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Dez formas de contribuir individualmente para reduzir as emissões de gases estufa (em inglês)
consumismo2007-08-13
We’ve brought you ten ways to cut your carbon footprint at home and ten ways to cut your carbon footprint at work, now we feature ten ideas from readers of The Independent to help you lead a greener, cleaner, less polluting and less carbon-heavy lifestyle
Ten readers' ways to cut your carbon footprint
1 Buy local produce
There are many reasons for buying local. Often it's just nice to know where your food comes from, but most of the time there's a reduction in your carbon footprint too. This is because, in a world of globalised food production, most food travels a long distance, releasing CO2 all the way. One estimate concluded that feeding each of us for a year requires transporting the equivalent of a 12-tonne container load of food for more than a 100km. The trucks involved emit 170kg of CO2 in Britain and another 150kg abroad. A further 30kg comes from air-freighting your perishables, such as vegetables, fruit and fish. Organic food, incidentally, is no better. Twice as much organic food is imported as domestically produced, or as much as three quarters by some estimates.
Most of these transport emissions can be eliminated by buying local produce. Supermarkets are increasingly good at labelling this clearly, and farmers' markets usually sell nothing else. There are more than 500 farmers' markets in the UK, and more are starting up all the time. Check where your nearest is by going to www.farmersmarkets.net. To be doubly sure of having a low carbon footprint, it's a good idea to make a point of buying produce when it's in season. That way, you avoid the CO2 emissions from heating greenhouses, which can sometimes be as great as air-freighting from foreign lands. For a guide to what's in season when, see www.thefoody.com/basic.
2 Reduce your meat consumption
The carbon footprint from producing animal protein is typically eight times greater than that from vegetable protein. Animals are not very efficient protein converters and a lot of energy is lost along the food chain. Much depends on how the animals are fed. Those raised on natural pastures have CO2 emissions 50 per cent less than those raised on concentrated feed grown using artificial fertilisers.
Free-range is best. That's partly why British lamb, for instance, has a bigger carbon footprint than New Zealand lamb, even when the latter has been shipped halfway across the world. You may think that all lamb is free-range, but British lambs are given fodder, rather than eating pasture, for some of the year. The slaughtering rules and supermarket requirements also mean that British lamb is often trucked all over the country, adding to its carbon footprint.
In addition, farm animals directly produce another potent greenhouse gas. The guts of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats, etc) generate methane while digesting food. Cattle belch and fart a lot and methane is also generated in slurry tanks. All told, every kilogram of beef raised in a feedlot can be responsible for more than 30kg of greenhouse gases. So, reducing your meat consumption is good for your carbon footprint. And cutting out beef is best of all. But a word of warning: this good work could easily be undone if you increase your dairy produce intake to compensate. The reason: dairy cows typically produce twice as much methane as beef cattle. That's why you should manage your dairy intake, too, if you want to reduce the carbon footprint of the food you eat.
3 Avoid over-packaged goods
We all complain about excessive food packaging, but supermarkets say we are reluctant to buy loose food. We should get serious about this, however. One estimate is that the manufacture of packaging for British food produces 10 million tonnes of CO2 in Britain each year, or 170kg for each one of us. Some retailers claim that extra packaging reduces damage to food – and so wastage – during transportation, but a lot of packaging has more to do with presentation than anything else. And if all that packaging is really necessary for safe transportation, then that's another reason to buy local produce, which generally has the least packaging.
If we must have packaging, does it matter what kind? Plastic is usually bad news, as it takes more energy to produce than cardboard. And whereas most cardboard can be recycled, many types of plastic can't. Aluminium cans have the biggest carbon footprint of any form of packaging because it takes a large amount of energy to smelt the metal. This means that draught beer is best and bottles are better than cans. If you do buy a can, make absolutely sure that it's recycled. Some people are concerned about waste being exported for recycling, but the evidence is that, whether in Beijing or Birmingham, there can often be a good use for our rubbish, so don't be put off. Even so, it's better to avoid packaging in the first place.
