How to be Eco-friendly in your Living Room! 🛋

Different people call it different things, it could be the front room, the living room, whatever, but I think everyone goes in there to relax. Watch TV, read, etc. So there's not much to be eco friendly about in it, but I found a few tips☺.

So, where I am, we're technically in Autumn now and the days are getting shorter, so when you're sitting in your living room in the evening, you're going to need to turn on some lights. You've probably heard that light bulbs that use LED technology are better for the environment than others, and it's true. They are more energy efficient, and the way they are manufactured are better than others, for example incandescent lights. For the same amount of brightness, the incandescent light bulb would use 60 Watts, the CFL would use 15W and the LED would use 12W. (CFL light bulbs are Compact Fluorescent lamps). The LED light bulbs are the most expensive, but they can last up to 25 years! On average, it's said that energy efficient light bulbs can save you up to £70 a year. It's not loads, but you're using a lot less energy.

Almost a year ago, I wrote Eco Friendly Ways to Keep Warm. I'm going to do a summary of that here. The recommended temperature of your home is 21 Degrees Celsius and so you should keep it around there. The first thing I would say to keeping warm is wearing layers, or walking around with a blanket around your shoulders. It does help. I'm not the person who would do this, but I guess you could also do some exercise to warm up. Just stand up and do a few star jumps😂.

Another thing you could do is buy sustainable furniture. This could come in ways like salvaged wood, recycled textiles, or buying it second hand. However, don't just buy new, environmentally friendly furniture if you don't have a suitable place to put your old things, like giving them a new home in someone else's house.

Thank you for reading this post! I hope you have an amazing week, see you next Sunday!

Violet

    xxx

How to be Eco-friendly in your Bathroom (and 50 years of Greenpeace!)

First of all, this isn't what my post today is about, but I'd just like to say that this year Greenpeace are celebrating 50 years since it was founded. I'll give a quick overview of what Greenpeace is: (quoting from their website) "Greenpeace uses non-violent creative action to pave the way to a greener, more peaceful world, and to confront the systems that threaten the environment". What started Greenpeace? Well, in September 1971, a group of people sailed a boat to Alaska in the US to stop nuclear testing there. Click here or go onto their website, scroll down and click Our History and Successes to see a timeline of all the things they've campaigned for and done. 

Okay, so, back to my post and continuing to focus on one room in your house at a time, I've written many things about being eco-friendly in your bathroom, I'll put a few links into the ones I've done here: Washing, Taking Shorter Showers, Bamboo Products and, recently, Alternate Products for Brushing your Teeth. So this week I'll summarise all of those into this one blog.

Taking a shower instead of a bath is better for the environment because a bath will hold up to 80 litres of water, and a water efficient shower will use 9 litres per minute (an older showerhead will almost use up to 10 litres more per minute!). That means that a 10 minute shower uses up more than a bath so to be water efficient, you should not only take more showers than baths, but also don't spend too much time with the water running. 

This is the same with brushing your teeth. I'm sure you've all heard that you shouldn't leave the tap on while brushing your teeth because that wastes water. That tip is like the first thing we're told in primary school or anywhere when told how to be more eco-friendly.  Bamboo toothbrushes and toothpaste tablets are plastic-free alternatives too.  

Instead of plastic bottles of shower gels, using bars of soap (that don't come individually wrapped in plastic) is good too, or just using cruelty-free, even vegan, soap if that fits for you, but I've said it before so I'm not going into much detail.  In case you missed it, I talked about using eco-friendly cleaning products in last week's blog, so have a read of that one if you haven't already.  

Thank you for reading this week's blog! See you next Sunday.

Violet

         xxx

How to be Eco-Friendly in your Kitchen! 🍴

I'm thinking of starting this new thing where I go round a house and go into different rooms (figuratively of course😁) and talk about how you could be more environmentally friendly in that specific. This is going to be any room that's in an average house (bedroom, bathroom, etc). 

So today is the kitchen. I've written a bit about how to be eco-friendly in the kitchen, like in my baking post you can read here, or my post about how to use your dishwasher in an eco friendly way. But there are other things in a kitchen of course. 

First, let's talk about fridges. It is important that you don't leave the door open for too long, because that will use up a lot of energy, and is actually the appliance that uses the most energy in a house (up to a third). If you wanted to go even further you could get a fridge that is better for the environment, ones which are energy efficient etc. Also, getting a smaller fridge is sometimes better because then you don't buy too much food, and you don't forget about things so they don't go off and get wasted. And if there's more space in a fridge, it'll have to work harder because to cool the space, consequently using more energy. But you don't need to get a small fridge if you need the space.

I'll just quickly touch on how to be eco friendly with dishwashers and washing machines. Have it on a cooler (and if you have the setting, an Eco cycle) temperature, and make sure it's a full load. Choose eco friendly detergents etc for both the dishwasher and the washing machine. In this post I give loads of suggestions for eco friendly cleaning products. 

When you're cooking, always make sure you don't cook too much, and if you do, don't throw it in the bin, save it for leftovers! For example, sometimes we cook rice and we make too much, the next day we'll make egg fried rice (I understand that's not for anyone who is vegan, but that's just one example😇).

Always make sure you check with your neighbourhood on things you can and can't recycle.  In our area, we can recycle all the normal stuff (like plastic bottles, cardboard, paper, glass, tins and food waste) but not all those plastic tubs or pots that yoghurt, fruit and veg come in.  However we do have a local place to go to to recycle plastic caps, pet food pouches and things like that. 

Thank you for reading this week's blog. I hope you have a great week, see you next Sunday!

Violet

    xxx

Second-Hand September! 📣

 Have you heard about second-hand September? To be honest, I didn't hear about it until a few days ago. It's quite self-explanatory, for 30 days the only things you buy are second hand. Considering I don't buy many things, and when I do it's usually books, which I buy second hand most of the time anyway. 

One reason second-hand September helps is to stop fast fashion. I wrote about fast fashion here. This is a good thing because it wastes so many materials, since people buy new clothes, wear them for a bit (maybe even just once) then throw them away and buy more. Something I mentioned in my fast fashion blog the #30wears campaign, where you only buy something if you know you're going to wear it at least 30 times. 

To help you can not just buy second hand clothes and other products, but also donate your own old things to places like charity shops. Oxfam is the one who started second-hand September, so if you have one near you that's where you could start, however any charity will take your things if they are suitable. With Oxfam (and probably any charity) you can help stop 47 million items of clothing going into landfill every year. And you don't even have to buy ones from charity shops, you could share things between your family and friends too!

So, I'm going to definitely try second-hand September, and I hope you do too! Thanks for reading my blog. See you next Sunday!

Violet

         xxx