Every year billions of plastic bags are handed to shoppers in the UK.  These plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down.  In the meantime, as you can see in the video above, they just hang around waiting.  They get into our natural environment, and are not only unsightly, but also dangerous to our wildlife.

To prevent this continuing build up of old plastic bags, please say no to plastic bags when you’re offered one in.  Instead, take along your own reusable bags (keep them by the front door or in the car so that you don’t forget them).

In the West, we are obsessed with cleanliness.  We wash and we scrub (or get someone else to do it for us), we disinfect and do our very best to get rid of all forms of bacteria in our homes.  In doing so, we inadvertently breed superbugs and damage our children’s natural immunities that would normally develop as a result of exposure to small amounts of bacteria and good old fashioned dirt.

Not only is our extreme cleanliness unnecessary and in some cases actually harmful, but the products that we use to achieve such perfection are damaging our health and that of our families, as well as aquatic and animal life in the environment that supports us when our cleaning chemicals go down the drain or leach into the soil from the packaging that we discard in landfill.

To reduce your exposure to chemicals and to move away from the “anti-bacterial”trend in cleaning products, try using more eco-friendly products like Ecover or Bio-D.  Or save money and reduce waste by employing the cleaning practices of our grandmothers.   Salt, borax, bicarb, lemon, distilled vinegar and soda crystals (all much cheaper to buy than shop-bought cleaners) can tackle any household cleaning job.

When you buy cleaners, buy the biggest sized container that you can store.  Larger sized containers mean less waste in the long run.  It usually works out more economical to buy in bulk too.

Natural cleaning tips:

Use salt and lemon to clean kitchen surfaces, bar counters and wooden chopping boards.

Bicarbonate of soda and a damp cloth with shine sinks and other stainless steel kitchen appliances.

An equal mix of distilled vinegar and water leaves windows and mirrors streak-free.

De-scale your kettle with vinegar.  Leave kettle for a few hours with vinegar in it.  Then empty and rinse.  Boil with water a couple of times before making your tea.

Remove nasty smells in the fridge by putting a little bicarb in a cup in the fridge.  Odours will be absorbed by the bicarb.

In Africa, it’s commonplace to see footballs like the one above, they’re made by children out of plastic bags.  Instead of recycling, these kids are reusing what’s available to make objects to play with.  A sort of bricolage.

Britain has embraced recycling and none of us really has an excuse not to do it anymore.  Glass, paper, tins and plastic are collected from doorsteps and there are recycling points in most supermarket car parks.  This is great, and the way it should be.  But have you thought about taking it further?  About learning to reuse and recycle other things?  Up for a challenge?

1. Mail

Open your mail carefully and save the envelopes.  They can be reused by putting a label over the address.   Envelope reuse labels can be ordered from charities, or you could use a simple address label if you have those available.  A nice idea I recently read about is to write at the bottom of your envelope “I am reusing this to help the environment”, as this may encourage others to do the same.   Reuse junk mail as scrap paper.  Bind loose bits of junk mail/scrap paper with a bulldog clip and keep it at the phone, or use for shopping lists.

2. Newspaper

Newspaper is an incredibly useful stuff.  Keep a few old newspapers around for using to protect the table while children are doing art work, fold them into firelighters and keep next to the fireplace, or scrunch up and use for protecting items that you’re mailing.  You can also rip newspaper up and add it to your composter.

3.  Tin foil

Instead of throwing it away, wash used tin foil for reuse.  You can reuse it to cover food, or you can put it behind your radiators to reflect the heat back into the room.

Keep your recycling organised by labelling used cardboard boxes for glass, plastics, paper and metal.  If you prefer your recycling to look a little neater, try buying a recycling system like this one from a janatorial company.

Photo credit: whiteafrican

In some cases, it’s worthing spending a little to save BIG in the long run.  Here are a few ideas of where to invest your precious pounds to make savings for the long term.

Replace all the bulbs in your home with LEDs or low-energy compact fluorescents.  You will lower your energy bill, and save money by not having to replace bulbs so often.

Get a wind-up torch for camping, power outages and fuse box explorations.  Never buy batteries again.

Get yourself a curtain on Freecycle, or from a charity shop (second hand is more eco-friendly), and hang it inside your front door to keep the heat it.

It’s the time of year that most people are trying to reduce their waistlines after all the Christmas eating and drinking.  As a change from the traditional, I propose a waste reduction challenge for 2009.  How about it?

To get us started, here are some simple ideas that will immediately reduce waste in our lives.

1. Get your milk from the milkman.  The glass bottles that you return are reused time and time again, saving lots of waste.

2. Put up a sign in your window or by your front saying something along the lines of: “No junk mail, leaflets or take-away menus please”.

3.  Sign up to the Mail Preference Service to stop getting unsolicited junk mail (it’s completely free).  Also remember to tick (or not tick if they’ve sneakily done it the other way around) the option on forms to not receive marketing mail.

4.  Get your bank statements and utility bills online.

5.  Stop buying bottled water.  Instead, get yourself a reusable water bottle and keep it filled with tap or filtered water.