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Ways to help make your household environmentally friendly

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We have told you a bit about the problems that the environment is facing in previous posts but we haven’t told you how to help the environment around the house. You don’t even need a garden to make a difference!

Ways to help stop global warming

Tip 1: Turn the lights off when you leave a room.
Tip 2: Walk or cycle on short journeys.
Tip 3:  Don’t have the windows open and the heaters on at the same time.
Tip 4: Never leave your engine running
Tip 5: If you can, buy an electric car as these produce less Co2.  

Ways to help stop plastic pollution 

Tip 1: Buy a water bottle. It seems simple but every year the UK uses an estimated 13 billion plastic bottles.
Tip 2: Use a bar of soap and a bar of shampoo instead of shower gel and bottled shampoo. Some say soap can dry your skin out but if you do your research you can find plastic-free high-quality soap, perhaps at a price but it depends on where you get it from.
Tip 3: Make sure you bring your reusable bag when you shop.
Tip 4: When given the choice, vote for the product with the least packaging.
Tip 5: Ignore the straw and sip from a glass. Straws are not necessary and yet we use billions of straws a year.
Tip 6: Check what your local area accepts in the roadside collections. At the moment, my local area doesn't collect plastic so my family collect our own and brings it to the tip.
Tip 7: Buy a mug and stop using a plastic coffee cup.
Tip 8: Look into ways to stop using as much plastic as you can. Books such as No.More.Plastic by Martin Dorey and websites such as Friends Of The Earth and myplasticfreelife.com are great.

Ways to help stop animal numbers from declining 

Bees

Tip 1: (garden, balcony or windowsill) Plant bee-friendly flowers such as: lavender, rosemary and alliums.
Tip 2: (garden) Don’t use pesticides as using pesticides to kill them impairs bee re-productivity and development. Pesticide use can also lead to chronic health issues in humans.
Tip 3: (garden) Make a bee hotel. Web sites such as ‘Friends Of The Earth’ have lots of ideas on how to make one.
Tip 4: (don’t need a garden) Don’t be scared of bees. Bees don’t actually want to sting you. Some types of bee die if they sting you. Swatting at them makes things worse because they think that they’re under attack. Just stay still and they will go away.

Hedgehogs 

Tip 1: (garden) Carefully check unlit bonfires as they are attractive for hedgehogs. 
Tip 2: (garden) Let hedges grow or plant a new hedge. Think twice before cutting a hedge down.
Tip 3: (garden) Make a hedgehog highway. To do this you must simply make a 13cm by 13cm hole in your fence or underneath your garden boundary. This allows the hedgehogs to roam freely between gardens.
Tip 4: (garden) Don’t use pesticides or slug repellent. The hedgehogs get rid of the slugs for you. Using pesticides can poison hedgehogs. (That’s the second time we have said no to pesticides.)
Tip 5: (garden) Turn a small section of your garden into a wild area where hedgehogs and lots of other animals can live and feed.
Tip 6: (garden) Leave out water for hedgehogs but no milk.
Tip 7: (garden) Cover up drains. Hedgehogs find it easy to slip down and get stuck.
Just remember that you can make a difference and that every action adds up. Even if you can only do one of these things then still do it because we need to stop this before irreversible changes take place and the human as well as animal population die out.

If you have any more tips to add, perhaps things you've done, please put them in the comments and we will add them in as soon as possible.

Thank you!


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  1. Freya06/08/2020, 07:48

    Great ideas! I can't wait to try some of them out!

    ReplyDelete

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