4 Join a car pool or club
Every day, there are 10 million empty seats in cars on our roads. Sharing your car journey to work could save you hundreds of pounds a year, as well as easing traffic congestion, saving wear and tear on your car and cutting your carbon footprint. Put four people in a car and commuting can become as low carbon as taking the bus. You can, of course, car share informally with work colleagues, but there are also car-sharing websites to match you up with fellow commuters.
Do you commute to work by public transport but keep a car for occasional weekend trips? If so, think about joining a car club, where you just pay for a car when you need one. To work well, car clubs require a critical mass of members because you don't want to have to travel far to pick up the car. So far, they've made most progress in London, encouraged by the big population, high parking charges and large number of people who generally use public transport and only need a car occasionally. Other cities across the country, including Brighton and Southampton, have similar schemes.
5 Cut down on junk mail
Your mailbox is clogging up with CO2 every day. The average adult gets 19kg of junk mail a year, with a carbon footprint from its manufacture and distribution that's several times greater. The Royal Mail will stop delivering unaddressed junk mail if you e-mail it at optout@ royalmail.com. To ask not to receive the junk mail with your name and address on, sign up with the Mailing Preference Service at www.mpsonline.org.uk.
Fearful of losing profitable business because of a green-minded backlash against junk mail, the Royal Mail has announced a responsible mail service. This will offset the CO2 emissions from the paper manufacture, printing and transportation of your mail. Don't let this deter you from stopping your junk mail, though. As every climate activist will tell you, offsetting emissions is very much second best to preventing emissions in the first place.
6 Reuse and refuse plastic bags
We get through 17 billion plastic bags a year, which is approaching one each every day. Reduce this plastic trail by taking plastic or reusable bags shopping with you and asking staff not to give you a bag when you pay. This is becoming a worldwide movement. It started in small communities, where retailers agreed not to hand plastic bags out any more, but is growing fast. Later this year, San Francisco will become the largest US city to date to ban the plastic bag. The supermarkets see this as a sales opportunity, of course. They want to sell us reusable, "bag for life" bags. This is fine, but all bags are reusable, unless they break, and your home is probably already full of them, so start by reusing those. And here's another use for plastic bags: use them to line your rubbish bins at home.
7 Holiday in the UK
Maybe, after this year's wet summer, this isn't the best time to mention it but Britain is one of the world's top holiday destinations. People cross the globe to sample our delights, so why miss out on a good thing? Check out our back yard and cut your carbon footprint into the bargain. Holidays are among our biggest sources of CO2 emissions and the main element is the flight. An economy return flight from the UK to Florida or New York creates emissions equivalent to a year's car use. And a return flight to Lanzarote emits as much as a power station generating your share of domestic electricity for a year. For millions of us, our carbon footprint from flying is bigger than for everything else we do and buy.
Unlike most other parts of our lives, there are no off-the-shelf ways of being a greener flyer. For many of us, the single biggest step we can take to cut our carbon footprint is to stop flying and start holidaying closer to home. If you don't want to holiday in the UK, restrict yourself to Europe and go by train or ferry rather than plane. It is slower, and probably more expensive, but you can make the journey part of the holiday. Through the Alps, down the Rhine, across the lagoon into Venice: all are great journeys. You'll wonder why you ever flew.
8 Be eco when staying in hotels
We've all seen the signs in hotel rooms asking us to reuse the towels. We wouldn't change our towel at home every day, so why do it on holiday? And just because you're not paying directly for the electricity, don't leave the lights on. Do the energy-saving things you would do at home. Take a shower not a bath, don't use or remove all the (probably imported) soaps and lotions, don't leave the TV on standby, don't have the air conditioning on all the time and always turn it off when you leave the room. If your room's only a couple of floors up, take the stairs rather than the lift – you know you need the exercise.
