We are going to try and be more Future Friendly and Zero Waste Week 8

Small things can make a big difference.  Since having my children I have felt the need to ensure that I try and make as such a difference as possible.  I was asked by P&G if I would like to take part in their Future Friendly Seven days of sustainable living challenge, I thought it would be the kick start we needed to ramp things up a level.  The aim is to do 3 little inspired acts every day to try and make my household more sustainable.

When browsing though the ideas, it occurred to us, that we actually do most of the ones that are suggested.  We have a water butt, use watering cans instead of a hose, recycle our waste, compost our tea and coffee grounds, borrow books for the lcoal library, wash at lower temperates, hang out the washing and buy products with less packaging.  So I asked Karen from The Rubbish Diet for some help and she told me that it was Zero waste weekand gave me some more ideas.

So as a family we are going to come up with three little inspired acts everyday and tweet them, so you can join in if you like too.

So our challenge will be as follows:

1. Never leave anything on standby.  We have an intellipannel switch on the TV downstairs and the PC, but sometimes the radio does get left in standby.
2. Do not leave any chargers plugged in
3. Use only as much water as required to make a cup of tea
4. Wash a full load of washing
5. Make sure the hot water (in the tank) is not set above 60 degrees)
6. Make a draught excluder for the front and back door.
7. Close all curtains at dusk to keep heat in and cold out
8. Use a steamer to cook more foods with only one heat source
9. Not adding warm food to the fridge and freezer
10. Use rechargeable batteries, In the UK we throw away over 650 million batteries every year, polluting the soil and filling landfill sites.
11. Move to paperless billing
12. Turn off lights when not in rooms, this is more important as the nights are drawing in
13. Make sure each light has an energy efficient bulb in.
14. Taking off our shoes when coming in to our house. By taking off your shoes when entering your house, you can reduce the amount of dirt in your house by up to 80%, which means you don’t need to clean your house as often which saves energy.
15. Use our own shopping bags
16. Buy unpacked fruit and veg, I love these reusable fruit and beg bags from Onya
17. Defrost the fridge and freezer
18. Use reusable drinks bottles
19. Buy concentrated products to reduce packaging or larger sizes
20. Make some cloth napkins to take out with us, rather than use disposables.
21. Use reusable plastic containers
22. Ditch the kitchen towel and use cloths

I would also love for you to suggest some things that you do, that we can try.

PS, if you were wondering how a picture of the boys in a fountain was green and sustainable, let me tell you.  It was taken at The Alnick Gardens and the fountain is powered by hydro-static pressure and isn’t run by electricity