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Tackling Climate Change | At Home

Did you know that each household in the UK creates around six million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year? A typical elephant weighs about three tonnes, so that equals two million elephants’ worth of CO2 escaping from your house!

There are many ways around the home we can help cut this down, starting with all of the electrical applicances!

light bulbLights
Switch them off! Lights are one of the biggest consumers of energy in the home and if they have standard lightbulbs in they are very inefficient too. We all use them everyday at some point, especially as they are in most rooms! Remember to switch them off whenever you leave a room and even better put in energy saving lightbulbs. Did you know that if every household in the UK used at least one energy saving lightbulb, this would save so much power, we could shut down a whole power station? And these lightbulbs save you money too - they may be slightly more expensive to buy - but they can save you up to £100 over its lifetime!

hand held consoleHand held game consoles
Lots of households now have at least one games console, whether its a psp or nintendo ds, they all have something in commom. Yes, they all need to be charged. Try to remember to switch your console off when you are not using it as this will preserve the power in it and also, just as importantly, remember to pull the charger out of the wall when you have finished with it. Even if you have wandered off to play Mario and the charger is still switched on at the wall, it’s eating away at power! This also applies to anything else you may have that requires charging, eg. electric toothbrush, mobile etc

tv

Televisions

Switch off when you are not watching them! Even if tea is put on the table half way through your favourite programme, try to remember to turn it off, even if it’s only for a few minutes whilst you wolf down tea! Don’t leave it on standby, as this still chomps away at electricity even though it’s not even doing anything. Even better, try to watch less television, there’s probably lots of other more interesting things you could be doing anyway.

computerComputers
Games, homework, emailing, surfing the net - computers have many uses and are becoming more and more popular. You must be on one now to be checking out this website! But remember as soon as you are finished, shut it down and turn off the monitor, do not leave on standby. Laptops and computers with flat screen monitors use much less power than computers with older style monitors. Modern computers are generally faster and more energy efficient.

 

hairdryer

Hairdryers
Ok, so girls probably use them more often than boys, but it is worth noting that they are pretty greedy when it comes to using energy. So why not let your hair dry naturally for a change. Try to make a point of washing your hair when you are going to be home for while, we obviously wouldn’t recommend going to school in the freezing cold with a sopping wet head! If you do need to dry your hair quickly, make sure you towel dry it as much as possible before switching on that hairdryer.

 

Can you think of any other ways you can save energy around the home? Share your ideas with the carbonkids, have your say now!

 

What is Climate?
Why is it Changing?
> Fossil Fuels
> Deforestation
What are the Impacts?
> Weather
> Sea Levels
> Animals
> Other Impacts
Tackling Climate Change?
> At Home
> In the Kitchen
> In the Garden
> Travelling
> Shopping
> Toys
> Recycling
> Renewable Energy
What else can we do?
Have your Say
Games and Fun
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