SAVE A FORTUNE . . .
. . . while you’re saving the planet
HOUSEHOLDS waste as much as £1,000 a year on groceries that are thrown away and unnecessary packaging. The Mail on Sunday’s TOBY WALNE looks at how small changes to your lifestyle can help save the planet – and keep down your shopping bills.
MAKE YOUR OWN SOAP
THERE is no need to spend a small fortune on new cleaning products – you already have the ingredients at home.
A hundred years ago people used soot as toothpaste, often buying it from their chimney sweep. Today, you should be able to root around the kitchen cupboard and find the basic ingredients you need to make it.
Keen to learn, I find a ‘recipe’ on the internet which involves mixing baking soda in equal measure with coconut oil. The mix only goes gooey enough to use after
in an oven. It tastes vile so I add a large splash of peppermint extract.
The paste has a refreshing abrasion that cleans the teeth surprisingly well. The coconut oil is good for fighting off germs – apparently it contains the goodness found in mother’s milk. Yet it has a metallic and slightly salty taste that despite the peppermint is unpleasant.
But at least there is no need to worry about losing the top off the toothpaste. I store it in a jam jar.
To complete the picture you might also consider swapping a plastic toothbrush for a biodegradable bamboo alternative, available at websites such as SaveSomeGreen from £2.75. There is also no need to waste money on expensive soaps. But in doing it yourself you must be cautious as a key ingredient is sodium hydroxide – a caustic soda better known for cleaning drains.
Clearly any old drain cleaner will not do. Frightened of burning my face, I use online dealer The Soap Kitchen and invest £20 in all the ingredients and mould to make a giant bar to be cut up into a dozen soaps. It contains caustic soda, palm oil chunks, olive oil and some vanilla oil for perfume.
The instructions advise me to wear rubber gloves, apron and eye protection as adding caustic soda to water creates a chemical reaction. This raises the temperature to more than 90ºC and I must be wary of breathing in harmful vapours.
I am bad at making gravy for the Sunday roast, which is unfortunate given I must whisk all the ingredients together for ‘between five and 50 minutes’ until it is like gravy. I then pour the contents into a box.
The following day it has set and cuts like fudge. It feels like a fancy soap – and is surprisingly good for washing. With the confidence to buy ingredients separately, each bar should cost you no more than 50p.
You can also clean the home without buying expensive products. Mixing vinegar, baking soda and water makes for a natural all-purpose cleaner. Lemon juice is also great for getting rid of tough stains and polishing metals.
Websites such as DIY Natural, The Soap Kitchen, The Green Parent and The Spruce can help identify key ingredients and do-it-yourself recipes.
DRAW UP A GROCERY LIST
ONE of the biggest wastages is food. While almost half the world’s population – three billion people – survive on less than £2 a day, in Britain we throw out seven million tons of food a year.
The annual cost of this waste is £13billion – £470 per household – with staple essentials such as bread, fruit and vegetables most likely to be binned.
To cut down on impulse purchases and ‘special offers’ you should stick to a shopping list.
By doing this you might be able to knock at least 5 per cent off the average £150-a-week family shopping bill.
For your fruit and vegetables, consider buying from an independent grocer or butcher as well as discount supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl.
Online shopping also helps to control any urge to buy things you don’t really need on impulse.
Grocery comparison service MySupermarket looks at the best prices offered by leading supermarkets – with Asda rated one of the cheapest when it comes to popular branded products.
Tesco charges from £2 to £7 depending on when you want your shopping delivered.
Also buy locally sourced organic food rather than paying for off-season items flown in from the other side of the world.
Providers to consider include Riverford Organic Farmers, Field and Flower, Farmdrop and Abel & Cole.
To lure you in, many will offer discounted introductory ‘variety boxes’ costing from £20.
END PLASTIC POLLUTION
MORE than 2.5billion disposable coffee cups are thrown away in Britain every year – creating a 30,000 ton mountain of waste.
Given the cups are lined with plastic coating, they take up to 30 years to decay. Some plastics – such as drink bottles or children’s toys – take
as long as 1,000 years to decompose. A 25p ‘latte levy’ on coffee bought in takeaway cups is expected to be introduced by the Government later this year – followed by a ban on non-biodegradable cups over the next five years.
Chains such as Pret a Manger offer a 50p discount on the price of a hot drink if you bring in your own cup. Other chains, including Costa and Starbucks, provide a 25p discount. Caffe Nero gives customers double card reward stamps for bringing in drink containers.
Most reusable cups cost from £10 with brands such as KeepCup and Ecoffee Cup boasting of their ecowarrior credentials – using materials such as bamboo, corn starch, cork and recycled plastic. David Garrett, of charity Garden Organic, believes coffee shops should go further by only selling biodegradable cups such as provided by company Vegware.
He says: ‘We used to export waste plastic to China, but at the start of this year the rules tightened and it means far more now ends up in British landfill. We must think twice before using any plastic and ensure it is put in the recycling bin for refuse collection – not thrown out as general waste.’
Since a 5p charge on single-use plastic bags in supermarkets was introduced in England in October 2015 – following rollouts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – nine billion fewer bags have been used. The charge is to be extended to other shops in the coming years with a total ban on plastic bags and non-biodegradable plastic bottles by 2042. Shoppers can already use reusable nature fabric bags made out of calico, hemp or jute costing £5 that can handle most of our shopping needs.
WASTE LESS WATER
WE EACH use on average 140 litres of water every day with the majority going down a plughole or flushing down a drain. The average eight-minute shower uses 60 litres of hot water but power-showers consume double this amount. An average bath uses at least 80 litres.
But if you install a water-efficient £30 showerhead – often available free from your water supplier – and knock two minutes off your shower time you can save as much as £50 on your annual utility bills.
These so-called ‘eco-shower heads’ mix water with air to maintain the feeling of enjoying a strong power stream but without using so much water.
You could put a ‘displacement’ brick into your toilet cistern such as a £3 Hippo. A regular flush uses 13 litres of water but with a brick it is ten litres. A hosepipe can use as much as 1,000 litres of water an hour so it is important to install a water butt or two outside to collect rainwater and use these with watering cans for the garden.
Thanks to the British weather, a £20 plastic butt can collect as much as 5,000 litres of rainwater a year.
Water bills have almost doubled in the past 15 years and the average home now pays £395 a year – £185 for the supply of fresh water and the rest for taking away dirty water, its treatment and drainage.
About half of all homes now have a water meter fitted – where you are charged for how much water you use. If you have more bedrooms than people in the house it should work out cheaper to have a meter.