The Barriers to recycling in most London Boroughs

From my observations of recycling facilities around London, particularly in the Boroughs of Croydon, Greenwich, Lambeth and Southwark, I have observed a few things...

Recycling facilities are just too far away for people to care in some of these places. In some cases, householders would have to walk an extremely long distance in order to recycle their items in which case they would just throw their recyclable items in the bin because this is the easiest option.

I have observed that there is confusion about which items can be recycled and which items cannot.

In order to make recycling work, the various Boroughs have to make recycling facilities more readily avalable for the consumers and explain more thoroughly which items they will take and which items they will not take (personally, I feel that everything that can be recycled should be).

To conclude, the most frustrating thing is when you have gathered all your recyclable materials into the bags or green plastic boxes allocated for recycling only to find the people who collect these do not pick them up, although some local councils are better than others when it comes to recycling.

Why is it that some Boroughs collect items which are mixed up and others want everything separated into neat little piles?

I think there needs to be some standardisation across the board to make life easier for everybody and to encourage recycling. Does it make sense to have 5 or 6 different bins for recycling?


Related Blog Links

Lambeth Country Show Saturday 18th July - Sunday 19th July 2009

Flood Control - The Thames Barrier at Woolwich

When I was a teenager, I was fortunate enough to be taken on a day trip to the Thames Barrier many years ago, it was a church trip and we went on several outings actually.

A day out in Woolwich was very exciting for us all and we learned all about the Thames Barrier, which was built in 1982 as a flood barrier to protect London. After seeing the Cutty Sark gutted in the newspapers today, it brought back these memories as we also visited the Cutty Sark on one of our adventures so many years ago.

Anyway, here are some videos I found on Youtube, all about the Thames Barrier. The first video gives a small simulation on how the Thames Barrier would protect the country from the risk of a serious flood. As the polar ice caps are melting everyday, the ever growing threat of serious flooding is always looming at the back of my mind.

Thames Barrier Simulation

Thames Barrier by boat (good close-ups on this video)

Thames Barrier by plane


Why is the Thames Barrier at Woolwich?

The Thames Barrier was built at Woolwich because this is where the River Thames posed the greatest risk of flooding and water surges, this area is where the thames flows out into the North sea. The Thames Barrier has sensors to monitor the tide and monitors the threat of flood water coming through this area.

How about flood defences for other areas in the United Kingdom?

The thought has crossed my mind on several occasions that London has a flood defence, but is it right that other areas in the United Kingdom do not have these flood defences?

It has to be mentioned that flood defences will not protect us from weather changes such as excessive rain and snow....

What about flood defences and a flood contingency plan and emergency preparedness plan for unexpected disasters?

In the UK, we urgently need to have a flood contingency plan for natural climate change disasters such as torrential rainfall and snow. The main threat that we face in the UK is flood, especially as Britain is surrounded by water. If we were to have an unexpected downpour of rain and excessive snowfall with the unpredictable weather we have been experiencing now for some time, we can expect to see massive flooding, especially in areas closer to the rivers in the UK.


So, what is the current emergency preparedness plan for disaster in the UK?


Related Blog Topics

Flood Risk - What can we do now to prevent it?

Please take your rubbish with you

Related External Link

Environment Agency - How The Thames Barrier Works

BBC News Magazine - London's drowning

Spotlight on the energy saving lightbulb

I recently had to change one of the lightbulbs at home. The first thing I realised was that the bulb had lasted for about a year. It had previously been in the passage, but when the old style light bulb in the room blew up suddenly there was no immediate replacement so I took the energy saving bulb in the passage and put it in the bedroom. That was approximately a year ago.

Some supermarkets are selling these energy saving lights bulbs at half price and some at are selling at extremely cheap prices so that everyone can afford to buy them.

What are the advantages of using energy saving lightbulbs?

• It will save you money
• It will save energy
  
• Lasts a lot longer than a conventional lightbulb
• Energy saving bulbs with sensors are available (switches off at dawn, on at dusk)
• Good quality bright bulbs
• Can be recycled
• Looks nice - You can get these bulbs in a variety of styles and shapes now!
  

