At the moment grants are available to home owners so that they can have free loft and cavity wall insulation.  If you are either a home owner, renting privately and are eligible for benefits, tax credits, over 70 or the state pension is your main income source then you will most likely be allowed free installation of loft and cavity wall insulation.  Even if you don’t fall into any of those categories you could still be entitled to a partial grant which varies from 50% to 70% of the total cost.

You need to be aware that not all houses have the ability to have cavity wall insulation so it’s good to check first.  For instance where I live we can’t have it done, so we have to make do with double glazing and being efficient elsewhere. The government also offers a range of energy saving accessories, such as eco-plugs, low energy light bulbs and so on.

Did you know, poorly insulated homes loose up to 60% of their heat?  That’s 25% through the roof and 35% through the walls. The rest is lost through the floor and windows and doors.

You may be asking, why should I pay or have the bother of getting my home’s loft and cavities insulated?  Well, at number one, it will save you money in the long run.  Especially with the discounts the government are offering, in association with the major energy providers, are making the pay back period (the time it takes to save money on your energy bill because of the extra insulation) even shorter.

In theory having it could increase the value of your home or make it more saleable as it will be featured in your Home Improvement Pack (HIPs).

Your home will also warm up quicker in the cooler months, which will stop you needing to put an extra duvet on your bed this year and surprisingly, it will also keep your house cooler during the hotter months, so there’s no need to leave fans and air conditioning units running (or at least you can turn them down a setting).

As I said earlier, not all houses can have cavity wall insulation.  Most buildings built after 1930 have cavity walls, check if your wall is 10 inches thick and that there are no brick ends present.  You can use the  diagram below to try and work out if you have cavity walls or solid walls - look at the brick pattern and compare it to your house!

Homes built after ‘82 generally already have cavity wall insulation installed so it’s best to check before applying for a grant!

It may sound too good to be true, but it’s well worth finding out more about these grants to see if you’re eligible and who can do it for you! If you’ve got any useful information, facts, etc, regarding this, please leave me a comment!

There has been a bit of bad press recently about carbon offsetting schemes and how good they actually are.  There’s also a lot of confusion on what different offsetting schemes offer and if they’re actually any good.  Many companies now, such as EasyJet from the aviation industry offer a carbon offsetting scheme, where you can pay an additional fee to have the emissions you’ve caused offset.  When I went on holiday there was an option to help with a dam scheme, but dams have enviromental issues of their own.

Now to offset all the pollution that road traffic causes in Scotland you’d have to plant enough trees to cover Edinburgh, so a scheme like this isn’t practical.  The Carbon Neutral Company which was set up in 1990 helps companies like Volvo, Channel 4 and Barclay’s Bank and have one hundred and fifty different projects across six continents at the moment.  Companies pay a per tonne of CO2 fee (a voluntary tax almost) to the Carbon Neutral Company which sets up projects financing practical projects in counties that need them.  Such as solar and wind schemes, methane recovery, waste reduction and planting forests.

So I’ve covered what businesses can do, but what about just you and me?  Though we only create a small amount of emissions on the whole, with running a car, owning a house and so on we all play a part.  Now it’s not always possible to live an entirely green life.  If you drive a car then by owning a more economical car and not revving it heavily, emptying out waste from the boot and by driving smarter you should be able to limit the damage you cause. Check out the act on CO2 website for the government’s guide to this.  The government are also running grants to make getting loft and wall insulation more affordable. Now all this is good, but it’s not offsetting, it’s reducing - I’ll post more about that at another time!

Firstly you’ll need to know what your carbon footprint is.  Google offer a reasonable service to help you estimate your footprint on their website. From this you can find out how many tonnes of CO2 you create so you know how much you need to offset by.

A company called Climate care offer the ability to offset your carbon emissions.  They even let you give carbon offsetting presents.

BP run a  project called Target Neutral which aims to help motorists learn how to reduce and replace their carbon emissions from driving. They have quite a useful website for finding ways to reduce the offset you’ll need to pay and also a variety of schemes that they run which you could donate to.

There are a wide variety of other schemes available which you could use to offset your emission on this directory.

Hopefully this has given you a bit of insight into offsetting your emissions.  Please post what your footprint is in the comments section - don’t be embarrassed!

