ARE YOU A ‘GREEN’
PET OWNER?
I recently spent a weekend promoting Burns
with nutritionist Rebecca Hutchens at ‘Daisy Chain Live’
an environmental show staged at the Three Counties show ground,
Worcestershire.
Burns Pet Nutrition is currently making a
push to become even more green and ethical than before. Fair
trade tea and coffee is drunk by our staff and our cooks use
vegetables grown on site by Faith and our gardener Mark. Our
new office building has had solar panels installed and a well
has been dug so we can source water. We recycle all our plastic,
glass, paper and tins and compost our kitchen waste.
We were pleased to see Burns customers attending
Daisy Chain Live but noticed that the majority were cat owners,
we are intrigued to know if that is because cat owners are
more environmentally conscious than dog owners?!!
So, to help all our customers’ dog and
cat owners alike, we have put together some ideas to help
you all become greener.
Questions for the environmental
pet owner
1. Do you use biodegradable poop bags for
your dog? ‘Normal’ carrier bag can take over 100
years to fully breakdown.
2. Do you pick up your dog’s faeces? Apart from the
obvious fact that dog faeces look disgusting they can harbour
disease and worms. They can contaminate grazing areas for
other animals and damage the natural environment.
3. Do you use biodegradable cat litter? Cat litter is available
in materials such as wood, paper and corn all of which break
down.
4. Do you reuse your Burns bags? Although Burns bags are biodegradable
these can be used again, perhaps for garden rubbish.
GO GREEN!
• Switch off lights when you leave a
room.
• Turn the tap off when brushing your teeth.
• Take showers instead of baths.
• Recycle your paper, cardboard, plastic, tins and glass.
• Compost your kitchen and garden waste.
• Use energy saving light bulbs. The Energy Saving Trust
state that these last 12 x longer than normal bulbs and can
save you £7 a year on your annual electricity bill.
• Reuse or recycle your carrier bags.
• Don’t leave your TV and other appliances on
standby. According to www.lookingafterthepennies.com ‘if
everyone in the UK turned off their TV overnight it would
save more than £66 million worth of in electricity each
year, which would floodlight 250,000 Premiership football
matches’
• Unplug mobile phone chargers when not in use. According
to one
web site 95% of the energy used by the UK’s mobile
phone chargers is wasted energy? Only 5% is actually used
to charge phones, the rest is used when the charger is plugged
into the wall but not switched off at the socket. That’s
over 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions that could
be avoided if we all just unplugged our chargers after use
– the equivalent of almost 500 football pitches’
worth of forest every year.
• Insulate your house.
• Walk or cycle to school, college or work
• Eat locally grown produce.
• Only boil the amount of water you actually need.
• Only use washing machines and dishwashers when you
have a full load.
• Try and use washing machines and dishwashers on economy
setting.
• Turn your thermostat down by 1ºC. The Energy
Saving Trust state that this can cut your heating bills by
up to 10 per cent and save you around £30 per year.
These are just a few ideas; there are many more things you
can try. However, if we all start to make a small effort it
will make a difference.
For more information on energy saving have
a look at the Energy Saving Trust website on www.est.org.uk
or ring their helpline on 0800 915 7722.
Fiona Campbell
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