The Energy Saving Company - Energy Saving Products To Save You Money In The Home And Workplace

Appalled by a throwaway US culture, Amy and Adam Korst have embraced recycling, given up convenience food and boycotted excessive packaging – but cannot persuade their cat to switch to biodegradable kitty litter.

If you want to save the planet, don’t count on your cat. An American couple who set out to live for a year without producing more than a single small carrier bag of rubbish have discovered it’s far, far easier for humans to adapt to a greener way of life than felines.

Appalled by their country’s throwaway culture – the average American throws out about 4.5lbs (2kgs) of rubbish every day – Amy and Adam Korst, a couple living in a small logging town in Oregon, embarked on a personal quest last month to drastically reduce their household rubbish.

“As environmentalists, I feel like we are bombarded by so many different messages: buy local, buy organic, do all these things. And at the end of the day you don’t really see the difference it has made,” said Amy Korst. “But if Adam and I can get our total garbage output down to 5lbs at the end of the year, we’ll have really made a difference.”

Reduce your energy usage by arranging your FREE Home and Office energy survey today! Phone 0800 118 5722 to contact our friend advice team, we are here to help you and the environment.
(more…)

The UK generates rubbish fast enough to fill London’s Albert Hall every two hours, and landfill sites are filling up fast. As rubbish decays in landfill sites, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas with climate change effects over 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

The good news is that recycling has doubled over the last four years. Some examples of how waste could be cut further include:
• producing, transporting and consuming food and drink causes a third of greenhouse gas emissions; but large amounts go in the bin – UK households spend an average of £424 a year on food that gets thrown away
• the average household wastes a tenth of their electricity bills by leaving appliances on standby – across the UK this is equivalent to the annual output of two power stations, wasting fossil fuels and causing climate change
• 5bn aluminium cans are sold in the UK every year, and many still go into landfill; although this metal is plentiful, it needs a great deal of electricity to produce – the same energy is needed to produce a new can as is needed to produce 20 cans from recycled materials
• the UK produces 3m tonnes of plastic waste each year, most of which is put in landfill – recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours

Do your part and start using recycled products in place of your normal wasteful products. Click here for products that can save energy by reducing your electricity usage.

Human activity has led to many natural resources being depleted and created some major environmental problems:

Fossil fuels
Increasing amounts of fossil fuels are burned to produce electricity and for transport – this produces carbon dioxide, which causes climate change:
• the use of coal has risen by more than half over the last 20 years and will continue to go up
• the use of oil is predicted to rise by the same amount by 2030

Water
Food and other products put huge demands on water supplies at home and abroad. For example:
• it takes around 4,000 litres of water to make a cotton T-shirt – some lakes in cotton-producing areas are drying up, causing the collapse of fish stocks
• world populations of freshwater fish have nearly halved since 1970 due to increased demand for water in producing food, fibre and energy 

Grazing land

Demand for animal products is rising rapidly. It’s estimated that the impact of grazing has doubled globally over the last 30 years. More land is being converted to grassland, reducing other wildlife habitats, while over-grazing reduces the number of species that can be supported.

Forests

Wood can be a great renewable resource, but the world’s ancient forests are shrinking because of the way people currently use it. The spread of urban development, illegal logging, agriculture and industry are causing trees to be lost at about an average of 36 football fields a minute.

Fish
Over-fishing is a threat to ocean-life and to the food and livelihoods of over a billion people. As many as 90 per cent of all the oceans’ large fish have been fished out. Responsible fisheries management is needed to help protect marine life and conserve habitats for future generations.

Help to reduce and conserve energy by using recyclable products. These not only save you money in the long term but cut out the amount of waste in your bins each week. Click here to browse through useful recycled products which really can make a difference.