reduce my environmental footprint

I’ve done a lot of recycling things (cardboard, TVs, beer cans – can’t find where to recycle DVDs though) recently, but there are always environmental areas to improve. Our new property (rented) is very badly insulated and so even when wearing plenty of jumpers we have to keep the heating on a lot during the winter. I need to spend some time putting up draught excluders etc.

On a more positive note, I’ve just signed up to Friends of the Earth’s eco tip of the day, so hopefully this will provide inspiration for this goal.

...recycling is not meant to be sexy! I did however find out this week that you can compost cardboard, so a lot less of our rubbish will end up in the landfill.

I have finally got around to buying a mug for use at work, and feel that in doing this I have made my first serious commitment to this goal – while I was using polystyrene cups, I was too guilt-ridden to even think about extending this goal into other areas :-)

Other ongoing projects to improve my impact on the environment include:

- recycling (tins, plastic bottles and paper, although annoyingly our local council does not collect cardboard)
- composting (this makes a big difference to how full our bins get, although if I’m going to get anything useful out of the compost bin eventually I need to try to turn it more frequently)
- reducing my number of plane journeys (I am definitely thinking twice before flying anywhere nowadays, although this is helped by the fact that this year we’re spending all our holiday money and time on festivals – next year will be more of a challenge methinks, especially as we really want to go to Morocco)

Once we are in our own house, I would like to expand this goal by installing solar panels, improving insulation and buying more energy efficient appliances – all good ways of saving money as well, so more to spend on the fun stuff!

Edited to add –
I totally forgot the latest change that will make a really big difference – we no longer have a car! Crashing our car a few weeks ago has provided the ideal opportunity to see how hard it is to live without one. So far, we haven’t really noticed much difference, although we’ll see how we feel after moving camping equipment around on public transport!