Fifty litres can be saved by taking a shower instead of a bath, and 24 litres could be saved by turning the tap off each time you brush your teeth. Water, the world's most precious resource, is under threat from unsustainable use and degradation. Community Re>Paint can divert unwanted paint to local groups, charities and voluntary organisations across the UK.
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Full of volatile organic compounds and other potentially toxic chemicals, redundant paint usually finds its way to landfill, where it depletes groundwater and ozone. Unfulfilled DIY dreams mean that an estimated 75m litres of leftover paint are thrown away or left unused each year in the UK. Ration yourself to one flight a year, take the train and ferry, or holiday in the UK. One million people in the UK are adversely affected by aviation noise and air pollution, and expansion uses up vast swathes of countryside. Time to switch off.Īir travel is the world's fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions - one return flight to Miami creates more carbon-dioxide production than one person's year's motoring. And it's estimated that 'vampire appliances' - left on 'standby' they continue to suck energy out of the national grid - are responsible for 5 per cent of this. Domestic appliances account for more than 30 per cent of our overall energy consumption, causing 12 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
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What exactly is your TV 'standing by' for? It's still using 85 per cent of the energy it would take were it switched on properly. Next, switch over your rice, tinned tomatoes or tea. Conventional sugar beet is one of the most highly sprayed crops on the planet, and its harvesting causes environmental damage.
For example, when you buy a bag of sugar, buy organic. Organic food is a sustainable and environmentally friendly system of producing food, as Sue Flook from the Soil Association explains: 'Organic farming is better for wildlife, causes lower pollution from sprays, produces less carbon dioxide - the main global-warming gas - and fewer dangerous wastes.' Switching your diet to a predominantly organic one can be expensive, so plan a gradual switch.
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Call them, or start your own club - contact Car Plus for help.Ĭar Plus: 01, .uk Smart Moves has set up car clubs in Edinburgh, London, Bristol, Brighton and Wiltshire. According to BioRegional, one car club vehicle can replace four to six private vehicles. You can always join a car club and share a fleet of locally based vehicles on a 'pay-as-you-drive' basis. Public transport is patchy, but there are other ways of cutting down on car pollution, as Anna Semlyen describes in Cutting Your Car Use ( .uk). Here in the UK, the car is responsible for four-fifths of our travel. The global car fleet stands at 776m vehicles, one-third of them in the US. Spend as much as you can and make your clothes last. You've spent time choosing an item, so it will always be classic, always fit well, always look right. The concept of Sunday best is an inherently green one. Meanwhile, man-made fabrics release man-made chemicals such as dioxins into the atmosphere, and azo dyes poison aquatic systems. It also takes 100 litres of water to make just one kilo of textiles. The environmental impact of clothes shopping is huge: cotton is not the world's largest crop, but it uses 25 per cent of all the world's agrichemicals. H&M has been 'credited' with introducing disposable fashion, at a time when we're buying and discarding clothes like never before. By 2050, global livestock will require the equivalent amount of land and water as 4bn humans, potentially leaving us with a big dilemma: feed the world, or feed the world's livestock? Joining Europe's 138m 'meat reducers' helps reduce the pressure.
Campaign group Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), which runs an Eat Less Meat campaign, points out that rearing a kilo of beef requires around 100,000 litres of water, while only 900 litres of water are needed to produce a kilo of wheat. The old meat 'n' two veg lifestyle is taking its toll on the planet.
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