Update: 18 March 2008

I have read a few articles which state that some people have migraines or suffer from skin allergies when exposed to energy saving lighbulbs.....I have to root around to find the information but I will post the information later if I come across it again....

Anya Hindmarch I'm not a Plastic Bag Shopping Bag

A few days ago I was leafing through a newspaper, which had pictures of people excitedly queuing up at Sainsbury's stores all around the country in order to grab their very own Anya Hindmarch I'm not a plastic shopping bag. Nice to see more people doing their part to go greener while being fashionable at the same time. Celebrities such as actress Keira Knightley have been seen shopping around London with this very trendy bag.

I also spotted at least two people on the Underground/Tube this week with the green Harrods shopping bags which incidentally lasts for at least 10 years (I know because someone I know has had one of those souvenir bags and it has lasted forever).

Anyway, the Anya Hindmarch I'm not a plastic bag, which retails at Sainsbury's stores for £5 (don't forget your nectar points) is still selling furiously on one auction website for some ridiculous prices.

See some of my earlier posts in this blog with more "go green" tips.


Related Blog Topics

Go green - Become more Environmentally Friendly


Related External Link

Planet Earth's new nemesis

Green Invention of the day - Baygen wind-up radio by Trevor Bayliss

The Baygen wind-up radio designed by Trevor Bayliss, a British born inventor, is an ingenious device designed for regions where electricity is limited and batteries are expensive, it is also very green as the radio requires no batteries or mains electricity. Trevor had the idea to design the radio after watching a documentary about Africa. This battery-less radio can be easily used and winds up in just seconds and generates power for up to an hour.

Read more about one of the worlds ingenious green inventions at http://www.windupradio.com/trevor.htm

The Guardian Climate Change Summit 2007

The Climate Change Summit on how to succeed in a low carbon economy is being held at the Victoria Plaza in London on the 11th June 2007. This one day summit will focus on how organisation's can prepare for and combat climate change. There will be a host of people attending to discuss the pressing issue of global warming, to reserve your place and for more information email climatechangesummit@choicegroup.co.uk or visit www.guardian.co.uk/climatesummit.

Keynote speaker: Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London)

Green tip of the day - Quick tip for descaling your kettle

My friend's bathroom

Limescale build-up in your electric kettle can cause it to take twice as long to boil. You can save energy by descaling your kettle and reducing the amount of time and energy your kettle will use before it boils. This is particularly helpful if you live in a hard water area. It is fairly easy to determine whether you live in an area with hard water due to the obvious encrustations of limescale deposited around the taps in your bathroom and kitchen and the quality of the water, which is fairly hard to lather with a bar of soap. Another characteristic of hard water is its cloudy appearance when boiling. Also, after using hard water to bathe, you will notice that your skin feels dry and possibly itchy.

You will find some quick tips of how you can descale your kettle effectively and save energy at the same time.

A simple and cheap method for descaling around your home

Simply putting some vinegar into the kettle (about half a large bottle or the whole of a small bottle) will quickly and efficiently decalcify your kettle leaving it as good as new. For stubborn limescale, just use a bottle brush to quickly scrub clean any residual limescale crusts on the inside of the kettle after you have left the vinegar to sit for a few hours.

You can mix the vinegar with water and even boil the kettle, the heat helps the calcium to dissolve faster. I usually leave the kettle overnight and then rinse it out in the morning.

This is a quick and effective way to descale your kettle without chemicals, and as an added bonus, vinegar is very cheap and because it is something you put on food anyway, you won't have to worry about chemical poisoning if somebody accidentally boils the kettle to make a cup of tea while you have the vinegar sitting inside. However, I find that leaving a note on the kettle usually helps to alert family, friends and housemates that the kettle should not be used.

Additionally, I have found that using a water filter will help to reduce the build-up of calcium encrustations in your kettle and you will notice the difference in the colour of your tea from dark and cloudy brown to rich and golden.

You can also use citric acid powder derived from lemons and limes to descale your kettle and other things around the house affected by limescale build-up. This also works as well as vinegar due to its acidic nature and helps to decalcify limescale encrustations naturally.

