| Green Issues - Making your home eco-friendly |
|
‘  It’s really easy to make your home a lot greener with very little effort,’ says Kate Aydin author of ‘How to Save the Planet on a Student Budget’. Even if you just change two or three ingrained habits it could make a huge impact – imagine the difference in the UK’s water quality for example, if everybody changed to an environmentally friendly version of washing powder and washing up liquid such as Ecover. As well as recycling, another good idea is to start home composting if you have a garden no matter how small. ‘This will reduce your household waste, help your garden to bloom with organic fertiliser, and also cut the time you spend cleaning out your bins in the house so they don’t smell,’ she says. If you are buying anything made with or from wood for the garden or your home, check that it carries the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) mark on it to ensure that you are not contributing to global forest destruction. ‘Another way to boost your green credentials is to stop leaving your household appliances on stand-by, but I appreciate that it can be a pain as it often involves crawling around under tables and behind appliances looking for plug sockets!’ says Kate. ‘To make things easy and to save on your electricity bills, just buy an extension lead so that you can turn everything off with one flick when you’re off out, going on holiday or just going to bed.’ Find out more: Kate Aydin’s ‘How to Save the Planet on a Student Budget’ is available from Oneworld Publications, priced £6.99. Extract from an article from Christian Aid which continues to take action to tackle climate change in the lead up to the UN summit in Copenhagen next month. See: www.christianaid.org.uk/copenhagen New buzz about the church Natural England is encouraging city dwellers to help revive the British bee population by keeping their own bees in a newly designed urban beehive. This follows a dramatic decline in the numbers of domesticated honey bee in the UK. Bees are essential to pollinating plants and crops but are under threat worldwide, according to experts, with honeybees at particular risk of extinction without beekeepers to care for them in domestic environments. The Church of England’s National Environment Adviser David Shreeve has backed the call from Natural England after making a visit to Lambeth Palace’s 12 beehives this week. The bees at Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, pollinate plants and flowers across the capital and up to seven miles away. ‘Traditionally, bees are associated with rural life but the hives at Lambeth Palace show how bees can also thrive in inner cities – in this case only a stone’s throw from Parliament,’ he said. ‘At Lambeth, with its great tradition of beekeeping, the Church is fortunate to own grounds providing a home for bees that keep London greener by pollinating plants as far as seven miles away.’ |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
