Helping your child become more environmentally conscious

Teaching your child to take responsibility for how they treat the world around them is an important duty of every parent. As children ourselves, we grew up learning about the ozone layer and the threat of what global warming could do to our planet. Now as parents, we are finding ourselves teaching our children the same thing but from a completely different perspective. We are teaching them how to be aware of the different environmental issues that we are facing and the war on plastic and how to be greener. Helping children understand the world of nature not only helps the environment but themselves too. Nowadays, with high expectations when it comes to academics as well as life itself, mental health issues are on the increase. Being in nature is known to help people feel more positive which is why parents are encouraged to teach their children more about it. Here's some advice on how to help your child become more environmentally conscious.

Say NO to single use straws with reusable stainless steel straws from YesIWANTIt

#GIFTED

Single use plastic straws suck! 

To do our bit in the war against single use plastic and abide by the ban on plastic straws which will come into force in April 2020 we have switched to reusable drinking straws.

Living off the grid.

Living off the grid is a life goal for some, but can be quite nerve racking. To start living off the grid you don’t have to instantly move to the middle of nowhere and cut off all ties with the modern world. Living a sustainable lifestyle in harmony with nature, using only economical natural resources is difficult but can be really rewarding. Below are a few basic tips to get you started if you’re thinking of going off the grid but scared to take the plunge.

Start storing fuel.

Storing your own fuel is a great way to start if you’re thinking of moving towards living off the grid. Invest in a fuel storage tank to start storing your own fuel. If you can buy the fuel when it’s cheap and stock up this works out much cheaper and means you’ll be self-sufficient and confident in the knowledge that you’ll never run out of fuel. 

Learn how to grow your own food.

There are lots of different methods you can use to grow your own food. Crop rotation on an allotment is a great way to start. By planting crops that belong to different plant families in different areas of your beds and then rotating them around the beds each passing year, you should have healthy crop of nutritious fruit and vegetables. Rotating your crops has lots of benefits, plants are less likely to pick up bugs and diseases and it helps to prevent weeds from growing.

Simple & Easy Ways to Conserve Energy at Home.

With increasing concern for our planet’s climate and energy prices that are consistently on the rise, it pays to be prepared with ways to preserve energy at home. There are a number of different things you can do to reduce your power bills and your carbon footprint, both immediately and in the long-term.

Here are our top tips for conserving energy at home naturally - 

Appliances

If you’re not using it, turn it off. Keeping appliances turned on uses energy even when you’re not using them. TVs, DVD players and stereos all use energy even in standby mode. Make sure you turn everything off at the power point when you’re not using them to preserve energy and keep your costs down. To make it even easier, plug multiple appliances into a power board. You’ll be able to turn them off with just one switch.

Water usage - Down the Plughole infographic.

Here in the UK we are considerably lucky that water resources are abundant in comparison to developing countries where there is inadequate access to water especially clean, safe water.

As highlighted in Water Pressure Problems’ informative Down the Plughole infographic, it is thanks to the water resources we have here in the UK that we have a plentiful supply of essential water for our everyday lives; which allows us to eat, drink and wash conveniently and safely.

But whilst we are lucky to have adequate water resources readily available to meet our daily water needs, there are mounting challenges of water quantity and quality affecting the UK. A few of the challenges on the UK water supply are mentioned in the infographic below, which highlights that “pressures on water resources may also increase due to population growth and changes in household sizes”.

The infographic also emphasises the fact the government would like to reduce personal water usage over the next few years as “the energy used to heat water in UK homes generates 35 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year….over 5% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions”. The infographic shows that to help reduce water consumption new technological developments are being developed to decrease water usage and that new, sustainable homes being built would make use of eco-friendly technology such as water reuse system along with energy and water efficient appliances.

As an eco-conscious family who are keen to lower their water usage for environmental and economic reasons I find the information surrounding water usage, in particular how to reduce water consumption, on the Down the Plughole infographic an interesting read. Not only is it interesting to read about reducing water usage it is also very interesting to see how water is used in the UK.

Not surprisingly flushing the toilet uses the most water in homes, stacking up a whopping 30% of water usage, followed closely by running baths which counts towards 21% of water usage. Interestingly washing clothes only counts towards 13% of household water usage and washing up is only 8% of how water is used in the home.

Take a look at the Down the Plughole infographic below which was created by www.waterpressureproblems.com for more interesting facts about water usage in the UK including the fact that “the UK has a fairly average level of water consumption compared to the rest of Europe, placing 10^th out of 22 listed countries”.