Londoners are getting smart when it comes to reducing their transport footprint. There are travel and taxi apps now which let you book a ride with a ‘split fare’, or coordinate matching up of lifts between drivers and passengers going on a similar route. Why ride sharing works particularly well across UK towns and cities:…
Tag: ecotips
Gardening in a Changing Climate
The conventional British garden might well be a thing of the past. As hotter, drier summers are becoming more common and winters are growing warmer and wetter, the kind of garden that thrived a decade ago may now need a rethink. A few smart adjustments can help ensure green spaces that are both beautiful and…
Hotbin Composting
Hotbin composting offers a simple, fast and effective way to process food waste. A hotbin’s insulated design keeps temperatures at 40–60°C, allowing you to compost everything from vegetable peelings to meat, bones, and even pet waste. What makes it an even hotter choice? It produces ready-to-use compost in 30–90 days, even in winter. You can…
Compost your Food Waste
London disposes of 2 million tonnes of food waste per year. Because it usually goes to landfill and causes methane emissions, composting this instead could save 275 thousand tonnes of CO2 per year – the same as the total carbon footprint of 40,000 Londoners. If you have a food waste caddy from your council, the…
Your Local Coffee Shop Needs You!
We data scientists at EcoCounts have discovered a correlation between people drinking tea and coffee in coffee shops and a force for good in this world. Such customers supporting local businesses help them care for their staff, protect the environment, and contribute to positive change in both local and coffee- and tea-growing communities. Local coffee…
Holidays with a Carbon Budget
If you’re lucky enough to be planning a holiday abroad this year, you can reduce the impact on your carbon footprint by joining the increasing number of people going by train, which grew by 50% over the last decade. The following journeys should give you a taste for what is out there – unfortunately, the…
Springtime Gardening Issues
This week’s eco tip is from subscriber-gardener-naturalist Joy. This must be the third time this subject has come up, however the otherwise very green sector of gardening and growing things is still facing challenges 🤔 If you are a gardener in spring time, you may want to get large amounts of new plants. Firstly, the…
Chocolate Easter Eggs
It’s been a year since the last eco tip about chocolate, and since then, the price of chocolate in the UK has gone up 50% because of the increased occurrence of droughts, extreme heat, extreme rainfall and disease outbreaks, due to global warming in cocoa-growing countries. Both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are projected to be…
Repair First
A new scheme has started in North London where residents can claim 50% off the repair costs of electrical and electronic goods from participating repair shops. In a circular economy, nothing would be thrown away. It would be fixed or recycled. If every household in the UK repaired two extra items per year, estimates show…
Local Wildlife and Nature
We benefit from nature and wildlife in the city in multiple ways: mental health, air quality, temperature amelioration, storm water run-off, community enhancement, education, recreation, tourism…. However sometimes we really mess it up. During the COVID pandemic and lockdowns, London wildlife was hammered and wood mice and other rodents, shrews, weasels, hedgehogs, kingfishers, little owls…