Umega energy saving Top Tips

1. Switch it off at the set!

Switching off your TV, video, DVD or stereo at the set or mains stops the extra 10-60 of electricity that is wasted by the standby setting. If ten households do this, we could save one tonne of CO2 every year. 85% of the electricity used by your VCR is consumed while it is not actually on!

2. Fit fitter light bulbs

Energy saving light bulbs can save you around £10 a year. If everyone in the UK installed just one energy saving light bulb, the savings in CO2 emissions would fill London’s Royal Albert Hall nearly 3,000 times. Low-energy light bulbs last up to 12 times longer than their inefficient counterparts and you can make a amazing saving of £68 over each bulb ’s lifetime. If every UK household installed three low-energy bulbs this would save enough energy in a year to power all the UK’s street lighting.

3. Draught excluders for letterboxes, keyholes, doors and windows

Fitting insulation tape, brush seals and draught strips is highly effective in cutting down those nasty draughts. You can also plug the gaps between floorboards and around skirting boards.

4. Unplug your phone charger when not in use

In the UK, 95% of the energy used by mobile phone chargers is wasted. Only 5% is actually used to charge the phone and the rest is wasted by leaving the charger plugged in. Remember to unplug your charger when it’s not in use. It takes a forest with an area equivalent to 500 football pitches to absorb all the CO2 produced by chargers in the UK that are left plugged in.

5. Recycle household waste

The average family in the UK throws out 521kg of rubbish a year. If every home recycled half of their rubbish the UK’s annual CO2 emissions would fall by up to six million tonnes as we save the fuel used to transport the rubbish and the greenhouse gases the rubbish emits.

6. Recycle drinks cans

People in the UK buy 12 billion drinks cans every year - enough to stretch to the moon and back - but only a quarter are recycled. The energy saved by recycling just one is enough to run a TV set for three hours.

7. Recycle paper

Help protect trees and, since they absorb CO2, that can only help. For every tonne of paper we re-use, seventeen trees will be spared.

8. Watch your Kettle

Only boil as much water as you need. If just 15 families filled only to the level needed this would save a tonne of CO2 emissions every year.

9. Buy energy efficient appliances

If it’s time to replace some of the white goods in your home, make sure energy efficiency is high on your shopping list. Look for the Energy Efficiency Recommended logo. If everyone in the UK upgraded their old fridge to an A-rated, energy efficient product, energy wastage would be cut by over two-thirds. That’s the equivalent of over 47 million hot air balloons of CO2 and over £1 billion on bills.

10. Using less water saves electricity

Saving water saves electricity since water is pumped to your home using electricity. If you fit a water saving device to your toilet, you would save around 11,000 litres of water per year.

11. Fix your leaks

A dripping tap wastes enough water in a day to fill a bath.

12. Close curtains at dusk

Stop heat escaping through the windows. Just doing this could save you about £15 a year