Posts Tagged "eco friendly"

How To Go Green Without Breaking The Bank 0

How To Go Green Without Breaking The Bank

Posted by on Jun 4, 2013 in alternative energy, conserve, Live Green

It is 2013, and we all have a responsibility, collectively and as individuals, to do all we can to save the planet.  At least, that is what the media tells us, and the borderline propaganda that the governments of the world want us to believe. The fact that a UK Member of Parliament has this week questioned whether global warming and climate change is down to human influence is certainly going to get people talking.

Regardless of whether we believe the science or are cynical about the whole thing, the fact is that there is much we can do to be greener ourselves. We’ve all seen the adverts for solar panel installation, and baulked at the cost.

Irrespective of the cost ‘paying for itself’ in terms of energy bill savings over the next 10 years or so, we are still in a recession, or at least recovering from it, and people tend not to have a spare £10,000 just lying around to pay for something that won’t break even for the best part of a decade.

With that in mind, how can we go green without breaking the bank?

Think Bathroom

For years, we were told that we should take showers instead of baths because they use far less water. However, we later learned that, actually, because people stand under showers for so long, the difference could sometimes be negligible at best.

One way to tackle this is to continue using showers, but buy a product to control water flow. Companies such as Agua Flux offer a range of shower faucets and other products that will dramatically reduce the water you use.

Other ways to save in the bathroom include cistern controllers that limit the water your toilet uses.

Local Green Initiatives

Around the world, councils at the local level are starting to push the green agenda more than ever before. Probably the biggest thing they’re doing is offering loft insulation – and even cavity wall insulation in some cases – in order to reduce energy wastage as well as your heating bill.

There are different rules depending on the cost of your home and circumstances, but if you can take advantage, it is worth doing so.

Get in the Garden

After the bathroom, the garden is probably the place where you can best make an impact on the environment without spending a lot of money. If you have an effervescent garden, then it is likely you use a lot of water from the tap to keep it looking fresh.

A water butt is a great product for saving water when it rains for the times when it doesn’t, and with the increasing number of hosepipe bans in place around the world, could be the difference between a garden in bloom and a desolate wasteland.

A wormery, from a company like Worm City, is another great product that you might consider, as it will enable you to recycle your own waste at home, as well as produce your own compost for your garden. They are great fun for the kids, too!

Going green at home does not have to cost the Earth. Save the planet instead, with these cost effective yet powerful ideas.

Featured images:
  •  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900255334.jpg

Robert is a business consultant who is passionate about the environment and green initiatives. Although a personal passion, he also advises his clients around the best ideas for going green in the workplace, and how to promote their sustainable practices to customers.

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3 Ways To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint 0

3 Ways To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Posted by on Apr 3, 2013 in alternative energy, conserve, Live Green

If the extended cold weather we have had recently has told us anything it could be that climate change is as real as the snow that has cut off so many people from the rest of society in recent weeks. This winter has been the longest on record for over 50 years and has left a lot of people thinking that perhaps we need to take notice and start doing whatever we can to protect our environment.

One of the most effective ways to safeguard our children’s future on this planet is to reduce our current carbon footprint and reduce the amount as harmful emissions that are entering into the atmosphere. Sadly we are not able to reverse the effects that have already occurred but if we act quick enough then we may be able to make a positive change. So here are three great ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

Behold Biomass –

Most houses these days will either be heated by gas, oil, LPG or electricity and although these are all viable methods of heating your home; they release large, dangerous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Even electricity, which you may think has limited emissions, is twice as bad as oil and three times worse than gas due to the amount of waste energy that is generated by power stations.

Biomass is a different kind of boiler system which could increase the efficiency of your heating and drastically reduce its emissions. Biomass boilers are fuelled by plant waste products such as wood pellets and they burn these to create heat. They will then only release the same amount of carbon that the tree absorbed during its life and so no extra carbon is created and a balance remains.

