Energy Savings- Facts and Rumours

Our Trash

What should we do with our trash? Should we burn it or should we store it in a landfill? Two reasons why storing our trash in a landfill is a better solution, but the third solution is best:

1. Landfill waste creates methane, which could (eventually) be harnessed as an energy source.

2. Burning waste releases it into the atmosphere, while keeping waste in a landfill site keeps it relatively contained. Neither one is ideal, but scientists are more likely to find a way to help reduce the toxic effects of waste that is relatively contained in a landfill site than waste that is dispersed thickly into the atmosphere through burning.

3. Recycle like crazy, it cleans, heals, and saves on resources while even creating jobs at home.

Plastic Carrier Bags

Did you know that around 500 billion plastic bags are used every year? That’s 500,000,000,000! To say that’s ‘a lot of bags’ is an understatement; in fact, it’s so many bags that over 1 million bags are being used every single minute of the day! Incredible, isn’t it?

What happens to all those bags?

The truth is, most of them end up on landfill sites where they take around 300 years to break down. Yes, that’s right – 300 years! This means that when you’re great-great-great-great-grandchildren are old, the bags you use today will still exist, along with the millions and millions of others used this year and every other year.

Plastic bags aren’t only clogging up landfill sites though. They’re also polluting our countryside, rivers and seas. Animals often mistake plastic bags for food, and once their intestines are clogged by a bag that won’t break down, they have to endure slow starvation until death finally claims them. Sea creatures often become entangled in plastic bags and drown. These aren’t nice things to think about, but sometimes we have to face the truth whether we like it or not.

By cutting down on plastic bag usage, we can create a better environment for ourselves and every other creature we share our planet with.

If you’d like to help improve the situation, you could try any of the following:

* Re-use bags when you go shopping. The “free” bags that supermarkets offer at the check-out aren’t really free – the cost is baked into the overall pricing structure. If you want to be really cheeky, you could always ask for a few pence or cents off your bill being as you aren’t taking a bag.

* Choose biodegradable bags to use for litter (photo degradable bags—those that aren’t designed to break down quickly and are used for litter collection are guaranteed to end up on landfill sites taking hundreds of years to break down).

* Re-use large plastic sacks whenever possible.

* Refrigerate food in containers rather than plastic bags. Not only is this better for the environment, it’ll save you quite a bit over the course of a year because plastic food bags aren’t cheap.

Tagged as: energy savings