Quite frankly, is it any wonder the UK’s public transport system isn’t better utilised.  Where I live it’s rubbish and would be a huge inconvenience.  If I can get around using it, going when and where I want, without having to donate my left arm and right leg to use it then maybe I would consider it.  Now in bigger cities with tube and tram services, or regular buses I can see the benefits of them.  In London the car is the slowest form of transport, but where I live car is king!

Now before you’re getting ready to click that tempting red cross in the corner, or flame me in the comments section wait a moment!

I work about 15 miles away from where I live; which is six and a half miles more than the national average!  To get a bus to work would mean taking a half an hour bus to the town next to me, and from there I’d have to sit on another bus for around another hour.  That’s an hour and a half; each way. That’s double the national average time for commuting.  I could also get a train, but I’d have to do a few swaps and in peak times it’d cost more than driving. So yes, I usually do drive to work and that only takes half an hour.  Along with this, I also join the 3% of people who cycle to work.  Yes, I cycle the 30 mile round trip to work and back - it’s actually quicker than the bus by 30 minutes! So where’s the incentive to get the bus, or take the train on the damp morning or the morning I don’t have the energy to do the hilly, 15 mile journey?  There is none.

The problem in the UK is that in general, public transport doesn’t work!  It’s slow, inconvenient and expensive.  However, you may be saying - it’s good for the environment.  Are you sure about that?  According to the Department for Statistics buses carry an average of 8 people.  That’s a pathetic amount considering how many people an average bus can carry.  I’ve also heard that a if everyone on a train drove they’d produce the same emissions - I can’t verify this claim though.

Public transport definitely has it’s place! I can get home for £2.50 after a night out, either by train or bus, which is a down sight cheaper than if I was to get a taxi!  However, whenever I get the bus late at night there’s usually about three other people on the bus and they all get off at the first stop.  I spoke to the driver and he said that once I got off he’d be driving for another hour and he’d probably be lucky enough not to have to pick anyone up.  Now that’s a waste of energy but for once it’s pretty convenient.

Now let’s talk about cycling.  I have a 1 in 50 chance of dying when cycling, compared to the 1 in 200 chance when driving which is a slight put off.  The only way I have to cycle to work is along a busy A road and every time I cycle to work I’d say a car driver does something dangerous, either cuts me up, overtakes too close…so this is a real risk!  Overall I do enjoy cycling to work so I don’t let all this put me off too much.  However, for most people this does.  The solution to this is having lots and lots of bike lanes, but in my experience of cycling around my local town, they’ve been designed by someone who has never used a bike…probably never even seen the road that the cycle lane will be on first hand.  Car drivers need to learn that cyclists do exist and do have a place on the road.  By isolating cyclists in bike lanes car drivers can stay oblivious.  I’d much rather cycle lanes weren’t there half the time.

So this eliminates buses and trains for getting to work due to slowness and also eliminates cycling for most people due to safety reason.  That only leaves the car.  You can tax people as much as you want for using a car but the only way you’re going to get people to use them less is to improve other methods of transport and at the moment, they just aren’t good enough.

So until public transport is better, when convenient cycle or walk - else buy a car with a lower emissions, share lifts and so on.  You could also consider a carbon offsetting scheme!

*Statistics available here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3085647.stm

http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=11832&sid=fc699485e2014910e582ac9a39663afd

Everyone’s aware that energy saving light bulbs save money and are good for the environment due to lower carbon dioxide emissions created to power them, so I won’t bore you with old news.  However, they might not be so good for us as they could be.

I’ll start of by saying, I’ve started to use energy efficient light bulbs in my house over the past year or two.  I wasn’t an early adopter because 5 years ago the technology just wasn’t there.  They took far too long to ‘warm up’ and emit any light.  Nowadays they are  a lot better.  I don’t really notice the difference.  I know they might not be as bright and they don’t necessarily emit the same tungsten glow but overall they’re pretty good!  As a guess I’d say that a reasonable amount of the UK population use them and as normal light bulbs are planned to be phased out by around 2011 the technology behind them is improving so they become better and better and a much more viable option.

