Umweltbrief
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Save the Planet!50 easy ways to save the planet:
1. Avoid meat, milk and cheese as much as possible, as they have the
biggest impact on the planet.
3. Start a compost heap to reduce the waste you send to landfill sites. 4. Buy your own hive: without bees the planet would last for only 60 years (and honey is good for your health).
5. Save water through consumer avoidance: Behind a pair leather shoes
hide themselves for example 2,000 gallons to virtual water, which are needed
for the supply of a cow. In a Hamburger are 600 gallons. The cultivation of
sufficient cotton for a T-shirt devours about 1,000 gallons water. 350 gallons
virtual water are to refined sugar in each kilogram. Think before you buy!
6. Slow down. Driving at 50mph uses 25% less fuel than 70mph. 7. Wash your clothes with your flatmates’ instead of wasting water on half-empty loads. 8. Turn down your central heating and put on a jumper. 9. Take a brisk shower, not a leisurely bath, to save water. And: once a day is really enough. 10. Hold a Tupperware party. Airtight food containers can be reused; sandwich bags and plastic wrap cannot. 11. Choose energy-efficient appliances when you replace old ones. Better is it however, to use the old appliances as long as possible, because no product needs so many resources during its use, how when its production! 12. Join "green" electricity from a renewable energy source; for a better conscience! It is not really more expansive and the best chance for renewable energies. 13. Join a library instead of buying books. 14. Get to know your neighbours; they are more likely to keep your home safe than energy-guzzling security lamps. 15. Recycle your car oil at a recycling depot or petrol station; it contains lead, nickel and cadmium. 16. Get on your bike instead of driving. 17. Let them carry you off in a biodegradable cardboard coffin, saving trees. 18. Use low-phosphate washing-up liquid and washing powder. Phosphates stimulate algal growth when discharged into the water supply, lowering oxygen levels and killing plants and fish. 19. Buy
local and seasonal, or better still, grow your own food, so energy is not wasted on
transportation.
20. Raise your glass to organic beer; conventionally grown hops are sprayed up to a dozen times a year. 21. Use recycling facilities. If there aren’t any, ask your council for them. 22. Ditch the air-conditioner and buy an aspidistra plant; plants help cut pollution. 23. Take the plunge and move in with your partner so you light and heat one home rather than two. 24. Give a colleague a lift to work; if no one is going your way, join a carshare scheme to find a passenger. 25. Cook for friends. Large quantities of food use less packaging than the same quantity in individual portions (and take less energy to cook). 26. Copy ministers by holidaying in Britain (but unlike them, skip the follow-up trip to Tuscany). 27. Give your garden a good breakfast; coffee grounds and eggshells are ideal for composting. 28. Refuse plastic carrier bags, or at least reuse them. Cloth bags are better. 29. Donate your leftover paint to a community project; Britons fail to use 6.2m litres of the paint they buy each year. 30. Drink filtered tap water, not bottled. 31. Invest in a washing line; tumble dryers devour electricity. 32. Buy chocolates from proper chocolate stores, so they are not individually wrapped. 33. Turn off TVs and stereos instead of switching them to standby. 34. Lighten up: paint your walls a pale colour, so you need less artificial light. 35. Only
flush toilets if really needed; follow the Australian maxim: “If it’s yellow that’s
mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.”
36. Improve the ambience and dine by candlelight, saving electricity. 37. Insulate your home. Cavity wall insulation can cut heat loss through the wall by up to 60%. 38. Look where your money go; put it in ecologic investments and buy from companies with eco-friendly policies; boycott those without. 39. Soak up the sun; even in Britain, solar panels can produce a surprising amount of energy. 40. Place refrigerators apart from
stove or heating into cold ranges.
41. Avoid air travel; it produces three times more carbon dioxide per passenger than rail. 42. Pretend Christmas has come early; turkey is more likely than chicken to be produced in the UK, while British-grown brussel sprouts require less transport than Kenyan mangetout. 43. Grow plants to give to friends instead of cut flowers. 44. Choose a car with (bio-)gas drive or better an electric zero emission vehicle (therefore you need green electricity). 45. Ban blinds. Heavy curtains keep in more heat in winter. 46. Change materials as well as rooms; MDF and chipboard release formaldehyde, a carcinogen. Buy sustainably produced wood instead. 47. Cut up the plastic rings from packs of beer; they are invisible in water so wildlife can choke on them or trap themselves. 48. Bring a mug to the office instead of using polystyrene cups. 49. Cancel that expensive gym membership and walk to work instead. 50. Buy
less. Save
time and money as well as the planet.
Suggestions submitted by Guardian journalists and staff, the World Wildlife Fund and The Ecologist magazine’s book Go Mad! in August 2002. 365
Daily Ways
to Save the Planet. See
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