Cut Out The Car –

In 2010 the number of cars on the world’s road hit 1 billion and is predicted to reach a whopping 1.7 billion by 2035. The most alarming thing about this statistic is that the figure jumped from just 980 million in 2009 meaning that the number is growing exponentially and quickly.

With this in mind perhaps you should have a long hard think about whether you need you own vehicle or not. It may seem like a drastic decision to cut out your car but it could save you plenty of money in the long run and help the environment in the process.

There are plenty of alternatives to owning your own car such as public transport, car hire or car sharing schemes, so however much use you get from your vehicle there are options. Car hire is a great way to have the use of a car whenever you need it but without paying out for everything throughout the year such as tax, insurance, maintenance and fuel. By using car hire services just when you need to; your carbon footprint will be massively reduced.

Put Paid To Packaging –

This may seem like a smaller change than the other two but it can still have a big impact on your carbon footprint. Supermarkets are attempting to become more responsible when it comes to packaging their products but some are doing more than others. When you are out shopping try and look for the produce that has the least amount of packaging and then always recycle any packaging you can. Plastic is more recyclable than paper but cloth textiles are even better still.

Featured images:

Chris Mayhew is conscious about environmental issues and does whatever he can to reduce his carbon footprint. He is working for Collison Vehicle Rental who provide a car hire service perfect for anyone thinking of getting rid of their vehicle.

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What causes Blue Baby Syndrome

Posted by on Mar 20, 2012 in childrens health, contaminants, Live Green, Womens Health

I had never heard of Blue Baby Syndrome until my good friend Harry shared an article with me this morning.

Blue baby syndrome is an environmentally-caused children’s health issue. Blue baby syndrome, or methemoglobinemia, is an illness that arises when an infant’s blood is unable to carry enough oxygen to body cells and tissue. It is caused by a rise in the level of methemoglobin in the blood. Methemoglobin is a non-oxygen-carrying enzyme that is continually produced in the body. It is converted to hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying enzyme in the blood, by a red blood cell enzyme called methemoglobin reductase. Because infants under that age of six months have little methemoglobin reductase in their systems, an excess of methemoglobin, or methemoglobinemia, can be fatal if left untreated.

Excessive nitrates in drinking water can adversely affect children’s health, sometimes causing blue baby syndrome. When ingested, these nitrates are converted to nitrite in the digestive system; these nitrites react with the hemoglobin in the blood, forming high amounts of methemoglobin. Since methemoglobin cannot carry oxygen, if enough too much of the enzyme is in the blood, the infant’s tissue and organs may be deprived of oxygen. This will cause him or her to develop a bluish coloring and possibly result in long-term digestive and respiratory problems.

This syndrome occurs mostly in babies six months or younger, but it can also be found in older children and adults. In cases of adults or older children, affected blood can easily return back to normal due to healthy levels of methemoglobin reductase in the blood; however, in the case of infants, this conversion can take much longer or sometimes not at all, resulting in development of serious health problems or possibly death if left continually untreated.

Read more about Blue Baby Syndrome here

Water testing and filtering home tap water is the best way to insure you and your loved ones are drinking safe, healthy life essential water. We cannot seem to stop the contaminants from getting into our water, so we should do everything we can to remove what we can. A quality home drinking water filter should be in every home.

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Plastic Eating Shrooms!

Posted by on Feb 8, 2012 in conserve, Live Green, plastic waste

Wow! I just read this article! What a wonderful find! There is a mushroom that has been found in the Amazon that eats plastic! How exciting is that!

Amazonian Mushroom Eats Indestructible Plastics

We use polyurethane to make just about everything—garden hoses, furniture, the entirety of my local 99-cent store. It’s easy to produce, durable, and dirt cheap. What it isn’t is recyclable—there isn’t a single natural process that breaks it down. That is until a newly-discovered Amazonian fungus takes a bite.

Read the rest here. How exciting it will be if this is true! Just imagine spreading a few spores and POOF plastic be gone! I wonder what their life span is? How easy would it be to simply spread spores around landfills? This is some really exciting news.

