Make Your Home Less Damaging to the Environment
January 6, 2010 by Guest
Filed under Uncategorized
If you are always looking for ways to make your home greener, you’ve probably seen this post title many times before. Although the title suggests this post is just a normal ‘make your home greener’ post, it’s actually not.
The majority of the other posts are based on improving your home and how you can save money in the process. They tend to write about getting double glazing, loft insulation, not leaving appliances on standby, things like that. This post is all about what you can do to help the environment after all those things.
Although you may have stopped your home from wasting large amounts of energy, there is one aspect you may have forgotten. Every so often we decide to redecorate our homes, this often leads to changes in everything from wallpaper to bathroom accessories. This is where some improvement can be made.
When you are choosing new furniture, you rarely consider the environmental impact. I guess it’s hard enough to find something that your entire family likes without it being environmentally friendly too. But when you take some time to think about it, alot of energy is used in making these items. Normally they are constructed in big factories, wasting lots of energy, then they get shipped back to the UK because they were made abroad.
Fortunately, due to everyone becoming more aware of our impact on the environment, many retailers are offering greener, more eco-friendly home furnishings.
From everything from tableware to kitchen accessories, there are lots of products out there that you can buy that are better for the environment. All these little things, and big things, that you buy for your home all have an impact on the environment. This is something that you should remember next time you go to furnish your home. Reducing the amount of actual energy your home wastes isn’t the only way you can reduce your home’s impact on the planet. Although it can’t be avoided with some home accessories, you’d be surprised at how many you really can buy that are more environmentally friendly.
Should We All be Using Bamboo in the Future?
December 10, 2009 by Guest
Filed under Uncategorized
Ok, so Bamboo PC’s were just gimmicks. The laptop launched at the Hanover computer fair last March, with a laminated bamboo casing around a pretty conventional computer won’t make a dent in the rising tide of plastics sold around the world.
Even though these bamboo PCs won’t save the environment, they did prove how versatile bamboo really is.
Bamboo must be the only plant on the planet that is a source of food, works as building materials and woven fabrics. Even one of Edison’s original light bulbs had a bamboo filament. Due to bamboo being so strong and cheap, it has become a widely used product for scaffolding in parts of Asia. Fibres from bamboo poles are extremely strong, it both tension and compression terms. It’s compressive strength works out around twice that of concrete, bamboo also has the same tensile strength to weight ratio as steel. And now there’s a bamboo laptop!
Bamboo ticks lots of boxes for anyone buying eco-friendly home furnishings. For a start, it’s a highly sustainable raw material. Some bamboo species are able to grow more than one metre every day. The locals that live close to these fantastic plants are able top cut down as much bamboo as they need while still having the same sized forest at the end of the year as they did at the beginning. As for the global warming problem, because bamboo is a plant, all products made out of the sustainable material contains a large amount of atmospheric carbon. Any plastic equivalent has added to the atmosphere’s carbon level!
Another point would be, because bamboo is a natural material, there are huge variations between the plants, this makes it a very difficult material to be used in mass production. You can be pretty sure that a craftsman has produced any bamboo item you buy. If you buy from a reputable source of eco-friendly products, you’ll know that the craftsman that made the item was paid a fair wage for their time and skills. Finally you’ll be sure that the product you buy hasn’t accumulated air miles in its journey from craftsman to your home.
With eco credentials as strong as these, it’s amazing how beautiful bamboo products are. Just picture a hand crafted bamboo box, layered 15 times with natural shellac. All natural, and really lovely. Only the other day, I bought an amazingly crafted bamboo knife block and am now seriously considering investing in some other bamboo kitchen accessories such as salad bowls. Stylish and ethical. Win. 