Vinegar and acetic acid is also great to use around the house to keep your taps gleaming and full of shine. You can also use it in the bath to keep the bathtub and shower areas free of scum and dirty build-up, which can leave the area looking unsightly. Spray some on your shower curtain to keep it looking clean and fresh and also around the taps and sinks to keep limescale encrustations away.

Leave me a comment if you have any other household cleaning tips!

Recycling in England, what a waste!

Comment: Very disappointed!

Video: Recycle your old batteries

This is a short Youtube video about recycling your old batteries. You also have the option of buying re-usable batteries or rechargeable batteries, which you can recharge very cheaply at home.

You can now take your old batteries to your local library and drop them off in the battery recycling bins provided there.


Update 18/01/2009

PS Rechargeable batteries can be also recycled and VARTA, Ever Ready and Panasonic have a freepost scheme in place that takes them back according to some information provided by Alan, a friend of mine who is interested and involved in green issues.

Recycling your old batteries

Related External Links

Waste Online - Battery Recycling G & P Battery Recycling Specialist

Video: The benefits of using cloth nappies as an alternative to disposable nappies

This is an interesting video highlighting the advantages for the environment of using cloth nappies over disposable nappies/diapers and at the same time saving money.

Video on cloth nappies

Personally, I feel that nappy manufacturers could do more for the environment by using biodegradable materials for disposable nappies, they would naturally decompose once exposed to the environment.

Additionally cloth nappies are useful for the environment because the cloth can be recycled once the nappies are no longer required.


Related External Link

Nappies - A messy situation

Compost - Feed your garden and your plants

For as little as £10 (well, maybe much more since I wrote this) you can buy a compost bin to help to recycle your organic household waste and feed your garden.

Compost bins come in a variety of shapes and sizes to suit your household's needs. You can easily compost your old and fallen leaves in the garden, all garden waste e.g. dead grass, weeds, cuttings from the hedge, food scraps, vegetable and fruit peels, tea bags etc. You can also compost your household's food waste or scraps.

A compost heap helps you to recycle the food waste in your household easily. Inside a compost heap, fungi, bacteria, insects, and a variety of small creatures such as worms feed on the decomposing food and vegetable matter helping to speed up the recycling process. This will help you to feed your plants, particularly pot plants, which need fresh nutrition every so often to keep their leaves looking healthy and shiny and help them to grow big and strong.

If you don't have a garden, some local councils provide white bags, green bags or compost and food bins and other means of recycling for collection of vegetable and garden waste for recycling. Contact your local council and ask about these facilities.


Related BeautyHealthzoneBlog Links

Organic Foods - The Benefits of going Organic

Recycle your old inkjet cartridges

Tommy's the baby charity participate in a recycling scheme to recycle old Hewlett Packard and Lexmark printer cartridges. This scheme is provided through www.inkagain.co.uk. Their recycle centre raises money for Tommy's vital research into the causes of miscarriage, premature births and stillbirths. They have a goal of £55,000 this year. When you visit the Inkagain website, there are other charities that are sponsored through the ink cartridge recycling scheme.

The environmental benefits are as follows:

• Inkjet cartridge recycling helps to reduce carbon emissions, a major cause of global warming, conserves resources and reduces waste

• Inkjet cartridges will take about 1000 years to decompose in landfills sites

To order their freepost recycling bags for your chosen charity you can:

1. Call: 0800 435576 quoting "Tommy's bag"
2. Email: tommysbags at inkagain.co.uk (just replace the at with the @ sign)
   
3. Fax: 020 8838 6777
4. Order via their website at www.inkagain.co.uk and click on charity scheme

Inkagain currently have a prize draw for some goodies up for grabs for everyone who sends in their used ink cartridges.

Tommy's the baby charity is a registered charity no. 1060508

Do you know of any other places where ink cartridges can be recycled or donated. If so, leave a comment below.




Comments on this topic......

alfred said...

"Ideally, used printer ink cartridges should find their way to special recycling centers where the materials these cartridges were made of are retrieved for future use. Unfortunately, only 25% of all those millions of cartridges consumed every year go that way. Most of them end up at some landfill or some other garbage facility instead. Save The Environment & Use Recycled Printer Ink Cartridge Always be conscientious even with the printer ink cartridges that you use. Recycle empty printer cartridges and buy remanufactured ink as much as possible."

