Go Green!

This section provides simple tips on how to be green. To live along these guideline will be rewarding to your peace of mind as you will be helping to protect the planet.

1. Make your home well insulated, avoiding heat waste can save money on your heating bills and save avoidable heat generation.

2.Install low energy light bulbs to cut electric bills and save avoidable heat generation.

3.If applicable invest in alternative energy supplies to power your home such as solar and wind technology.

4.Be sure to turn off unnesseccary electrical appliances from the mains as opposed to leaving them on standby. It may seem like a small detail, but when you apply this to the nations standby lights as a whole you'll be suprised how much energy is wasted. 

5.Avoid chemical based cleaning products around the house, when poured down the sink they will eventually find there way into the local ecosystems. There are many less harmful products on the market and they are perfectly adequate for household cleaning. Additionally intensive sterilised cleaning around the home can reduce the effectiveness of our immunity systems.

 6.Reduce water usage by taking showers instead of baths and install if applicable a water butt to catch rainfall. This can be used on your garden instead of tap water which will have been intensively treated.

7.Make your garden nature friendly. Having ponds and plants is a great way to encourage wildlife and this will bring you closer to nature and appreciate the planets beauty.

8.Compost biodegradable kitchen waste and use on your garden or alternatively give it to a gardener who may appreciate it.

9.Growing your own food or buying locally, i.e. farm shops ensures minimum transportation, leading to less CO2 emmissions and fresher produce.     

10. Reuse, repair and reclaim. This statement speaks for itself, by being resourceful is satisfying and once you start thinking this way from an environmental perspective you can find it compellingly addictive!

11. Recycling waste products is now an easier prospect thanks to the recycling facilities you find in every city/town/community and also the schemes that are being promoted regarding collection of recyclable waste. Theres many household items that can be recycled i.e.glass, tins, plastic, aluminium foil etc and these waste products can be reproduced into other useful items. Recycling helps prevent unneccesary waste going to landfill and saves on production emmissions, as to produce a new product from scratch (as opposed to from a recycled waste product) takes extra energy. If possible its best to reuse a product instead of recycling it, maybe for a different use than it was originally intended i.e. jam jars as storage containers, this echos the sentiment of being resourceful in the previous tip.

12. Use a mug, millions of polystyrene and plastic cups are used each year with most going to landfill. The alternative is to use your own real mug, it will make your beverage taste better and reduce avoidable waste.

13. Run a car thats fuel efficient and use alternative forms of transport when you can i.e. Cycling, public transport, walking etc. By cycling and walking you will improve your health as a positive side effect!

14. When shopping resist items that have excessive packaging. It creates unneccesary waste and you will pay extra for the product. You pay for what you throw away.

15.Use real nappies as opposed to disposable versions. This helps reduce usage of landfill and can be cost effective.

16. Recycle black bin liner usage. These eventually find there way to landfill where they take hundreds of years to decay and as they decay they'll produce methane gas, which contributes to global warming. By reusing carrier bags is a way of helping especially if they are of the biodegradable variety.

17. Use both sides of the paper instead of one and of course you'll save 50% of you paper usage. Millions of trees are needlessly felled to provide paper, so use your paper well.

18. Use e-mailing as opposed to conventional mailing (where applicable). This will save paper and excessive transportation.

19. Be aware of ethical and ecological practices when living your day to day life. Be informed and support trades and charities that endeavor to work with ecological efficiency. On the flip side, boycott products from companies that don't work with a good sense of ethics.

20. Spread the word, the planet is is starting to dictact back to us the harm we as a race have done to her and this will back up your views.

21. Enjoy the planets beauty, this will promote your love of her and can further your desire to protect her.