The other month while I was on holiday, mountain biking in Morocco, there was an incident with an energy saving light bulb!  The group and I were sitting down in the Auberg (a bit like a hostel) for dinner after a hard day’s cycling, and all of a sudden- BANG - out popped the energy saving light bulb, landing red hot onto the floor close to someone’s foot, burning a little bit in the rug. Now all we did was get rid of the bulb and have dinner.  There was a bit of discussion about how close it was and it was a good thing it didn’t land in the soup!  It’s quite a worry if they have a random habit of doing this; what would happen if they hit someone - it definitely shot out of the socket.  And what would happen if it was hot enough for the carpet to set on fire? Apparently these sorts of bulbs have a habit of doing this so I decided to find out what other problems they can be attributed to.   The BBC has two good articles on their news website about a heath risk associated with them and the removal of light energy saving light bulb.  The latter article had this video attached with it, which is well worth a watch:

So it turns out that these ‘wonder’ light bulbs could be bad for us due to the small amount of mercury inside of them but there’s no warning on the packet.  I don’t mean a big “breaking energy saving bulbs could danger your health” like you see on cigarettes; but a small “if it breaks do this, and don’t do that”.  It’s not that much to expect or ask for.

Toxicologist Dr David Ray says that if you were to break one there’s not going to be a great health risk, but if a few were to break in an unventelated room it could be “If you broke five bulbs in a small unventilated room then you might be in short term danger “.  Along with this, repeat expositor  (something to worry about if you’ve got butterfingers and keep dropping bulbs) “The biggest danger is repeated exposure“.

 So what health risks are their associated with mercury poisoning?  Mercury builds up in the body; especially the brain and sufficient exposer could result in organ problems and even damage your central nervous system!  I’m not sure I fancy any exposer knowing those risks!

I continued my search and started to learn how low energy light bulbs also worsen rashes.  Many health charities warn of the painful skin reactions! Now as traditional light bulbs are planned to be phased out by 2011 this could be a worry for those with photosensitive skin.  Now I don’t know anyone with these problems, but there are around 100,000 people in the UK with these problems so it’s not just one person and their cat - it is a significant amount.  It is also rumoured that people with ME have problems with these new light bulbs.  One solution floated by some of the health charities is to allow certain people to use old fashioned light bulbs; however members of the lighting industry have said other forms will be available.

Now it’s all well and good for sufferers to be able to have old fashioned lighting in their homes, assuming this is the only solution.  But by law, employers would have to be considerate to sufferers - then what - shops, supermarkets…anyone who uses light bulbs.  Otherwise it could really put a damper on some people’s quality of living.

So with some of these warnings and health risks should we be so fast to swap over? I’ll admit - it’ll probably help us get to the government’s emissions target; but maybe a little bit more research should be done into safer, eco-friendly lighting?  For now I’m not too worried, but it if I ever get the urge to break a few light bulbs in an unventilated room I’ll make sure it’s an old Tungsten!

With developers forcing more and more houses onto a plot of land, we end up with gardens with not enough room to swing a cat…not that you should do that if you have a big garden!  Allotments are a fantastic way of getting a bit more space to grown some vegetables and plants away from home.  They’re not even that expensive - I think my uncle pays less than £15 a year for his, so for the opportunity to grow a lot of fresh and seasonable produce it is well worth it!  You usually rent your allotment for a small yearly fee of the local council, sometimes it will be from an allotment association.

History wise - here’s a tit bit of information for you!  Allotments first came around in about 1732 where they have been found on the outskirts of Birmingham.

Initially allotments would have been places for the poor to grow their vegetables; but don’t let their past put you off.  Either start with some seeds or use some plants which have already started to grow and find out if you have green fingers.  There’s a whole host of things you could plant, why not try something you use a lot of at home - such as herbs, carrots, swedes, salad items - whatever!  Not only will you get the pleasure of seeing the project through, getting tastey fruit and vegetables (or beautiful plants) you also get around a main environmental concern of purchasing excessively plastic wrapped items from your local supermarket.

So far I’ve only suggested a few things you could grow, but you could go a lot further by making something with your produce, such as Jams and Preserves.  If you end up with too many you could give some as presents to friends and family - or even put up an honesty box at the end of the drive and try selling some of your items for a little bit of money.

In 2006 some bad news came about from the London Assembly saying that Allotment land was diminishing.  Geoff Stokes from the national Society for Allotments claimed that “[T]hey sold off land when demand was not so high. This will go on because developers are now building houses with much smaller gardens.”.  Since then a Local Government group has asked councils to make developers set aside land to make up the amount of allotment plots.