More ways to save energy.....

Hang your clothes outside to dry when the weather is good and save energy instead of using the tumble dryer or putting your clothes on the radiators.

Get a combination boiler - If you do not yet have a combination boiler, look for special deals in the sales. A combination boiler allows you to switch off the central heating (radiators) but still have hot water on tap. So, each time you switch on the hot water tap you get hot water. with the old style systems, when you just need hot water alone, you would have to switch on the heating as well as the hot water just because you needed to take a bath. A combination boiler allows you to use hot water or the central heating (radiators) only when you need it, saving you money.

The good news is that the metal from the old copper water cylinders used with the immersion heaters can be recycled.

Wake up to Global Warming Video Airs on Youtube

I recently came across this video while viewing some blogs on Technorati.

A new group global warning awareness group who go by the name by the name Avaaz have put together a global warming awareness tv ad as a call to action for the World's most influential world leaders and politicians to change their policies and to go green.

If you haven't yet seen the video, which is also featured on Youtube, watch it here.

Global Warming Awareness Video

It's snowing!

I woke up early this morning and looked out of the window and the first thing I saw was a thick blanket of snow. As I type in this blog, it is still snowing outside. The funny thing is yestersay afternoon the sun was shining and the central heating was off all day. A few weeks ago there were strong gale force winds blowing away everything in sight.

I am convinced that this unstable and freak weather is due to the effects of global warming or should I say climate change, one day the weather is extremely cold, the next hot and sunny, it all seems very odd.

I must say that the British weather has always been unpredictable, so no changes there!

Save Landfill Recycle Your Old Mobile Phone for Cash

Recycle your old mobile phone and get cash back.

I saw this advert while reading the metro newspaper recently. You visit the website of the given company, in conjunction with the metro newspaper at metrorecycles.com and enter the details of your old phone and they let you know how much they will pay you for the phone.

Don't forget that you can visit a few online auction venues and try to sell your mobile phone and don't forget to watch out for scammers.

Alternatively, you can donate your phone to the charity of your choice, the charity they mention is Cancer Research UK.

What Is So Good About Trees?

I was reading another blog and came across an article where the writer wanted to know what was so good about trees and expressed that we should stop planting them. I decided to write a piece about the benefits of trees. In my opinion, the advantages the trees provide far outweigh their disadvantages.



So, what is so good about trees.....

1. Trees provide shade and shelter for humans, birds, insects and other wildlife animals. Some houses are built with the wood from trees and logs.
2. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce fresh oxygen for us in its place and in turn help to balance the ecosystem.
3. Trees absorb excess water to prevent flooding.
4. Trees help to stop or slow down the effects of soil erosion.
5. Trees help to protect houses from wind and other severe weather conditions and also provide shade and shelter for houses. We had two huge trees in our garden and they both protected the house from gale force winds and also provided shelter for birds (you could hear them singing in the morning). About 3 years ago, one of the trees fell down, closely missing a neighbour's house. The cause of the tree falling was very strong gale force winds. Fortunately, it fell onto the perimeter fence around the garden and was supported by my neighbour's apple tree. It would have caused a lot more damage had it not been for the apple tree. next door, ironically. Now that the second tree has been cut down (we had to cut it down because it was taller than the house and had become dangerous to surrounding properties), you can feel the house shaking when there are gale force winds. Those two trees actually protected the house and provided a cool shelter, which you could sit under, in the summer. They were huge Conifer trees also known as Christmas trees and their leaves hardly shed.
6. Trees provide paper for us to write on and write with in the form of pencils, crayons etc., toilet and kitchen paper for personal hygiene.
7. Trees provide furniture in the form of beds, chairs, tables.
8. It's a natural sustainable resource, and it is very important that we plant trees to take the place of the ones that have been cut down.
9. Trees (well some plants) provide food for us and other wildlife to eat.
10. Trees provide fuel and energy.
11. As the old saying goes "money does not grow on trees" but it is made from trees, however.