Try and find a hotel that plausibly advertises its green credentials. Look out for hotels belonging to the Green Tourism Business Scheme or with the Energy Star rating, but don't be too seduced by eco chic. The good news is that the hotels with the smallest carbon footprint are, often, the simplest and cheapest. Research the public transport system where you're going beforehand (many publish their routes and timetables online) and pick a hotel close to a station or bus route, so you aren't dependent on taxis and hire cars.
9 Don't bin things: reuse, Freecycle and buy second-hand
The car may not be green, but the car boot sale certainly is. And don't just sell your stuff there, buy as well. Green chic comes cheap and cheerful and from the school playground on a Saturday morning. The green consumer also goes to jumble sales, buys used books, searches out bargains in antiques shops and checks out charity shops for clothes and other goodies: it's all had one life already, so it's carbon neutral. By keeping old products in circulation, you're preventing them from being dumped or put in landfill and preventing their carbon from leaking back into the atmosphere.
While your friends are bargaining away on eBay, why not go one step further and check out the Freecycle network? It's dedicated to giving used things away. Freecycle started in the US, but there are local groups all over Britain now, as you will quickly find at www.freecycle.org.
10 Keep your clothing footprint small
A low-carbon wardrobe is also a small wardrobe. Buy second-hand whenever possible and when you buy new, ensure they're things you really like and will wear for years. Fast fashion is bad for your carbon footprint. And bear in mind that the majority of your clothing footprint probably comes not from the purchase but from keeping it clean.
Here's the equation for a cotton T-shirt. Growing the cotton generates about 1kg of CO2, mostly from manufacturing the fertilisers and pesticides used and from pumping the 30 or so bathtubs of water needed for irrigation. Turning that cotton into a shirt and transporting it to a store near you generates around another 2kg. However, you'll use around 4kg washing and tumble drying it a typical 25 times. Denim jeans and cotton knickers come out much the same.
Other fibres, such as viscose and polyester, take more energy to make than cotton but use less subsequently because they're often washed at lower temperatures and dry more easily. To minimise your clothing footprint, you should wash at a lower temperature than it says on the label (even Marks & Spencer now recommends this) and always put a full load in the machine. Mothball that tumble drier because it's one of your home's biggest energy guzzlers. Invest instead in a washing line and an indoor clothes dryer. And forget about ironing, unless it's essential.
(The Independent, 09/08/2007)
Ten readers' ways to cut your carbon footprint
1 Buy local produce
There are many reasons for buying local. Often it's just nice to know where your food comes from, but most of the time there's a reduction in your carbon footprint too. This is because, in a world of globalised food production, most food travels a long distance, releasing CO2 all the way. One estimate concluded that feeding each of us for a year requires transporting the equivalent of a 12-tonne container load of food for more than a 100km. The trucks involved emit 170kg of CO2 in Britain and another 150kg abroad. A further 30kg comes from air-freighting your perishables, such as vegetables, fruit and fish. Organic food, incidentally, is no better. Twice as much organic food is imported as domestically produced, or as much as three quarters by some estimates.
Most of these transport emissions can be eliminated by buying local produce. Supermarkets are increasingly good at labelling this clearly, and farmers' markets usually sell nothing else. There are more than 500 farmers' markets in the UK, and more are starting up all the time. Check where your nearest is by going to www.farmersmarkets.net. To be doubly sure of having a low carbon footprint, it's a good idea to make a point of buying produce when it's in season. That way, you avoid the CO2 emissions from heating greenhouses, which can sometimes be as great as air-freighting from foreign lands. For a guide to what's in season when, see www.thefoody.com/basic.
2 Reduce your meat consumption
The carbon footprint from producing animal protein is typically eight times greater than that from vegetable protein. Animals are not very efficient protein converters and a lot of energy is lost along the food chain. Much depends on how the animals are fed. Those raised on natural pastures have CO2 emissions 50 per cent less than those raised on concentrated feed grown using artificial fertilisers.
Free-range is best. That's partly why British lamb, for instance, has a bigger carbon footprint than New Zealand lamb, even when the latter has been shipped halfway across the world. You may think that all lamb is free-range, but British lambs are given fodder, rather than eating pasture, for some of the year. The slaughtering rules and supermarket requirements also mean that British lamb is often trucked all over the country, adding to its carbon footprint.
