Change one thing?

money-savvy-suzy

After feeling a little shocked at seeing the 'dumped' programme it got me thinking about how I can change my ways in order to reduce waste going to landfill. It's a horrible thought to think that all that waste is going to be there for thousands of years. You hear about landfills all the time, but I think it was shocking to actually see one up close and personal.

I do consider myself to be quite enviromentally aware. I have an allotment, I compost, recycle as much as I can and I try to buy second hand as much as possible. However, there is always room for improvement.

It got me thinking how if every person in the UK changed one slight aspect of their lives in order to reduce their wastage, what a difference that would make!

My pledge is I am going to try hard to stop using kitchen roll. I'm terrible for it (as I'm a clean freak). I can do this without hardly any impact to my life.

What is your pledge to change one thing? :A

tigerlily

I have made loads of changes during this year, I wont be stopping using kitchen roll though...I use recycled and depending on what I have mopped up it goes into the wormery/compost bin.
I can honestly say it has been no hardship doing any of it and I am in the planning stages of making a veggie patch in my garden.

Poppycat

My pledge is to use more energy saving bulbs we use the bog standard but we are replacing gu10's (halogen) and r63 spots and candles very soon, they cost an arm and a leg £7-£8 each, and £6 for candles.

Also turning off tv, dvd etc when we dont use it for a while. Already plan to use less fossil fuels if we can buy burning wood in a log burner, whilst that does create co2, trees that make wood absorb co2's, and the burner is very efficient.

Also have insulation in loft and filled in any gaps we can find since moving house in Feb 07

Will try more recycling as its on a doorstep collection soon, we also compost things now and we already use reusable bags for shopping.

savvy

We've got pretty good at recycling now, but the composting lark has tailed off, so I pledge to get those kitchen scraps back on the compost heap!

kit

Ok, I'll join in.
I pledge to stop using baby wipes for EVERYTHING. Table will be cleaned with a cloth and DD's face and hands with a flannel.

sknowles92

I've been thinking along similar lines myself. I just ordered a Wormery from these guys.

Had been considering it for a while but not being on too high an income I've had to watch the pennies - one of the reaons i've signed up here! Anyway, they sent me a special offer this week (i've posted it here) so I bit the bullet and went for one. Hopefully that was a good plan!

I got a couple of composters cheap from the local council - it's worth giving them a call to see if they have an offer on. I put all the garden waste in there. I'm not that keen a gardener so not sure what i'll do with the compost but i'm sure i will manage to get rid of it somehow.

Smurf07

I have just started buying olive oil from a deli where you can refill the olive oil in the same bottle after you have finished so this will cut down on the energy used for recycling. I will also take my ecover bottles to be refilled when I have used up the washing liquid. I have just bought a wormery so will use that for kitchen waste, toilet rolls etc.

Doom_and_Gloom

Well I'd say I live a very green life with being vegan and everything hehe :cool: .

Anyway all jokes aside we already turn off everything we are not using, put energy efficient lightbulbs in the lamps so we don't have to use the many spot lights in the flat, tiolet roll cardboard inners get used by my mice as toys and shreeded so I don't pay out for exspencive plastic toys or teeth file things for them. All in all we do a fairly good job at helping the environment as best we can.

I'd say my pledge is to recycle more of our plastics and glass as the big bins outside the flat don't have this facillity although it should I do believe. Maybe I could complain to the government about that as that really should be done .

gibby

I saw the first dumped and it shocked me too.

We are also vegan but wanting to do more.
I wish the stores would have less packaging on products. Going to start taking off the excess at the till to let them deal with it as alot of it cant be recycled anyway.

We stopped using all those cleaners and moved on to Citricidal
its pure grapefruit seed extract and can be used for cleaning - just a few drops on your cloth as its anti bacterial, anti biotic, anti viral, anti parasitic and kills all those nasties
it can also replace a lot of medicines especially antibiotics, use it in your hair to stop dandruff & it stops nits coming near your kids, good for ear infections, a facial wash to stop spots, a great mouth wash and can be used on pets

one little bottle for £7 replaces a dozen or so cleaners etc

with being vegan we also cut out leather as that is very eco unfriendly.

I was going to change the TV from a CRT to a plasma as I thought they used less energy but its in the news today that plasma use more energy

G

faerie_girl

I want to start recycling plastic.
the local council will only take tins,cans, foil, cardboard, grass cuttings & glass.
They wont take Plastic or vegtable peelings.

---->I am going to invest in a compost bin<----

We don't have a car and rely on public transport so it could be difficult walking round the town with bags of plastic to find a plastic recyling pointbut...

---->I am going to research the nearest plastic recyling point i can access on foot <

---

---->I will try and start a petition to get the local council to exept plastic<----
Apparently it is too expensive for the to do it, but most other councils do it

Cazzdevil

I already compost, recycle (local council gives us no choice thankfully), and switch off appliances etc, but my pledge is to drastically cut down on my use of carrier bags.

I've bought some of the foldaway tote bags from the supermarkets and aim to remember to take them with me when I go shopping.