm has estimated that around 550,000 tonnes of paper is used to produce 17.5 billion pieces of junk mail sent out every year.
- The 4.5 billion pieces of addressed junk mail use 181.5 tonnes of paper, while 368,500 tonnes of paper is needed to produce the 13 billion pieces of unaddressed junk mail.
- 550,000 tonnes of paper amounts to 4.4% of UK’s annual consumption of paper and board.
- It takes about 17 mature trees to produce a tonne of paper. The equivalent of 550,000 tonnes of paper is therefore 9.35 million trees.
- It not only takes a lot of trees to produce junk mail, it also takes a lot of water. In fact, 16.5 billion litres of water is used for the production of junk mail in Britain every year.
Stop junk mail now!
As well as returning junk mail to the sender (at their expense, don’t forget – no need for a stamp) there are a number of things you can do to stop the junk mail you receive, such as registering with the Mailing Preference Service (in the UK).
Go to the Stop Junk Mail website for more information. And read our article on how to stop your bills by switching to paper-free, or paperless, billing to further reduce the amount of paper you get through your letterbox.
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Have you switched to energy-saving (CFL) lightbulbs yet? With the end of British Summer Time, last weekend, the cost of lighting our homes and business premises increases considerably as the longer nights set in.
If you haven’t made the switch to energy-saving lightbulbs yet, maybe now’s a good time.
Save money too!
In terms of the cost, energy-saving lightbulbs (or CFLs) should be called money-saving too. Although they cost slightly more to buy, they last many times longer than traditional, incandescent bulbs and will save you a small fortune over their lifetime (lighting can account for upto 20% of your domestic electricity bill).
Add to that the savings in carbon emissions, by reducing the amount of power required to light our homes, and you’ve got a real deal – a quick and easy way to save money and save the planet!
Still not convinced?
If you’re still not convinced enough about the benefits to make the switch to cleaner, greener, energy-saving lightbulbs, check out this video by Common Craft which explains why you should…
Many countries are already phasing out the availability of traditional, incandescent bulbs altogether, in an effort to cut carbon emissions. In the UK it will happen by the end of 2011. But don’t wait until then – get your energy-saving lightbulbs now and start saving energy, carbon emissions and cash!
How long do they last?
Energy-saving CFL lightbulbs will last 15-20 times longer than traditional, incandescent bulbs (but they don’t cost 15-20 times as much). In fact, they might last even longer than that…
I was reminded about writing this article while I was over at Muse Green the other day, where I read a post on the same subject. It prompted me to leave a comment about my own experience with energy-saving lightbulbs, and one in particular that I’ve had for nearly 12 years!
It’s been to 3 addresses with me and when I bought it back in 1996 it cost around £15 because it was new technology then (they don’t cost anything like that now – prices start from £2 or £3). My £15 bulb was worth every penny though, and it’s still going strong!
What about the mercury?
There is some concern, from an environmental perspective, about the mercury contained in CFLs. It’s an unfortunate fact, but not one that should put you off making the switch.
Power stations emit small amounts of mercury in to the atmosphere when they generate electricity so reducing the amount required to light your home more than compensates for the tiny amount of mercury in the bulbs.
Providing that you dispose of the bulbs responsibly by recycling them, in accordance with the guidelines, there’s no harm done.
More information
You’ll find more information about energy-saving CFL lightbulbs on the DEFRA website. And if want to know more, from a technical point-of-view, check out the article on Wikipedia.
]]>Fed-up of all those bills coming through your letterbox? I was, so I decided to do something about it – I stopped them! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able stop paying them (I wish!) but was able to stop the mountain of paper I got every month.
So how do you stop your bills? Easy, go paper-free! Paper-free, or paperless, billing is easy to set up and the benefits to you, and the environment, are huge:
- Less paperwork to deal with
- Less documents to dispose of
- Less risk of identity theft
- Less resources consumed
- Less energy used
- Less CO2 produced
- Less trees cut down
- Less waste to landfill
If everyone in the UK went paper-free tomorrow, we’d save XX* million tonnes of CO2 from going in to the atmosphere and XX* million trees from being cut down. And save a whole pile of money in the process!
XX* I don’t know how much it would save (alot, obviously) and hope someone can enlighten me with the figures, for the benefit of all our readers. The info might be on the web or maybe an environmentalist, academic or student will know. Please leave a comment if you do!
Go paper-free
Most banks, telecom and utility companies, local and national authorities, now offer paper-free or paperless billing. Check out their websites or contact them to find out how you can do it.
Obviously you need internet access when you go paper-free, so that you can get and pay your bills electronically by email and on the web.
If your bank, telecom, utility company or local authority doesn’t offer paperless billing, ask them why – and tell them why you’d like to do it.
Stop junk mail too
You might have reasons for wanting paper bills, and not go paperless. But I doubt you want the sackfuls of junk mail that comes through your letterbox.
You can stop that too – or at least reduce it considerably – by registering with the Mailing Preference Service if you’re in the UK.
Do Not Mail are campaigning for a similar registry in the US and the CMA provide an opt-out service in Canada.
You can also return any unwanted mail to the sender with a notice on the envelope asking them to remove your details from their mailing-list. It usually does the trick!
Save! Save! Save!
Think of all the paperwork, hassle, resources, energy, waste, trees and money we’ll save when we all switch to paper-free billing and stop the junk mail. Remember, if you know exactly (or approximately) how much we’ll save, please let us know.
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You are free, and encouraged, to reuse and recycle the contents of this article under a Creative Commons license providing you give us credit and link (pingback) to this article using the full title and URL. Images may have a different license – please check the original(s) on Flickr.
Are you concerned about the amount of chemicals you use around the home?
I try to minimise the amount that I use because it makes for a healthier environment.
One of the things people tend to use too many harsh and hazardous chemicals for, is cleaning. OK, we all like to keep the place clean (when we have time!) but do we really need bucketfuls of toxic chemicals to do it?
Introducing… the humble lemon!
Lemon juice is a powerful cleaning agent and, when combined with sodium bicarbonate, will cut through grease and grime, in the kitchen or bathroom, better than most proprietory cleaning products.
I cleaned my kitchen, from top to bottom (not something I do often!), with nothing more than the juice of a lemon, a couple of teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate and a few drops of Tea Tree oil in a bowl of hot water, and it was gleaming!
And, if that wasn’t reward enough, I was content in the knowledge that there was no toxic residue on work surfaces and what I poured away, down the drain, was far less harmful to the environment than the cocktail of chemicals you’d find in most cleaning products.
The real cost of chemicals
I haven’t done the maths yet and I doubt, if I did, that this method would be any cheaper than an off-the-shelf product such as Ecover or Bio-D. But it’s not about how much it cost me, it’s about the real cost to the environment and to future generations.
Pollution from the chemical soup we dump into the sea is having a devastating effect on the eco-system. And, whilst industrial discharge is a major culprit, domestic effluent is compounding the problem. By using more natural products we can lessen our impact and lighten the load on the environment.
This article is the first in a series exploring how we can reduce our chemical dependency. Subscribe to our newsfeed or sign-up for our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss the next one!
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