My top 10 New Year Resolution for a more environmental 2010

My top 10 New Year Resolution for a more environmental 2010.

These are things that can be easily done and can save energy and CO2 production as well as saving you money.

1) If you have a central heating system installing a thermostat can help you save energy and money, on average around 15%. Reducing the temperature of your house by 1 degree Celsius can save 2%. Don’t over heat the rooms you don’t, use your radiator thermostat to run at minimum. At night run your heating at minimum - after all duvets are warm. Don’t have the heating on when you not at home, programme it to come on just before you arrive back.

2) Avenge your phantom load, a peculiar saying but all it means is – if you aren’t using an electrical item unplug it! Phone chargers, dvds, videos, etc all use electricity just by being plugged in and take all your electrical items off standby when not in use.

3) Change all your light bulbs for new energy efficient ones, they have come right down in price, I recently saw them at a local supermarche for 1€. The arithmetic make huge sense, the new bulbs use around 25% of the electricity of old style bulbs and last longer. If you use halogen spotlights the savings can be even more dramatic, I recently changed the nine 50 watt halogen bulbs in the kitchen for 60 led equivalents and the consumption went from 450 watts to 27 and they will last around 10 times longer!!

4) Convert your electricity to a green tariff; France now has a large number of environmental tariffs to choose from. www.energies-renouvelable.com is a good place to start looking.

5) Don’t drive so much it’ll save you money and the environment, get a bike and get fitter in the process, the average bike goes about 20 kmph so the 2km journey to the boulangerie will take a 12 minutes round trip as opposed to 4 or 5 in the car, not a huge chunk out of your day and you’ll use up 120 calories or so more a day!

6) Try taking longer journeys by train or by using a full car, the difference in carbon emissions is startling, a journey from Bordeaux to London produces 0.24 tonnes per person, a car with 4 people onboard 0.09 tonnes per person and by train 0.08 tonnes per person.

7) Remember your reusable shopping bags and not just for supermarche shopping, if you shop twice a week and use 2 bags that’s over 200 plastic bags saved a year.

8) Buy a water filter and fit it to your mains supply, they can be as little as 40€ to buy and the cartridges are about 30€ per year, but if you use bottled water at 1 bottle per person per day that’s 365 bottles saved and around 70€ not spent!

9) Reuse stuff, yoghurt pots and cans make great containers for seedling, nails in the workshop and buttons in the sewing basket. I’m sure you can think of many more uses for stuff headed for the landfill or recycling.

10) Compost all your organic waste not only will you save filling up landfills you’ll have a great source of nutrients for your garden and you’ll know where it came from.