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Captin PlanetCaptain Planet's Guide to Greener Living

I worked in an office were I was nicknamed Captain Planet because I was a bit greener than the average tomato (e.g. I nagged people to turn the lights and AC off when they didn't need it). I'm by no means a tree-hugging-pious-Prius-driving-do-gooder - far from it, they actually tend to annoy me. However, since my mate Al lodged with me some years ago, he started me thinking about things I could do to be a bit greener. Over the years, I've picked up more and more ideas, some easy and some not so, and thought it might be good to share them.

The following pages highlight some of things that can be done to live a greener life and reduce our impact on the environment. Our impact on the world can't be ignored and there's a lot of easy things we can do. Most of the suggestions on the following pages don't generally cost any money (some even save money!) and generally won't make your life any less enjoyable or less comfortable. I also admit that I don't/can't do to all of these suggestions myself (you need some vices!), but try to do as many as possible.

The most important, and most often quoted, thing to remember is:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (in that order)

This phrase has become a bit of a cliché, but it is no less true because of this. Although recycling is much better than dumping rubbish into landfill, it's much better not to produce the waste in the first place. Therefore, only buy/consume what you really need, or are actually going to use, buy things with less packaging, but fundamentally try to consume less. In this country we throw away so much and not only is it bad for the environment, it actually hurts our wallets too.

As for re-using things, it's obviously good to make the most use of all things you own. If something's finished being useful to you, give it to a friend or charity, or even put it on ebay. It's depressing to see so many working TV's, hi-fi's, furniture etc dumped at the local tip just because the latest flat-screen has been bought as a replacement. It's also worth looking at freecycle as a good way of getting rid of anything you don't want any-more - you may think it's rubbish, but someone else may disagree. I gave away a GRP pond liner and a (very) old greenhouse and there were a LOT of enquiries.

Also, I'd quickly like to give my response the to following. I often hear people say "what's the point, any good I do will be eclipsed by the damage done in other countries like America (wasteful) and China (polluting), or even my next-door neighbour's who don't recycle". Please don't use this excuse. We have to start somewhere and someone has to set the good example. I don't feel that I have made a huge impact on my own, but there are a lot's of people like me and as a group effort, things are improving. Just by mentioning things like recycling and not being embarrassed or hippyish about it has allowed me to influence some family and friends who now recycle, as Al encouraged me.

Anyway, I don't want to sound too preachy, hope I haven't, that's really not my intention. Hope the following is useful...

Clicking on the following links will take you to pages listing a lot of things that you could easily do. If you only managed to do a small amount of these suggestions, it would help:

House / Home Garden At Work Out & About Food Shopping Life, Health & Hygiene Technology Travel
House Garden @Work Out & About Food Shopping Health &
Hygiene		 Technology Travel

 

Useful links:

  • How can I recycle this? - Ideas on how to reuse, repurpose and recylce everyday items.
  • Tip the Planet - Wiki page with tips on 'saving the planet'.
  • Recycle Now - Find out what you can recycle and where.
  • Carbon Footprint - Calculate your carbon footprint.
  • Ebay - sell your old stuff on eBay - someone somewhere can make use of it and you can make a few pounds too.
  • Freecycle - Give things away. You can get rid of anything from old furniture to bricks, carpet, CD's or kitchen cupboards. Someone somewhere will find a use for it!
  • Ecotricity - Buy power generated from green sources such as wind turbines.
  • Ecover - Biodegradable cleaning products.
  • Green bum-wipes - Guide to forest friendly / recycled toilet paper / kitchen towels / tissues.
  • uk.blackle.com - Save energy while you search online using google.
  • 365waystogogreen.com - One guys attempt to do something green each day of the year.