Autumnwatch

Hot on the heels of Springwatch, is Autumnwatch (I wonder what happened to Summerwatch?). Join thousands of other people and record six signs of Autumn:

• First ripe blackberry
• First ripe conker
• Last swift
• First flowering of ivy
• First ripe hawthorn berry
• First tint of oak

For more details, visit the site.

Recording times of the year when natural phenomena occur is known as phenology. Phenologists have been recording spring and autumn events for the past three hundred years, but the information to be gained from phenology is more important than ever as scientists try to understand the effects of global warming. The Autumnwatch survey is being run by the BBC in partnership with the Woodland Trust and the UK Phenology Network.

Autumnwatch will almost certainly be accompanied by a TV Series, so look out for Bill, Kate, Simon and a whole host of others. I'll post the details here as soon as I have them.

caldini

Keep the traffic flowing

It was raining when I woke up this morning so I drove into work. Luckily, as it's now the summer holidays, there was no school traffic on the roads in the morning. This evening though an accident somewhere else in the town had caused "gridlock" on the roads around the area where I live. I spent most of the drive home in a continuous queue that went all the way home - the ubiquitous traffic jam that plagues our lives.

Not a problem - you can't let it get to you - after all, if you're in the queue then you're one of the culprits too! I like to stick a good sing-a-long CD on and cheer myself up. My favourite album at the moment is Unemployment by the Kaiser Chiefs!

I noticed, as I sang along happily, that an awful lot of petrol was being wasted while people were trying to make a right turn off a main road. Think about it. You're in a queue and in the stream of traffic travelling in the opposite direction, a car wants to make a right turn. But, his/her road is cut off by traffic in the queue that you're in. Behind that car another queue of traffic begins to build up, waiting for the car in front to turn right. Inevitably, this causes more and more queues to spider out across the town.

Of course, you can do your bit to keep the traffic moving. As you crawl along, keep an eye out for left turns from the road you are on. As you come up to a left turn, leave a gap between you and the car in front.

• You'll let oncoming traffic turn right if it wants to.
• Traffic from the left will be able to turn right and join the oncoming traffic.
• If you're polite, you'll be able to let traffic from the left join your queue.

All this helps to keep the traffic flowing through the city, helping people reach their destinations in a timely manner and ultimately reducing the amount of wasted fuel.

Keep moving,
caldini

Get more from your toner

Just a quick tip today. Do you have a laser printer at home, or does your place of work have one? Most printers will warn you when the toner cartridge needs to be replaced. However, if you take the cartridge out, give it a gentle shake to settle the contents and then replace it back into the printer, you should get a few more pages out of it, reducing waste.

Once the toner has completely died, make sure it gets recycled.

Happy printing,
caldini

Hot water - from the sun!

Another leaflet came through my door the other day. It was from a company called Solartwin. It's an advert for a solar hot water energy system. It works by pumping water into solar panels where it gets heated by the sun. The water makes its way to your hot water tank. On a good day the water may be heated to 50-60^oC. You can top up the heat if required using your normal energy source, be it electric or gas.

The Solartwin differs from other sytems in that it directly heats the water you use, rather than heat up a chemical anti-freeze. It also has a photovoltaic cell that powers the pump that moves the water around, making it a "zero-carbon" solution. You can get more information from the website.

If you've installed one of these systems, please let us know of your experiences and whether it really has cut your hot water costs.

If you're interested in a solar water heating system, you may want to visit this site from the Kent Energy Centre, or this site from the Sutton Environment Network.

Unfortunately, I live in a rented flat at the moment and don't have a roof of my own so I can't benefit from one of these systems.

caldini

Beat limescale

Hello! It's been a while, but I have recently been moving house and haven't had free and easy access to the internet. I've moved close enough to my place of employment that I am now able to get to work on my bike. The traffic here is so bad that it takes twenty minutes by car but less than fifteen minutes by bike.

Anyway, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Today, I want to talk about limescale. Limescale is the white residue left by hard water when it evaporates. The white substance is calcium carbonate. It's in the water because it has been pumped from or filtered through natural underground reservoirs called aquifers. The calcium carbonate comes from the rocks underground.

Limescale isn't bad for health and it is quite safe to drink hard water. However, it can pose a number of problems in our homes, which can then have a negative effect on the environment.

• Limescale lingers on heating elements in hot water tanks and kettles making them less efficient at heating water
• Hard water reduces the frothiness of soap and we may use more shampoo and shower gels to get the desired effect
• Limescale makes soapy deposits on baths and sinks harder to remove and we therefore need special cleaning agents to get rid of them
• To get rid of limescale from kettles we need to use special limescale removing agents in our kettles and irons

There are ways to prevent limescale. I had a leaflet delivered to my door the other day advertising a product that prevents limescale coming into your house at the source - well, at the rising main anyway. It's called Scalewatcher but there are other products available, for example, this magnetic one from Ecoflow, which doesn't use electricity. I have no idea if these products work, but if you have had experience of them, please let us know.

To prevent limescale getting into your iron or kettle, why not use a Brita water filter? There's no need to keep it in the fridge if you're going to be heating the water up. A friend of mine keeps her water filter by the kettle and uses it for boiling water and cooking. Her kettle is limescale free and her pots and pans are gleaming! I wonder if she knows that if she collects her filters, she can return them to Brita who will recycle them.

caldini