10 ways to green your household in 2010

The 10:10 campaign, that aims to encourage everyone to cut their household or organisation carbon footprint by 10% by the end of 2010. You might be interested to know that there are now more than 56,000 people or organisations signed up to the campaign - including the City of Edinburgh Council who became the 100th UK local authority to sign-up recently. 

We suspect most people have changed their old, inefficient lightbulbs for new energy efficient ones by now. So what else can you do? We've put together a list of practical things you can do to cut your household carbon footprint in 2010. You might have heard of some of them already!

1. Make a We Love Leith pledge (there's 7 choices!) and stick to it! If you're struggling to stick to your pledge , or if you're not sure what to do, get in touch! We've got a team of volunteers who want to help. Join us on a guided walk or cycle ride if you'd like to get into active travel.

2. If you're interested in cooking, why not sign-up for the Kitchen Canny challenge? And in fact you could combine this nicely with Meat Free Mondays.

3. Get a free personalised report on saving water by filling in this on-line form.

4. Find out if you're eligible for any grants or discounts on energy saving stuff for your home. Try this form.

5. If you can afford it, switch your electricity provider to one that is 100% renewable energy. Try a site like Uswitch.com to compare prices. If you feel you can't afford it, make sure any household goods and gadgets you buy are energy efficient ones.

6. Don't just bin unwanted stuff. Donate what you can to a local charity shop, or gift it to someone on our behalf on Jumble Aid. You can get rid of almost anything on the local Edinburgh Freegle group.

7. Fit intelligent plugs (something like this) to your home computer and/or your TV. All those set-top boxes, games machines, printers, scanners and dvd players draw power 24/7, even on standby. These clever plugs should easily pay for themselves within a year, if this article in the Times is correct.

8. Don't fly. We know - it's a tricky one. But you could easily undo a whole year of intelligent plug use with one return flight.

9. Buy more organic, local food. Most of the carbon footprint of our food is in the cultivation of it. Organic food tends to be produced less intesively and have less synthetic fertilisers and chemicals used in its production. This means a much smaller carbon footprint. Did we mention that Damhead organics will give Leithers a 10% discount when they quote 'We Love Leith'?

10. Get involved. We don't believe tackling climate change should be left to individuals alone. Check out our blog for posts labelled 'Action Alerts' and support them - whether it's getting on your bike or responding to a consultation. Together we can make stuff happen! Use www.writetothem.com or the virtual surgery group on The Greener Leith Social to tell your elected representatives about what changes you'd like the government to make. If you've got an idea that might help to make Leith greener, why not propose it on The Greener Leith Social?

Do you have any other better suggestions? Let us know in the comments.

And lastly, with a hat-tip toward Suitably Despairing - here's a half way decent response to Paul MacCartneys Meat Free Monday Song Challenge.