In addition, farm animals directly produce another potent greenhouse gas. The guts of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats, etc) generate methane while digesting food. Cattle belch and fart a lot and methane is also generated in slurry tanks. All told, every kilogram of beef raised in a feedlot can be responsible for more than 30kg of greenhouse gases. So, reducing your meat consumption is good for your carbon footprint. And cutting out beef is best of all. But a word of warning: this good work could easily be undone if you increase your dairy produce intake to compensate. The reason: dairy cows typically produce twice as much methane as beef cattle. That's why you should manage your dairy intake, too, if you want to reduce the carbon footprint of the food you eat.
3 Avoid over-packaged goods
We all complain about excessive food packaging, but supermarkets say we are reluctant to buy loose food. We should get serious about this, however. One estimate is that the manufacture of packaging for British food produces 10 million tonnes of CO2 in Britain each year, or 170kg for each one of us. Some retailers claim that extra packaging reduces damage to food – and so wastage – during transportation, but a lot of packaging has more to do with presentation than anything else. And if all that packaging is really necessary for safe transportation, then that's another reason to buy local produce, which generally has the least packaging.
If we must have packaging, does it matter what kind? Plastic is usually bad news, as it takes more energy to produce than cardboard. And whereas most cardboard can be recycled, many types of plastic can't. Aluminium cans have the biggest carbon footprint of any form of packaging because it takes a large amount of energy to smelt the metal. This means that draught beer is best and bottles are better than cans. If you do buy a can, make absolutely sure that it's recycled. Some people are concerned about waste being exported for recycling, but the evidence is that, whether in Beijing or Birmingham, there can often be a good use for our rubbish, so don't be put off. Even so, it's better to avoid packaging in the first place.
4 Join a car pool or club
Every day, there are 10 million empty seats in cars on our roads. Sharing your car journey to work could save you hundreds of pounds a year, as well as easing traffic congestion, saving wear and tear on your car and cutting your carbon footprint. Put four people in a car and commuting can become as low carbon as taking the bus. You can, of course, car share informally with work colleagues, but there are also car-sharing websites to match you up with fellow commuters.
Do you commute to work by public transport but keep a car for occasional weekend trips? If so, think about joining a car club, where you just pay for a car when you need one. To work well, car clubs require a critical mass of members because you don't want to have to travel far to pick up the car. So far, they've made most progress in London, encouraged by the big population, high parking charges and large number of people who generally use public transport and only need a car occasionally. Other cities across the country, including Brighton and Southampton, have similar schemes.
5 Cut down on junk mail
Your mailbox is clogging up with CO2 every day. The average adult gets 19kg of junk mail a year, with a carbon footprint from its manufacture and distribution that's several times greater. The Royal Mail will stop delivering unaddressed junk mail if you e-mail it at optout@ royalmail.com. To ask not to receive the junk mail with your name and address on, sign up with the Mailing Preference Service at www.mpsonline.org.uk.
Fearful of losing profitable business because of a green-minded backlash against junk mail, the Royal Mail has announced a responsible mail service. This will offset the CO2 emissions from the paper manufacture, printing and transportation of your mail. Don't let this deter you from stopping your junk mail, though. As every climate activist will tell you, offsetting emissions is very much second best to preventing emissions in the first place.
6 Reuse and refuse plastic bags
We get through 17 billion plastic bags a year, which is approaching one each every day. Reduce this plastic trail by taking plastic or reusable bags shopping with you and asking staff not to give you a bag when you pay. This is becoming a worldwide movement. It started in small communities, where retailers agreed not to hand plastic bags out any more, but is growing fast. Later this year, San Francisco will become the largest US city to date to ban the plastic bag. The supermarkets see this as a sales opportunity, of course. They want to sell us reusable, "bag for life" bags. This is fine, but all bags are reusable, unless they break, and your home is probably already full of them, so start by reusing those. And here's another use for plastic bags: use them to line your rubbish bins at home.