So if you can find an available allotment grab it up, get out your Wellies and spade and go plant some of your own plants!  If you’ve got one let me know what you plan on growing…or have/are growing - any recommendations for the poor weather we’re having?

With new contracts and technology changing every single day it’s not surprising that people have a few old mobile phones lying around the house.  I don’t personally like throwing things like this away, especially as they could be used if my new phone were to break.  I got my last phone of a friend when her contract ran out - reusing phones like this is fantastic.  However, when it went wrong there was no one I could get a hand me down off, so I had to bite the bullet and get a new one (mind you, it was the cheapest one on sale).  Now that old, broken phone of mine is sitting in a desk draw not doing anything.  I should really pull my act together and use a mobile phone recycling website such as envirophone, mazumamobile or fonebank who actually pay for old phones.

 If my phone was in full working order I could get £30 for it - as the screen’s gone I’d get a percentage less on that which would be decided by the recycling companies.  Even if that was only £3, that’s be a pint of beer I could enjoy this Friday without having to have had worked my socks off for it - or maybe I should treat the girl I got the phone off to a glass of wine…nah!

A few mobile phone shops even offer a discounted rate on new phones if you trade in your old one!  Now getting paid for your phone to be reused or recycled is a thousand times better than it going straight to landfill and great for your wallet (or purse…or piggy bank).  Recycling your mobile is a very good thing to do at the moment, as mobile phones have some rare and expensive metals in them so this increases the supply of them to help keep markets stable and the price lower.

 So come on folks! Don’t bin or leave those old phones lying around!  Recycle them or reused - and get some money in the process.

A few years ago me and my family took ownership of two chickens.  They were an unusual pair and they named after an unusual set of characters.  One was to be named Evelyn after Patrick Bateman’s (American Psycho) girlfriend and the other was to be named Lady Heather after a guest character of CSI who was a Professional Dominatrix.  From the moment we got them we instantly knew which chicken should be given which name.  Heather was very prim and proper and definitely wanted to be in control, while Evelyn slouched around lazily dozing off in her new found home after a mornings worth of travelling to get to our house.

Our girls were definitely pets rather than Sunday roasts, but you got all the expected questions “Will you eat them?”, “What about when they die?”, “Will you let the egg’s hatch” to which the answers are no, definitely not (it’s probably a health risk) and thirdly, maybe a biology lesson is in order…

There was never a dull moment with the chickens, on the first night that we let them roam outside one decided to see if she could make the three foot jump up onto the table.  She’d of got 2 out of 10 for elegance but 10 out of 10 for accuracy as she landed straight on top of my Mum’s untouched dinner!  It may sound silly to say this, but anyone who has kept chickens as pets will know that they definitely all have their own personalities and traits so can be loved as much as, if not more as any traditional pet.

Though they ruined one meal, they did lay fantastic eggs!  A really bright orange yolk which could never be duplicated by any shop bought egg.  They made fantastic omelettes and perfect with a bit of bacon and tomato with your breakfast.  With all the tit bits and treats we gave them the eggs were probably more expensive than the claims of 3p a day, that the company we bought them off claimed.  This would maybe cover layers mash and water.

To begin with we only let them out of their run for a little bit of supervised exercise every day.  We gradually got more and more relaxed until they had full run of the garden, from morning to dusk.  There was the odd time they caused a bit of trouble - they managed to get into next door’s garden and one even found her way climbing up some piles off wood at the back of the house and nearly made it into the house at the rears garden.  Thankfully I spotted her moment before she jumped to freedom,I managed to run and catch her…which was very lucky as when we told the chap who lived behind us he said he had a dirty great big dog!  After this we put a few restrictions and obstacles in place to stop them trying it on again…then there’s the problem of foxes.  Foxes nearly got both of our girls, but both times with a bit of help from my Dad they managed to get away.  After this we became more cautious again and locked them in their run when we weren’t at home.

Heather and Evelyn were given a very lavish life style, with lots of treats (including fresh corn on the cob) as well as a home fit for a Queen.  We’d bought a brand new, designer Omelet chicken coup. Take a look at the photo - pretty neat!

