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I’m becoming increasingly concerned at the waste I see in everyday life (mine in particular) as I fear it’s not sustainable and as a new Dad I can’t help wondering what my children and their children will think of the world we are leaving them.
Will they hate us for the greedy consumption of oil and coal. Will they mock us for arguing over the installation of windmills “because they ruin the view” while we smog up the towns and cities. Will they hate us for the mess we’ve created with landfill sites? Will they be able to enjoy that good old British traditional of fish and chips after we’ve over fished the oceans.
I hope not. The only way to be sure however is to take action now. No, not tomorrow, not later today, now! Take a look around your home and think of ways you could make a small improvement now, then look for another improvement tomorrow and another the day after and so on. I realise that we’re not going to change overnight, but by making a small improvement of 1% ever day you’ll have made 100% improvement within just 70 days, maybe you can only manage 1% a week, that’s still a 100% improvement in less than 18 months.
So what can you do, right now to improve things? Here’s some simple suggestions to get you started:
- Only put enough water in the kettle for the drinks you’re making.
- Take a shower rather than a bath.
- Put a lid on pans when you are boiling them.
- defrost the fridge/freezer regularly to keep it efficient.
- Repair not replace broken items.
- Switch to a green energy provider.
- Insulate your house, or improve the insulation that’s already there.
- Consider solar water heating.
If you’re an entrepreneur/business owner please take a look at your business and consider how you can improve it’s environmental impact, in many cases cutting down on unnecessary consumption will cut costs reducing your overheads and improving the profit. On top of that I have no doubt that as consumers become more and more aware of the environmental impact of what they buy the green credentials of a business will become key competitive advantages so why not get a head start now.
Finally if you’re an inventor, or a want-to-be entrepreneur looking for a new business idea why not take a look at the environmental problems that we face and see if you can spot an opportunity to resolve one of them in full or in part. What could be better than getting rich saving the world?
This post is part of Blog Action Day. Blog Action Day is a day when bloggers around the web are uniting to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind, this year the issue is the environment.
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This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
We’ve just been given wheelie bins for recycling purposes. I wonder the actual wheeli bins are recyclable or in a few years times are there going to be a load of broken bins filling the tips?
Good question. Our local council has given us bins to recycle cardboard (and compostable waste) at huge expense and now decided we all put too much cardboard in them so we’re no allowed to – instead we have to drive several miles to a tip to recycle it – using more petrol … Most of the compostable waste was food stuffs (potato peelings etc) which because of EU laws can now no longer be composted for some reason or other so that all goes back to the landfill now.
As a result we have an extra wheelie bin that gets little use – another good use of limited oil supplies to make that plastic – and almost everyting still going to the landfill, as lets face it recycling will only work on a nationwide basis if it’s curbside (i.e. easier to do it than not to do it).
They come round with a seperate truck for bottles round here. It’s a normal truck with a metal cage on into which they throw the bottles. It might just be coincidence but since they started the amount of broken glass on the roads by the gutters seems to have increased causing an extra hazard for any cyclists out there. Probably filling up the tips with inner tubes too.
To be fair we do have a collection for bottles and tins but they demand that they are washed first (which strikes me as a waste of water and putting more detergents into the environment).
I’ve also not figured out why they have us place paper, magazines, newspapers, glass and tins into one box and then have the collection person stand at the curbside and sort each and every box. Surely a partitioned box and getting us all to sort as we fill would make more sense and keep costs down.
We have alternative collections, one week for ordinary waste, and the other for recycling and green waste. This is to encourage more recycling. But there are many items we would presume are recyclable and turn out not to be, eg margarine tubs, yoghurt pots, hummus cartons, yet empty toilet cleaner bottles can be recycled along with milk cartons and other plastic bottles. Tins and cans can be mixed in with the rest of the recycling bin’s contents, yet glass bottles ‘contaminate’ them.
We have alternate collections too but it just seems to mean everyone puts out twice as much rubbish every other week as the recycling is not well implemented.
It’s all to do with education. My family have been recycling since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Don’t buy stuff that can’t be recycled. Put your kitchen peelings in the compost heap. Reuse uneaten food if it’s safe, eg put it in a soup. Recycle everything possible, like the cardboard part of wrappers. Re-use plastic bags and go to the supermarket with a big box and don’t use their plastic bags to put your shopping into. Don’t throw away cooked food without properly wrapping it up as this attracts vermin. Re-use drink bottles for your children’s lunch boxes. Wrap up sandwiches in paper rather than plastic bags. Don’t buy take-away food and avoid ready-made meals.
These are just some suggestions in how to effectively recycle. Our recycling bin is full to busting, whereas our other bin is only half full after two weeks.
Alice great tips, thanks.