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Natural Gas, Drilling and Killing 1

Natural Gas, Drilling and Killing

Posted by on Dec 27, 2011 in fracking, Hydraulic Fracturing, Live Green

While surfing around today looking for some more information on natural gas drilling and the adverse effects it has on the environment, I found this article on Conservationreport.com. The first thing that caught my attention were the dates. Between 2005 and 2009. Since it is now the end of 2011, I wonder how many more millions of gallons have been dumped so carelessly.

NATURAL GAS: Drilling companies injected over 30-million gallons of diesel underground to extract natural gas

Posted on

 

Between 2005 and 2009, oil and gas service companies injected more than 30 million gallons of diesel fuel or hydraulic fracturing fluids containing diesel fuel in wells in 19 states, according to an investigation released by House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats.

— Politico

Image of frackwater via Keith Srakocic/Associated Press. Frackwater is a byproduct produced from natural gas drilling activities.

Image of protest sign via ltmayers on Flickr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fossil-fuel industry doesn’t make or produce coal, natural gas, petroleum, or any other type of fossil fuel. The industry merely extracts materials that have been made by natural   processes within the Earth.

However, the fossil-fuel industry reaps huge profits by polluting the human environment and natural landscapes. Although, the fossil-fuel industry has a well-documented history of making profits at the expense of the environment and human health, the industry has received billions in subsidies from governments and taxpayers. The entire process is deplorable and immoral. More via the Dallas Morning News (emphasis added):

Drilling companies violated federal law by injecting 16 million gallons of diesel fuel underground in Texas to extract natural gas, senior House Democrats said Monday.

In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency , the lawmakers said the companies failed to obtain necessary permits when they used diesel fuel in their hydraulic fracturing mixtures. The fracturing process, which is widely used in North Texas’ Barnett Shale, has come under scrutiny as environmental groups and some residents allege it has contaminated drinking water supplies.

The congressional inquiry, which began in early 2010 when Democrats controlled the House, did not conclude that the use of diesel polluted any drinking-water sources. The Democrats said the firms they questioned couldn’t provide data on the proximity of drilling operations to underground sources of drinking water.

.       .       .

Nationwide, over 32 million gallons of diesel fuel or fluids containing diesel were injected underground, the lawmakers wrote. The drilling firms used 10.2 million gallons of “straight diesel fuel” and 21.8 million gallons of products containing at least 30 percent diesel, the letter states

The ugly truth of the natural gas boom via the post-gazette.com:

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the United States has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.

But not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush. In Pennsylvania, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.

In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state letting its waterways serve as the primary disposal place for huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. State regulators, initially caught flat-footed, tightened the rules this year for any new water treatment plants, but let existing operations continue discharging water into rivers.

At least 3.6 million barrels of the waste were sent to treatment plants that empty into rivers during the 12 months ending June 30, state records show. That’s enough to cover a square mile with more than 8 1/2 inches of brine.

Halliburton is among twelve companies that were cited in the House probe. Via Reuters:

The probe of diesel use in hydraulic fracturing, a practice that has allowed drillers to tap abundant shale gas, found that oil services firms such as Halliburton (HAL.N: Quote) and BJ Services, which was bought by Baker Hughes Inc (BHI.N: Quote), injected millions of gallons of fluids containing the fuel into wells between 2005 and 2009. A total of 12 companies were cited in the probe for using diesel without proper permits.

Critics say the chemicals used in the process, called “fracking,” can contaminate drinking water.

In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency entered into a voluntary agreement with Halliburton, BJ Services and Schlumberger (SLB.N: Quote) to eliminate the use of diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing fluids injected into coalbed methane wells.

In addition, a 2005 energy law exempted hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, except when diesel is used.

Still, the probe found that no oil and gas service companies sought or were issued permits for the use of diesel fuel in fracking between 2005 and 2009.

Democrats who sponsored the probe in the House of Representatives urged the EPA to look into this matter.

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