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  • Use ethical banking services e.g. The Co-operative bank.
  • Invest some of your pension options in ethic shares.
  • Give to charity.
  • Don't have too many kids.
  • Take less baths, if any at all and use the shower. It uses less water. Many people think that water is there anyway, so why use less. However, it takes a lot of energy to treat waste water and pump it back to your home. Also, when water is treated, various chemicals are added - less water treated would mean less chemicals ultimately ending up back in the environment.
  • Wee in the shower (not the bath, that's somehting else entirely!). Again it's another way of saving water by reducing flushes. This article from the Gaurdian details the 'rules'.
  • Switch off the shower during - soaping down etc.
  • Switch off the tap while your brushing your teeth.
  • Don't always flush - if it's yellow, let it mellow. if it's brown, flush it down.
  • Try to use less bleech etc, it all end up back in the water-course.
  • Use biodegradable cleaning products. Ecover have some great products that work jusy as well as the usual brand names. They are a bit more expensive, but I think it's worth it. They're available in most supermarkets.
  • Use handryers instead of paper towels when out and about.
  • Use soap instead of handwash - soap doesn't come in plastic containers.
  • Don't drink mineral water. Link to tests showing people can't actually tell the difference - uses loads of plastic bottles.
  • Reuse plastic bottles.
  • Don't worry about germs so much, they won't kill you!!

Childcare

Nappies. Disposable nappies are filling up landfill sites at a staggering rate of 3 billion a year, or 8 million a day. Tthey equate to around 2.4% of all household waste going to landfill - if you consider that only a small percentage of houses have infants using nappies, this is a large percentage. By the time they reach two and a half, an average child will have used approximately 3,700 nappies – which equates to over 10 tonnes of waste, 40 black sacks per child per year. There are two simple alternatives:

  1. Use machine washable reusable nappies
  2. Use biodegradable nappies.
  3. Use bidegradable baby wipes.

http://www.nappyinformationservice.co.uk/environment.htm
http://www.wrap.org.uk/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4559665.stm
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=41857
http://www.pollutionissues.co.uk/landfill-nappies.html

 

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