Recycling and doing our part

Over the past few years we’ve concentrated on saving energy and recycling and adopting a greener lifestyle, even the local councils are taking part.

As a household we’re very much into doing our bit for the environment, not to mention we like to save money where we can. We recycle everything that we can in our council provided bins, plastic, glass, paper, cardboard, cans, jars and tins, they all get recycled in our house. We separate anything that can be composted into specific green bins, so waste food and garden waste all go into these bins. This all helps and keeps our non recyclable rubbish to a minimum. One area that we could have improved on would have been to use cloth nappies instead of the disposable variety, this will be something we look into when we extend our family.

We take our unwanted clothes and items to charity shops and any clothes that are no longer useable get bagged up and taken to a recycling centre to.

There are various schemes available in our area for loft and cavity wall insulation, both of which increase the efficiency of heat in your household. Some of these schemes provide a free or discounted installation. As well as this double glazing helps retain heat in the household and prevents those stubborn draughts and even provides soundproofing from the hustle and bustle of the outside world.

One of my favourite ways to save energy is by producing your own through renewable energy resources, you may have seen properties with wind turbines out in the country but there’s a solution for us inner city folk to….Solar Panels, they’re not big, noisy or garish in any way. They can be installed on the roof of your property and without you even noticing that they are there you can be producing your own energy, you can see more info here for Solar Panels. I love the idea of sustainable energy and I encourage everyone to do their part when possible.

We shop locally and buy as much produce with as little packaging as possible, again this helps us keep our rubbish levels to a minimum, things like polystyrene trays, plastic wrappers and bags are harder for us to cycle, there are no bins for these in our area. When we shop, we also use our reusable bags as much as possible so we do not have to use the plastic disposable shopping bags. Supermarkets are now rewarding customers that use their own bags so there’s even a little incentive there.

We’ve cut down on the amount that we use the car, opting to walk, cycle and use public transport where possible.

I have my family helping out, even my little girl gets involved with recycling and as a family we are trying to adopt a greener lifestyle. We’ve recently had smart meters installed for our gas and electricity so we can keep an eye on our usage and try to keep it to a minimum and keep the costs down.

It may seem like a lot of hard work but now I barely notice and to be quite honest, it’s worth it.