With the UK being the world’s biggest wine importer (over 1.6 billion litres a year) it makes sense to stop the importing of individual bottles into the country in an effort to cut waste (we’re importing 630,000 tonnes of packaging along with the wine).  Instead, if wine is imported in bulk and then bottled in the UK in lighter weight bottles made out of recycled UK glass, we have the opportunity to reduce the weight of what’s being transported (fewer carbon emissions and monetary savings), as well as using locally recycled glass (closing the loop).

The good news is that WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) have had tremendous success with this project, and have kept over 20,000 tonnes - equivalent to over 3,600 African elephants - of glass out of the UK by filling over 115 million recycled local glass bottles right here.  This delivers both environmental and commercial benefits. [source: WRAP]

You can help close the recycling loop by buying recycled glass products too.

Photo credit: TheLizardQueen

The Belgian city of Ghent is encouraging their citizens to go veggie once a week to lower the city’s carbon emissions.   Civil servants are going to be served vegetarian fare one day a week, and it looks as though school children will also be getting the carbon footprint reducing treatment in their school meals. [source: edie]  Isn’t this amazing?  Do you think that the population of London, or Manchester, or Glasgow could be persuaded to try it?

Here are some interesting facts about why going vegetarian is better for the planet:

1.  It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef protein; 35 calories for 1 calorie of pork; 22 calories for 1 of poultry; but just 1 calorie of fossil fuel for 1 calorie of soybeans.

2. It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does plant protein.

3. Tropical forests in Brazil and other tropic regions are destroyed daily, in part, to create more acreage to raise livestock. [source: British Meat]

Kitchen scraps.  The festering food that makes your bin smell bad and languishes in landfill producing greenhouse gas that will further warm our planet and jeopardise our future.  So, what should you do with these scraps?

The London Boroughs of Ealing, Hounslow and Richmond have taken the initiative and are collecting kitchen waste from the doorsteps a quarter of a million west London homes and taking it away to be turned into electricity through anaerobic digestion. With the food scraps being recycled in this way they don’t end up in landfill somewhere producing methane, and the process is enough to continuously power almost 3,000 homes. [source: edie]

It would be amazing to see this initiative rolled-out throughout the UK, but in the meantime, what are we to do if we don’t live in the areas where this is happening? Compost your kitchen waste, yes, all of it, with one of these clever little kitchen composters that take meat, carbohydrates and dairy products as well as the usual fruit and vegetable peelings. You can add cooked food to these composters, making them far more efficient than “regular” composting methods, and you won’t end up with a smelly bin full of fish bones and chicken skins, because you can put those in your kitchen composter too.

Here’s how it works:

This would be amazing to see in the UK.  Cycling is the best form of transport next to walking for your health and that of the planet.  But in the UK, you still have to buy your own bike helmets.

For the greener gadget lovers amongst us, here are some excellent green gadgets that will lighten the load on the planet and on your pocket.

USBcell rechargeable batteries

These revolutionary NiMH AA rechargeable batteries are only £5 from Robert Dyas and can be recharged from your computer’s USB port. You can recharge them up to 500 times and each battery saves 7kg CO2 and 3kg of toxic waste. Cool.

Water Powered Digital Clock

This little digital clock doesn’t need any batteries.  No electricity either.  Just add water.   It incorporates dependable water powered technology with conventional digital technology to allow you the freedom of not having to buy batteries again! £8.99 from allthingsgreen.

Water Powered Calculator

A basic calculator that runs on the same technology as the Water Powered Clock.  £9.99 from allthingsgreen.

Eco-Button

Eco-Button is a computer power saving device that can save you £££’s off your electricity bills and shave tonnes off your carbon footprint every year.  The Eco-Button acts as a strong visual reminder for you to save electricity each time your computer is left idle. £13.90 from GadgetPages.

Dryer Balls

Not exactly the most glamorous eco-gadget, but an important one if you’re a tumble-dryer user.   This will reduce the time that your clothes spend in the dryer by 25%, and cut out the need for a fabric softener. £8.99 from Amazon.

It’s all good and well that new homes are being built to greener standards, but what about the millions of old houses that are as leaky as sieves when it comes to keeping the heat in (or out in the middle of summer).  So there’s a new campaign, headed up by Grand Design’s Kevin McCloud that’s going to be having a go at persuading the government to help home-owners green up their currently un-energy saving houses and flats, countrywide.

It’s called the Great British Refurb campaign and you can support the campaign by signing a petition asking the government “to offer households new ways to pay for green refurbishment, which would significantly reduce upfront costs and instead spread them over a longer period of time.  It also asks for better financial incentives for householders to refurbish their homes to make them greener and more energy efficient, through substantial government grants, subsidies or tax rebates. Its final demand is to ensure installers are qualified and approved to undertake the work.” [edie]

In the meantime, there are plenty of smaller things that we can do to improve our energy efficiency.  Find out how to run a greener fridge, choose an energy efficient washing machine, or put together your own DIY energy efficiency kit for your home.

Around 20 to 25% of our household energy bills are spent on lighting.  So it stands to reason that by cutting our energy use for lighting we’ll be saving a whole lot of money.  Here are some ideas for cutting back on energy used for lighting in your home.

1. Replace all incandescent lightbulbs with CFLs.

2. Switch off lights when you leave the room.

3. Open curtains and use daylight during the day.

4. Use solar lights where possible.

5. Make your own lamp out of an empty bottle like this:

If you’ve been putting off going green because it’s too expensive, now’s your chance to save BIG and get onto that greener path.  Pricegrabber is offering FREE DELIVERY on everything.

Cut your carbon footprint with a bicycle.

Charge your electronic devices with a solar charger.

Switch to energy saving bulbs.

Buy organic whenever possible.

Buy recycled to close the recycling loop.

So, you’ve missed the boat for posting your Christmas cards (Saturday 20th Dec was the deadline), what now?

Ecards are a great way to save trees (paper), energy (less mail being driven around in lorries), and money (because they’re mostly free).  Here are some of my favourite sources of ecards for Christmas.

Envirowise - for ecards with a green theme.

Care2.com - for ecards that help the planet.

The Nature Conservancy - ecards with a nature theme.

A nice bottle of organic wine would make a nice accompaniment to sitting down and doing your Christmas ecards.

Continuing with the theme of gadgets that help you live more sustainably, here are some more ideas for consideration.

The efergy energy saving meter is a wireless electricity meter that tracks your energy use so that you know exactly how much you are consuming at any given time, what it is costing you and an estimate of your personal contribution to climate change.  The data is stored so that you can track the trends and changes in energy consumption in your household.  Easily installed by complete novices. Costs around £45.

You can save about £50 a year by using an EcoButton on your PC or laptop.  When you press the EcoButton you put your machine into eco-mode to save energy until you come back to it and press the button again to reactivate it where you left off.  Expect to pay around £15 per button.

The Bye Bye Standby energy saving kit works by totally cutting power to the devices plugged into it when they’re not in use, saving power that devices would have consumed on standby.  You get one remote control and three sockets for £34.99 and one remote and two sockets for £19.99.