Join a charity

As a youngster I always had a passing interest in nature and the birds in the garden. But this was transformed with a visit to the RSPB's Ynys-hir (pronounced innis-hir) nature reserve on the west coast of Wales in 1987. It was the height of spring and I have fond memories of woodland birds I had never seen before, such as Pied Flycatcher and Redstart.
We joined the RSPB at the small hut by the car park, and soon after I became a member of the Young Ornithologists Club (now the Wildlife Explorers).

Now I've grown up and I'm a member of the RSPB and it is still a wonderful organisation to be part of. As well as receiving the quarterly magazine Birds and having access to over 150 nature reserves for just £30 a year (single adult membership), you can get the chance to physically help the RSPB by volunteering on their reserves.

Your money helps the RSPB to protect birds and wildlife, restore the natural countryside and campaign for birds and the environment. Personally, I think that the RSPB does such a great job that everyone should join!

Over the coming months I hope to find out about some of the lesser known conservation charities and join them, as unlike the RSPB they do not have the ability to advertise themselves as well as the larger charities. I'll dedicate a new posting to each one of them.

In the mean time, why not visit an RSPB reserve today?

Have a good weekend,
caldini

Avoid the rush hour

The RAC (Royal Automobile Club) has suggested that traffic congestion causes £15 billion worth of lost working hours per year. For more information, see this news report from the BBC.

One of the RAC's suggestions for improvements is:

Widening all main motorways and trunk roads and adding more tunnels and bypasses

Personally, I disagree with this need for yet more construction work and road building which tears into greenfield areas.

However, it brings us neatly on to today's suggestion. If you work flexible hours, or Flexi Time, why not beat the rush hour traffic by going into work an hour early and also leaving an hour before the evening jams?

Or, if you're not an early morning person, go in an hour later and leave work later too.

A car sitting idle in traffic is spewing out carbon emissions and particulates and wasting fuel. This is obviously a bad thing - for the environment and for your bank account - so choose a time to go to work when the impact is lowest.

Well, it's time for me to go to work now, but if I wait half an hour I'll miss the queue at the traffic lights. Hmm, what shall I do while I'm waiting? Think up some more great tips for How To Go Green of course!

Have a nice day!
caldini

Election Special

With one week to go until UK voters decide on who rules the roost for the next five years, I bring you this Election Special.

Firstly, I've been looking for the environment policies of some of the political parties online. Here's what I've found (in alphabetical order).

Conservatives:
On their policies page, there is a link to a pdf called Action on the environment.

Green Party:
Provides information on their policies in pamphlet form pdfs.

Labour:
Outlines its environment policy on a page of its website.
Liberal Democrats:
A section of their website is devoted to their environment policies.

For a full list of links to the websites of all registered political parties, click on this link.

Voting is a matter of personal choice and my purpose here is not to influence your decision in any way. What I will suggest though, is that if you are stopped by a passing canvasser, make your voice heard and let them know about your feelings on environment policy.



Do Politics! Vote!
caldini

Double sided printing

At work I use Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and a networked printer that's capable of doing double-sided (or duplex) printing. Yet it surprises me to see just how many people print off documents without using this handy paper saving feature.

I asked a few people why they don't use it and found out that they're aware of the capability to do double-sided printing but they usually forget to select it.

However, you can set your printer to always print duplex by default. Here's how on Windows 2000 Professional with a networked Konica IP-431 PostScript printer. The instructions should be pretty much the same on most Windows platforms, but if you know better, please let me know by adding a comment to this post. I'd also be grateful for instructions on how to achieve this on non-Windows platforms.

So here goes...

Select the "Start" button from the toolbar, then Settings, then Printers.
Right click on your default printer (the icon should have a white tick on a black background next to it) and select Properties.
Now this bit probably differs from printer to printer, but hopefully not by much...
Click on the Printing Preferences button and from the "Print on Both Sides (Duplex)" box select either "Flip on long edge" or "Flip on short edge". Flip on long edge is usually suitable for documents with a Portrait orientation, whilst flip on short edge is suitable for Landscape orientation.

Give it a go, and if you work in a busy place with a frequently used duplex printer why not put up a simple poster explaining how to print double-sided by the printer. Better still, ask your company to put the details up on the corporate intranet site if they have one.

Happy printing!
caldini

Washing up bowls

In our kitchen sink, we routinely use a washing up bowl to put the hot soapy water in, rather than filling up the sink directly.

I decided to find out just how much water we're saving by doing the above.

