Go Green Tips & Hints...

Tip 1. Turn off your standby - Don't leave appliances on standby. Up to 10% of household electricity used is due to standby, wasting £740 Million a year (£37 per household) and creating four million tonnes of excess carbon.

Tip 2. Recylce - Making drinks cans from recycled materials uses only 5% of the energy required for new aluminium cans. Recycling one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60w light bulb for six hours..

Tip 3. Insulate your loft - It could save you £60-£70 a year on household heating bills and prevent 25% of heat being lost through the roof.

Tip 4. Fit foil behind radiators - Shiny side out - on walls behind radiators to conserve heat by reflecting warmth back into the room rather than warm the wall up behind the radiator.

Tip 5. Buy reusable shopping bags - Buy reusable shopping bags. In the UK we use 150 million plastic carrier bags a week and those that are non-degradable can take up to 400 years to decay in landfill. Reusing material bags and bags for life (which can be recycled) is very much the better and greener option.

Tip 6. Think - before you boil your kettle - Only boil as much water as you need. If we all did this, we could save enough electricity each year to run half the street lighting in the country.

Tip 7. Parked up? - Get in to the habit of turning your car engines off when ever you are stationary for more than 1 miute, if stuck in traffic or parked up waiting.

Tip 8. Tumble Dryers - Avoid drying your clothes in the tumble dryer. If you must use it, keeping heavy towels and bedding away from lighter fabrics will help reduce cycle times.

Tip 9 . Fit foil behind radiators - Use low energy bulbs. They last up to 12 times longer and use 75% less energy saving money and energy at the same time.

Tip 10. Car Share - Car share with a colleague. Single occupancy accounts for 86 % of commuter car journeys in the UK.

Tip 11. Hybrid Cars - Buy a hybrid car. They do more miles to the gallon and emit less carbon than tradionally powered vehicles.

Tip 12. Fit foil behind radiators - Holiday by train. Or offset the carbon you generate through flying by supporting green projects.

Tip 13. Flushing your toilet - Put a brick or large plastic bottle filled with water in your toilet cistern. Flushing the loo accounts for 30% of household water usage. This could save around 10 million litres a day - enough to supply 60,000 people.

Tip 14. Water butts - Put a water butt in the down pipe from your gutter to collect rainwater running off the roof and use it on the garden or to wash the car.

Tip 15. Turn to 30 - Use the energy saving settings on your washing machine and dishwasher as much as possible. Washing clothes at 30 could save up to 40% on the running costs of your machine.

Tip 16. Online banking - Bank online and cancel paper staments. One bank has cut more than half its paper use in 10 years thanks to computers, saving 24,000 trees a year.

Tip 17. Switch to green electricity & gas - Switch to a green electricity tariff and you could help reduce UK carbon emmissions by a million tonnes.

Tip 18 . Wind turbines & solar power - Install a wind turbine and solar panels to convert natural energy into usuable free energy.

Tip 19. Fit foil behind radiators - Think about buying eco-friendly and biodegradeable nappies. Babies' napies make up about 2% of the average household rubbish, equivalent to the weight of nearly 70,000 double decker buses every year to landfill.

Tip 20. Calculate your carbon footprint - Understand your energy use by calculating your carbon footprint.