Related Blog Topics

The Garden - Nature's reserve on your doorstep

What is deforestation?

Weeds - Mulching helps to control them

You learn something new everyday, and today I have learned that I can buy mulch and use it to cover and protect the top of the soil in the garden in order to keep the weeds out. The weeds seem to love my garden, I'm constantly pulling them out and a few days later, they are back again...So, mulch to the rescue....

Also weedkillers are expensive as well as dangerous and can irritate your skin so using mulch will replace the need for dangerous weedkillers.

Did you know that mulch also helps to keep the moisture in, helping to reduce evaporation from the soil.

Gardening for fun - Trying your hand at growing your own fruit and vegetables

Roosemary growing in a front garden

If you are lucky enough to have a backyard garden or even space in your front yard such as flower beds, instead of letting this luscious green area go tot waste, why not try your hand at planting a few crops and vegetables that your whole family can enjoy. 

You can buy a few seeds from your local garden centre, throw in a few potatoes, fruits and vegetables that will grow in no time. In a matter of weeks and months you can be eating your very own gardening delights.

I am a bit of a garden enthusiast (I studied plant physiology with a little horticulture as part of my course at college), I have also grown a number of vegetables and fruit over the years, a few of the things I have grown in the past are potatoes, spinach and onions. My neighbour has successfully grown a large apple tree (cooking apples) , strawberries, tomatoes, grapes and a number of other things in her little garden. My other neighbour has successfully grown tomatoes in pots. We actually live in the city and it's not so hard to try and grow your own vegetables. My best friend has thyme in her garden, as well as pumpkin.

 Vegetable grow bags

The thing I like best about the whole project is that it's quite easy to grow a few things here and there for fun and you know exactly what your plants have been grown with by eliminating the pesticides that give us allergies and harmful side effects.

As a gardening enthusiast, it's quite easy to grow your own vegetables (no I'm not trying to put the farmers out of business, we can never grow enough to live on anyway) all you need are a few seeds from your local gardening centre, or in the case of potatoes, just put a few in the ground and in no time at all you'll have a few buckets full of potatoes that you can share with your neighbours.

It is a good hobby and will help to keep you fit, healthy and supple. Gardening is also great for relieving stress, and allows you to see the satisfaction of your hard work come to fruition.

You can also grow a number of plants and flowers which will make your garden look beautiful and smell wonderful with all tghe plant aromas.

 

 Grow your own - Backyard Farming

Related Blog Topics

Grow your own vegetables - Gardening at home

Reduce the volume of your waste and save landfill

A few ideas on reducing the volume of your household waste are:

1. Use kitchen waste to make compost with the skins of fruit and vegetables such as potato peel and the rind of fruits such as oranges. You can also use your garden waste to make compost as well. Take a look in your local garden centre and invest in a small domestic compost bin.
2. When recycling plastic bottles or water bottles, collapse the bottles by taking the lid off and squashing the bottle down, the grooves on the bottle will help with this. Once the bottle is fully collapsed, put the lid back on and it will stay in place allowing room for other materials.
3. Don't throw your old clothes or shoes away, give them to charity or take them to a clothes or shoe bank in order to be recycled or re-used by someone who needs them.
4. Cut up and collapse cardboard boxes so that they use up less space. You can also do this to small boxes such as pizza and other food packaging.
5. Re-use your padded envelopes and use them to send fragile items in the post.
6. Look for products that contain minimal packaging instead of unnecessary and excessive packaging, which only serves to drive up the cost of production anyway. Also look for packaging that can be recycled or re-used.
7. Re-use the packaging from products around the house, for example use empty ice cream containers to store food in the fridge or freezer or re-use plastic containers from takeaway or for storage in the fridge or freezer.
8. Instead of throwing out old cupboards and wardrobes, check to see if other people can make use of the wood in a building or DIY project. There are a number of websites online where you can exchange, swap or giveaway your unwanted items.

Save Water - Ways in which you can help to conserve water

About 12 years ago, Thames Water sent a free Water Hippo in the post with the water bill and this is how I came to know about this water saving device. The Water Hippo is a little water saving device, which you put into the toilet cistern, and helps to save approximately 3 litres of water on each flush.

