Some Green thoughts submitted by Birkbeck Staff

N.B. The following are personal comments and advice from individual members of staff and are not to necessarily to be regarded as Birkbeck College advice, guidance or policy.

• Flushing drains with a solution of boiling water, baking soda and vinegar, then using a plunger, will work just as well as using chemical cleaners. Many drain cleaners contain corrosive products that kill aquatic life and make water even more expensive to treat.
• Avoid buying items in tetrapacks. These are hard to recycle as they contain a mixture of aluminium, cardboard and plastic.
• Low rainfall and summer droughts have left groundwater levels in the South East at their lowest for thirty years. With more housing development planned for the areas that are already suffering the effects of severe water shortage, water is fast becoming a precious resource. The following measures can help to reduce the amount of water you use at home.
  • Don’t leave the tap running whilst you brush your teeth.
  • Use a washing up bowl (this takes half as much water as a sink).
  • Wait for a full load before using a washing machine (half a load or ‘economy’ settings often use at least 75% of the energy and water of a full load).
  • If your toilet is more than ten years old, put a ‘cistern displacement device’ in it. You can place a filled plastic water bottle into the cistern, or you can obtain free ‘hogs’ or ‘sava flushes’ from your water company.
• After its launch in October 2004 Tree for All has now planted almost eight million saplings throughout Britain.
• Check before leaving your office whether you have switched that monitor off.
• Do you need the lights on while the sun shines outside?
• According to A>>B " …… London 1909: Average speed of horse and cart 7 mph. London 1999: average speed of a motorist 6 mph". Progress? Can we find alternative routes and ways for our journeys?
• Dr Ben Matthews has created a climate model to calculate the impact of your flight! Choose the train if you can. You can reach Frankfurt from London Waterloo in under 8 hours! Please note: The centre of Frankfurt not the outskirts! And of course you would have enjoyed the whole journey crossing three countries, you would have used your mobile phone and laptop without second thoughts and you would have had more chances of meeting people on a train rather than on the airplane. Not to mention that everybody on a plane would be so worn out after the several security checks!