From an environmental point of view a standard wooden chicken hutch could be arguably better, especially as the [plastic] coup we’d bought would only house two full sized chickens or three bantams.  When our girls eventually passed away we managed to sell our coup on an internet auction website for what we’d bought it for and it went on to benefit a few ex-battery chickens.  So where our coup got reused and would be usable for many years to come, a standard wooden coup may well just be taken down and binned.

I can highly recommend getting a few chickens - they will bring lots of joy and fun to your garden.  They can be a bit of work at times, but they’re much easier to look after than a dog and definitely a little bit more unusual.  As a minimum get two, ours were great friends and I don’t think they’d of had as much fun if they were by themselves - otherwise why not get a whole bunch of them?  Our two chickens laid eggs at least 6 out of the 7 days in a week, for a good few years and depending on your motivation for keeping chickens once they stop you could enjoy a very fresh dinner - if you could stomach it?

If you’ve got any chicken stories, or questions on chickens please post your comments.  I’d love to hear them! On another note, if you are looking for Discount Vouchers for different products, you should try the website I’ve just linked to.

In this post I hope to show you a few places on the internet which are great for finding green resources and advice!

If you’re after a list of fair trade, organic, ethical and green providers for different products and services why not use this leading directory called Search-For-Me.co.uk.  The website is carefully split into different sections so you can find green services from accountants to wines.  If you’ve tried looking around on the web and can’t find the green service you’re after I’d highly recommend trying this directory.   If you can’t find it there post a comment and see if any of this blogs readers can help you!

Buy Solar Panels  UK blog offering ideas and inspiration about solar products.

http://www.search-for-me.co.uk

The next website is written by a  freelance journalist who focuses on environmental issues.  This is a fantastic place to hear about new environmental issues and well worth a visit.

http://www.robedwards.com

Richard Lawson runs the following blog which is packed full of interesting views, suggestions and articles.  It’s well worth a visit, but I must warn you - you might waste an afternoon reading it!

http://greenerblog.blogspot.com

Another Brilliant website to visit is Carbon Info.  Not only do they provide paid solutions to find low emissions cars and a domestic carbon footprint calculator they also have some free articles on things like car CO2 emissions.

http://www.carbon-info.org
Eco Friendly offers that will save your pocket and the environment - Environmentally kind deals for UK green retailers brought to you by This Is Green

The following cars all have CO2 emissions of 120g/km or less, putting them in Vehicle Excise Duty Band B. There are currently no cars in the UK in Band A, so this is the best you’re going to get. With the exception of the Toyota Prius, all the cars are ’superminis’.

• Citroen C1 1.0i petrol & 1.4HDi diesel
• Citroen C2 1.4HDi diesel
• Citroen C3, 1.6HDi 16v diesel, 1.4HDi diesel
• Daihatsu Sirion 1.0 petrol
• Fiat Grande Punto 1.3 diesel
• Ford Fiesta 1.6 Duratorq TDCi diesel
• Mini R56 1.6 diesel
• Peugeot 107 1.0 petrol
• Peugeot 206 1.4HDi diesel
• Renault Clio 1.5 dCi diesel
• Renault Modus 1.5 dCi diesel
• Smart forfour 1.5Td diesel
• Toyota Yaris 1.4 D-4D diesel
• Vauxhall Corsa 1.0i petrol & 1.3CDTi petrol
• Fiat Panda 1.3 16v diesel
• Hyandai Getz 1.5 CRTD diesel

• Toyota Prius 1.5 VVT-i Hybrid, which beats the lot with CO2 emissions of 104g/km, putting it just outside of Band A.

Over the last twenty years or so in the UK there has been a greatly increased use in washing machines, dishwashers and a greater interest in gardening. As a result there has been a 50% increase in domestic water consumption in the UK. The average person now uses 160 litres of water every day compared to just 80 litres a day 25 years ago.

Add to this the government’s plans to build up to half a million new homes in south-east England and it is easy to see why our already overstretched water supplies and sewage treatment works will be put under an intolerable pressure that may bring them to breaking point. The already very real threat of hosepipe bans and drought warnings is set to increase in the future unless we take sensible action to reduce water consumption or rely on alternative sources.