7 Holiday in the UK
Maybe, after this year's wet summer, this isn't the best time to mention it but Britain is one of the world's top holiday destinations. People cross the globe to sample our delights, so why miss out on a good thing? Check out our back yard and cut your carbon footprint into the bargain. Holidays are among our biggest sources of CO2 emissions and the main element is the flight. An economy return flight from the UK to Florida or New York creates emissions equivalent to a year's car use. And a return flight to Lanzarote emits as much as a power station generating your share of domestic electricity for a year. For millions of us, our carbon footprint from flying is bigger than for everything else we do and buy.
Unlike most other parts of our lives, there are no off-the-shelf ways of being a greener flyer. For many of us, the single biggest step we can take to cut our carbon footprint is to stop flying and start holidaying closer to home. If you don't want to holiday in the UK, restrict yourself to Europe and go by train or ferry rather than plane. It is slower, and probably more expensive, but you can make the journey part of the holiday. Through the Alps, down the Rhine, across the lagoon into Venice: all are great journeys. You'll wonder why you ever flew.
8 Be eco when staying in hotels
We've all seen the signs in hotel rooms asking us to reuse the towels. We wouldn't change our towel at home every day, so why do it on holiday? And just because you're not paying directly for the electricity, don't leave the lights on. Do the energy-saving things you would do at home. Take a shower not a bath, don't use or remove all the (probably imported) soaps and lotions, don't leave the TV on standby, don't have the air conditioning on all the time and always turn it off when you leave the room. If your room's only a couple of floors up, take the stairs rather than the lift – you know you need the exercise.
Try and find a hotel that plausibly advertises its green credentials. Look out for hotels belonging to the Green Tourism Business Scheme or with the Energy Star rating, but don't be too seduced by eco chic. The good news is that the hotels with the smallest carbon footprint are, often, the simplest and cheapest. Research the public transport system where you're going beforehand (many publish their routes and timetables online) and pick a hotel close to a station or bus route, so you aren't dependent on taxis and hire cars.
9 Don't bin things: reuse, Freecycle and buy second-hand
The car may not be green, but the car boot sale certainly is. And don't just sell your stuff there, buy as well. Green chic comes cheap and cheerful and from the school playground on a Saturday morning. The green consumer also goes to jumble sales, buys used books, searches out bargains in antiques shops and checks out charity shops for clothes and other goodies: it's all had one life already, so it's carbon neutral. By keeping old products in circulation, you're preventing them from being dumped or put in landfill and preventing their carbon from leaking back into the atmosphere.
While your friends are bargaining away on eBay, why not go one step further and check out the Freecycle network? It's dedicated to giving used things away. Freecycle started in the US, but there are local groups all over Britain now, as you will quickly find at www.freecycle.org.
10 Keep your clothing footprint small
A low-carbon wardrobe is also a small wardrobe. Buy second-hand whenever possible and when you buy new, ensure they're things you really like and will wear for years. Fast fashion is bad for your carbon footprint. And bear in mind that the majority of your clothing footprint probably comes not from the purchase but from keeping it clean.
Here's the equation for a cotton T-shirt. Growing the cotton generates about 1kg of CO2, mostly from manufacturing the fertilisers and pesticides used and from pumping the 30 or so bathtubs of water needed for irrigation. Turning that cotton into a shirt and transporting it to a store near you generates around another 2kg. However, you'll use around 4kg washing and tumble drying it a typical 25 times. Denim jeans and cotton knickers come out much the same.
Other fibres, such as viscose and polyester, take more energy to make than cotton but use less subsequently because they're often washed at lower temperatures and dry more easily. To minimise your clothing footprint, you should wash at a lower temperature than it says on the label (even Marks & Spencer now recommends this) and always put a full load in the machine. Mothball that tumble drier because it's one of your home's biggest energy guzzlers. Invest instead in a washing line and an indoor clothes dryer. And forget about ironing, unless it's essential.
(The Independent, 09/08/2007)
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