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These tips are courtesy of Beyond Green's Joanna Yarrow. More can be found in
her book 1001 Ways You can Save the Planet, published by
Duncan Baird Publishers.
1)
Keep a jug or bottle of tap water in the fridge. This
will mean that you don’t waste water waiting for it to
run cold from the tap
2) Cut down your wine miles. As you’ll know if you’ve ever lugged a
case back from the off-licence, bottles of wine take some carrying.
So, minimize your contribution to the environmental headache of hauling
this heavy treat around the globe by favouring wines produced as close
to home as possible
3) If your house is reasonably insulated, you should be able to turn
the heating off 1/2hr before going to bed without noticing a drop in
temperature before you crawl under the covers. You'll notice a drop
in your energy bill though – of about 5%
4) Minimise the need to clean your floors by placing doormats inside
and outside external doors and asking people to take their shoes off
as they come in. Who said that saving the planet was hard work?
5) Water that has had eggs boiled in it is enriched with calcium. Pouring
it on your garden, once it’s cooled, rather than down your sink, will
save a little water and feed your plants
6) Around 24,000 people die from hunger every day. Visit www.thehungersite.com,
click the “give free food” button, and the website’s sponsors donate
the equivalent of a cup of food to a hungry person on your behalf.
If you set it up as your homepage, you can give a cup every time you
go online
7) Up to a third of the drinking water that comes into the average
western home goes straight down the toilet. To reduce the volume per
flush put a plastic bottle filled with water into the cistern
8) A petrol lawnmower can produce as much pollution per hour as 40
cars! Instead use an electric mower (ideally powered by electricity
from a green tariff) – or a manual one, which will get you fit while
you push it
9) Drive off as soon as you start your car’s engine. Modern engines
don’t need time to warm up, so idling creates unnecessary pollution
and mechanical wear
10) Turning your washing machine dial to 30˚ saves up to 40% of the
energy consumed – in a year, that’s enough to heat 1000 microwave meals!
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