Water Harvesting

One very simple and effective method of water conservation is water harvesting. Water harvesting is the method of collecting and storing rain water for use in the garden and for other purposes such as toilets, car-washing, cleaning the windows and washing machines. It has been calculated that for every inch of water that falls on a 1000 square foot area it is possible to collect up to 600 gallons of water. In Britain approximately 100,000 litres of water falls per year on the average rooftop. If collected and stored this water can then be used directly and without further treatment for such purposes as watering the garden or cleaning the car thus saving a huge amount on water rates and helping the environment.

Using captured rain water for gardens, toilets, washing machines and washing cars etc can save up to 50% of household water use. Even using a basic, straightforward water butt for water collection and storage can save a large amount of water wastage and in addition rain water is far better for plants than treated tap water.

Water Butts

Rain harvesting systems can range from large water tanks that can hold from between 1,000 to 10,000 litres of water and which utilise electric pumps to the standard upright garden water butt holding from 100 to 200 litres water. Water butts are the most straight forward and basic form of water harvesting and can significantly reduce dependence on mains water supplies and our impact on the environment.

There is nothing new about using water butt type vessels for the collection and storage of water. In Thailand fragments of vessels made from terracotta and used for the storage of water have been found and dated to 2000 years ago. Regions around the Mediterranean such as southern Spain and Morocco used cisternas for the storage of water for use in the hot, dry summers. Now, in the UK, with the possibility of increasingly hot summers and the likelihood of more droughts there is a real and pressing need to use water collection systems in order to conserve water and as a bi-product to save money.

Rainwater systems in the UK are primarily used for WC flushing and for watering the garden. However more sophisticated systems can be used in conjunction with domestic appliances. In Germany water collection systems are much more common and are often used in WC’s and washing machines as well as outdoor use. Trials in Germany have shown conclusively that properly collected rain water used in washing machines is kinder to the clothes and prolongs the life of the washing machine. Further studies show that properly collected rain water used for washing machines does not need to be treated or disinfected. There are currently no UK regulations relating to the required water quality for WC and washing machines.

A very good range of water butts are available to purchase online here.

Installing a Water Butt

Water butts are very simple to fit and just a few simple precautions need to be taken when installing one. It is important to install the water butt on a firm and secure base to prevent overflowing when the vessel is full and to prevent it tipping over. Standing the water butt on a firm base above ground level also provides room to fill a watering can. The water collection vessel should have a secure, childproof lid. This is to protect children and also to prevent debris, small animals and insects from getting inside the water butt. If the water butt does not have a lid then wire mesh can be used as an alternative to prevent debris and animals falling in.

For maximum water collection the water butt should be fitted to the down pipe of the guttering leading from the roof. Rain is collected via the roof and the water filtered down through the guttering system via a diverter that is connected to the down pipe. The water can either be filtered into the water butt through the hole in the lid or via a hole in the side of the butt itself. Many water butts come with a simple connection to the guttering system that takes mere minutes to install.

Choosing a Water Butt

Water butts come in many different styles and designs and so are not just good for the environment and better for your plants but can make an attractive feature in your garden. Basic water butts are made from plastic but they can be made from converted wooden whiskey barrels or Spanish sherry barrels. Other decorative styles include Moroccan beehive shaped designs which can look very appealing in the garden.

When buying a water butt is important to get one with a tap that is adequate to your needs. A tap that is too wide may seem like the best option since it provides a good rate of water flow. However, a standard hosepipe may not be wide enough to attach to a tap that is too wide. On the other hand a tap that is too narrow may not give an adequate flow rate for your needs. Most water butts will come without the tap attached to prevent it snapping off in transit. The customer is required to attach the tap and it is best to check beforehand that this can be done with relative ease as some can be quite fiddly.It is also necessary to make the tap as watertight as possible to prevent water from leaking out.

Water Butt Maintenance

Water butts need regular maintenance to prevent a build up of algae inside the butt. This build up is due to high levels of nutrients in the water.It is best to avoid chemicals to remove the build up algae. Instead any slime can be scooped up with the hands. Sometimes the water butt can be overturned and the insides scrubbed to remove any slime that has built up. If you do not like the sound of this filters can be fitted which remove any algae or slime build up. A very cheap alternative to the water filter is to stretch an old pair of tights over the end of the down pipe leading into the water butt.