I am always amazed by the amount of water that is wasted each time we use the toilet, and I think everybody should have one of these water saving devices. They are quick and easy to implement and very effective with very little effort.

The free Water Hippo from Thames water is effective because:

1. Your toilets will flush as normal wasting less water
2. By putting the Free Water Hippo into your toilet cistern you will reduce the amount of water used
3. It will save you money if you use a water meter, with significant savings on your water bills.

Another water saving device that will save you 1 litre of water per flush, which I have just discovered on the Thames water website is the save-a-flush, it works in a similar fashion to the Water Hippo. To get your free save-a-flush from Thames water or to order your free save a flush from Severn Trent Water, you can visit their websites and request for your free water saving devices and help to save water each time you flush the toilet.


Other water saving methods:

Toilets with dual flush - flush once and half the cistern is used, flush twice and the whole cistern is emptied, this depends on what you have used the toilet for.

Use a water butt - This collects rain water which can be used to water the plants in the garden, saving you money and at the same time helping the environment. Natural rainwater is better for plants, therefore your plants will get all the benefits of natural rainwater, just fill up your watering can and you're ready to go. A water butt is handy and convenient for you when there is a hosepipe ban.

Turn the tap off - when you're not using the tap, please turn it off, especially while brushing your teeth and when cooking.

Dripping tap - Make sure you have fully turned off the taps. A great deal of water is wasted by a dripping tap.

Use a shower - Taking a quick shower instead of having a bath will help you to save water.

Don't overfill the kettle - When you're treating yourself to a nice cup of tea, use only what you need and don't fill the kettle to the brim.


Useful External Links

Thames Water - Order a Water Saving Device

Hippo and Save-a-Flush bags - London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames

The Future for Energy Efficiency - Solar, Wind, Hydro?

Solar powered homes - Buildings made with solar powered panels to trap daylight and use its solar energy source to heat the home. Electrical cars running on batteries recharged by solar energy from the sun.

Solar powered garden lights are an excellent way to bring some light to your garden at a very reasonable cost, the only problem with solar is that you need major sunlight or daylight in order for them to work very well. Solar powered lights would be excellent in places where there is constant sunshine and light, many places spring to my mind.

We are already using this. The picture below was taken on the evening of a very hot day in May this year. See my solar lights in the picture below which was taken after sunset when the lights automatically switch themselves on....

Solar garden light

Wind Energy - In many countries, they are making use of wind energy, through the use of wind turbines. Wind energy can be used to pump water, take the old windmills as an example, and provide electricity using this natural energy resource. On a website I visited recently, I saw a Home Wind Turbine kit. In my opinion, this kit would prove very useful in some developing areas of the world where power cuts and outages occur frequently.

Hydroelectric power - The kinetic energy from flowing water is used to generate electricity and power houses and businesses.

Electric vehicles - The future for saving the world's oil resources and at the same time dramatically reducing pollution is the electric car. Many London boroughs and Transport for London are currently in the process of gradually introducing the electric car. They say it will improve air quality with zero emissions and owners of these green vehicles will be exempt from paying road tax....Sounds promising, since we are already highly overtaxed over here.

Electric car I spotted parked in London

Above you can see a picture of an electric car that I took, this was at London Bridge. It looks kind of small and funny, but hopefully this design can be improved upon. I have seen a lot of stylish electric cars that I certainly would want, but at present I do not have a car, the old banger that I had was stolen about 9 or 10 years ago, never to be seen again.

Gases from animal waste - Pig manure and other animal waste for energy recovery, although these methods have their pros and cons.


Related Blog Articles

Green Architecture and renewable Energy Buildings, An Ideal Home Scenario

More ways to save energy.....

Go Green - Become More Environmentally Friendly

Spotlight on the energy saving lightbulb

Video: Recycle your old batteries


Related External Links

Electric cars drive investor interest

Electric hire car scheme spreads

Please take your rubbish with you

After visiting several European Countries over the years including Belgium, France, Spain and Ireland, the first thing you noticed was how clean these countries are, you can't see any rubbish on their streets. You also notice that people do not spit all over the streets (I cannot stand this). The other thing you notice is you never actually see the cleaners, while I certainly did not....

