Statistics on how to help the environment

A few things people can change int heir lives, and the effect it will have.

• If just 20 employees turned off their computers during a lunch hour, they would save over 3700 watts of electricity; enough to keep an energy efficient light bulb burning for over eight and a half days.
• 10-15% of the average household electricity bill is attributable to power used by machines during their stand-by periods.
• The combined effect of radios, computers and other appliances being left on stand-by is 4,000,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK each year.
• The average household wastes £37 each year by leaving appliances on standby.
• 80% of home energy is used for heating. Turn your thermostat down by just one degree and you'll reduce your carbon emissions by 325kg. You'll also save around £35 on your fuel bill.
• Lowering your washing temperature to 30°C can save around 40% energy per wash.
• If everyone in the UK stopped using plastic bags and switched to a reusable bag, each year we'd save enough plastic to tie around the earth 103 times.
• The UK currently produces 28 million tons of household waste per year. 60% of this is buried in landfill sites. 35% of the average household's waste can be easily composted.
• On average, a third of all the food we buy ends up being thrown away.
• UK shoppers waste 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, enough to fill Wembley Stadium eight times over.
• As well as being a massive waste of money, this has a huge environmental impact as producing, storing and transporting all this food uses up energy and resources. If we could tackle this problem, it would have the carbon reduction equivalent to taking 1 in 5 cars off the road.
• It is estimated that 1 billion Christmas cards, (17 for every man, woman and child in the UK), could end up in bins this Christmas. If everyone in the UK recycles just 1 card through the Woodland Trust scheme, not only would this save 1,570 tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases - the same as taking 500 cars off the road for a year - it would also enable the Woodland Trust to plant 15,000 trees in 2009.
• Water is a precious resource and, in the UK, we use 150 litres of it per person, every day. This has been rising by 1% a year since 1930. This consumption level is not sustainable in the long-term. In fact, demand could outstrip the water supply by 6-10% by the end of the decade.
• Install a water saving Hippo in your toilet cistern. This simple device can save up to 3 litres of water - or a third of the cistern volume - every time you flush.
• The average home drive way wash uses 100-350 litres of water.
• It's estimated that we discard around 1m tonnes of clothing each year in the UK, a lot of which is good enough to be re-sold or recycled.
• By choosing to invest ethically you know that your money will not be used to fund arms, tobacco or other potentially damaging industries.
• Around the world, 25 million coffee-farming families are dependent on their crop to feed and clothe themselves. Choosing to buy Fairtrade means that as well as getting a great-tasting cup of coffee, you're investing in better lives for millions of people.
• The UK Government has stated that cancer and coronary heart disease account for 60% of all early deaths. A key factor in combating these diseases is good health and nutrition.
• Regular exercise is vital to our health. In addition to helping you maintain a healthy weight, exercise helps combat stress, depression and fatigue.
• Increasing the heart rate for just 30 minutes a day cuts your risk of heart disease in half.
• A diet that is high in salt is one of the contributing factors to heart disease.
• Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK. It accounts for nearly 1 in 3 of all cancers in women and nearly 46,000 women are diagnosed each year in the UK.