Firstly, I filled the washing up bowl and discovered it took 5 litres to fill.

Then, with the washing up bowl still in place, I filled the sink to the same level as the water in the washing up bowl. I was amazed to find that this took a further 6 litres.

So by simply using the washing up bowl you could be saving 6 litres of hot water. Over a year, at an average of one washing up session per day, that's 2184 litres or 481 gallons! Imagine just how much energy is saved by not having to heat all that extra water.

So let's hear it for the humble washing up bowl!

caldini

Energy labels

All new refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, electric tumble dryers, dishwashers, lamps, electric ovens and air conditioners must show The European Union (EU) Energy Label.

It's an indication of how efficient an appliance is. A rating of "A" is best.

The Energy Label looks something like this:

For more information, have a read of this pdf.

It's unlikely I'll be buying a new washing machine or fridge in the next few months, but if I do, then the energy efficiency of the appliance will definitely be highest on my list of priorities.

Bye for now,
caldini

Wine, wine, wine...

Here's a good one. Drink wine. Drink plenty of wine! But make sure the bottle has got a cork stopper. Not a plastic stopper or a screw top, but a cork one!

Here's why...

Plastic stoppers are a by-product of the petroleum industry. A large amount of energy goes into making them and their manufacture also causes pollution.

The manufacture of metal screw tops also causes pollution and uses up energy.

The alternative is cork. Cork is a renewable resource - it is harvested from the bark of the cork oak tree, but the tree is left unharmed. Spain and Portugal are the biggest exporters of this natural product. There's an extra benefit from using cork too. Because the trees are not cut down, the ancient woodlands are left intact - and they are an important habitat for endangered species such as the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle.

Unfortunately, the supermarkets of the UK, one of the biggest importers of wine in the world want to replace corks with plastic stoppers or screw tops because they believe that corks account for one in ten bottles of wine being tainted. However, many sources refute this claim and suggest that the contamination that causes taint can be picked up anywhere along the manufacturing process.

For more information click here and here.

So, what I'm going to do is make sure that whenever I buy wine it will come in a cork stoppered bottle. However, I know this isn't easy as the cork is usually covered by foil, so I'm going to write to Tesco and ask them to start labelling their bottles so I can decide whether to leave it on the shelf or take it home and have a nice bit of tipple. I'll let you know how I get on! Hic!
Good health!
caldini

Update: To see the view from the pro-plastic stopper side of the argument, read this article.

Update 2: I've just been shopping at Tesco and noticed that their "Finest" range of wines describe the kind of stopper used on the label of the bottle. And it said "Natural cork". Hurrah! I decided to vote with my feet and bought a bottle. Unfortunately, I was so keen to express my delight that I forgot to check the price and came home with an £8.99 bottle of wine. At least it tasted good. I'll write to Tesco and thank them for letting me have a choice!

Energy efficient light bulbs

Right, let's start with an easy one shall we? Energy efficient light bulbs. So called because they can produce the same amount of light as ordinary filament (incandescent) bulbs but use less energy to do so. Not only that, but they last longer too.

It's true that the bulbs cost more than your normal filament bulb, but the amount of money you can save per year is incredible. I really had no idea you could save so much.

According to the British Gas web site, a saving of £175 can be made over the six-year lifespan of six 16W light bulbs (a 16W energy efficient lightbulb is equivalent to a 75W conventional lightbulb).

For more information visit this site. (let me know if the link is broken)

To quote OSRAM on their energy saving lamps:

Without sacrificing light output, modern energy saving lamps can save up to 80% on electricity cost, as well as lasting up to 15,000 hours.

There's still a couple of incandescent light bulbs in use in my house. It would be foolish to throw away a working bulb as this would be a waste of resources so I'm going to keep a couple of energy efficient bulbs ready in the cupboard for when the old ones blow.

Cheers,
caldini

How To Go Green - An Introduction

I , like many other people, am worried about the health of our environment. It troubles me to read articles in newspapers and on the Internet about climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution. I know that there are a lot of people out there that are working very hard to reverse the impact that over-population and corporate greed have had on our surroundings. However, I know that I'd be as guilty as the next man if my own impact on the environment was to be scrutinized in detail.

So how can I be greener? What can I do in my home and at work to reduce the energy I consume, output less pollution and make the place better for wildlife? Well, I aim to find out and share this info with you the reader.

The things I have in mind are only small changes, but as the saying goes...

Think Globally, Act Locally!

Kind regards,
caldini