Taking your rubbish with you, instead of throwing it on the floor, will not only keep Britain (or wherever you live) tidy, it will also help to lessen infestation by rodents. It is not so hard to keep your crisp packet, chocolate wrapper or small bits of rubbish in your pocket or bag until you get to a bin.

Apart from attracting rats, mice etc, throwing rubbish on the streets can have a negative effect on the drain system, blocking it up. When it rains the water stays on the road causing floods, especially during periods of heavy rain.

Also, the streets look a lot nicer without all the rubbish littering them, nobody likes to live in a mess, and our surroundings play a part in our wellbeing and how we feel and behave.

If you live in a wheelie bin area, putting the rubbish in the wheelie bin and keeping it closed, instead of throwing the black bag on the floor, will help to prevent rodents which carry diseases and spread germs.

Please be proud of your country and keep it clean.


Comments

Ahmad said...

I TOTALLY agree with u, it all comes from respecting your country or respecting this lovely planet we all living on, iam from Egypt and we have the same problem u r talking about but iam sure it is on a VERY much wider scale, i hope ppl would care about such things.. Thank You so much.

Monday, January 22, 2007 10:41:00 PM

Go green - Become more Environmentally Friendly

One of my passions has always been green issues and finally I have created this blog to write about ways that we can all go green. One of my pet hates is going shopping and seeing customers taking all the shopping bags that end up in the bin afterwards, an unnecessary waste, it's funny but at Lidl's, where people have to pay for the bags, you notice that they bring their own bags....LOL

Re-use - Take your own shopping bags when you're going shopping or get the stronger re-usable cloth shopping bags, organic shopping bags or hard wearing bags available from Tesco, Harrods etc or look out for the 'Bag for life', an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic carrier bags. If you are going to use plastic bags, look for biodegradable bags that will eventually decompose when exposed to the environment.

Go Green - Energy and Water Action Sheet

Put all recyclable materials you don't use into recycle bags, boxes or take them to a recycling bank.

Give away or exchange your used furniture if you no longer need it and have bought a replacement.

Save energy - Turn off electrical items and appliances not in use and don't leave them on standby.

Conserve - Don't waste water, electricity or food.

Leave your car at home - If you are travelling a short distance, try cycling, walking or getting a bus instead.

Recycle your old printer cartridges, clothes, shoes, bags, paper and all items that can be recycled.

Unplug appliances and mobile phone chargers if not in use, this will also help you to save on your energy bills.

Use energy saving light bulbs, these will use less energy and will also save you money in electric bills. Apparently, some people are allergic to these energy saving lightbulbs and they contain some harmful chemicals, so I have been reading, so these would have to be disposed of and recycled carefully after they have been used.

At work, turn off your computer and printers when you're leaving, also don't forget to turn off the lights.


Related Blog Links

Lambeth Country Show Saturday 18th - Sunday 19th July 2009


Related External Links

Electric cars drive investor interest

Electric hire car scheme spreads

Recycling your Christmas cards and other materials

Lambeth council and many Councils in and outside London introduced the orange recycling bags a few years ago and these have proved to be very handy and convenient for residents to recycle items such as card and cardboard and other re-usable, recyclable materials.

Christmas is now over, but don't bin your Christmas cards. You can recycle your cards by putting them in these recycle sacks provided by the council or drop them off at your nearest recycling bank.

Other materials you can put into these orange recycling sacks or recycle banks are:

• Newspapers and magazines
  
• Directories - Yellow pages, Thompson Local and other advertising books
  
• Card and cardboard - collapse big boxes to save space
  
• Paper (a shredder is handy for documents containing any personally identifiable information)
• Glass bottles
• Jars (jam, marmalade, chutney. All colours all sizes)
  
• Plastic bottles and containers
  
• Aluminium cans
• Aluminium Foil
  
• Tins (baked beans, soup cans)
  
• Empty aerosol containers - including all deodorant bottles

PS: Don't forget to rinse out food containers