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.
John Burns is a qualified veterinarian who for the past fourteen years has also been producing a natural, holistic and complete food for dogs and cats, Burns Real Food - free of artificial colours, flavourings and preservatives.
As a practising Veterinary Surgeon, John became increasingly concerned about the quality of pet foods on the market, and how nutrition was playing a part in the poor health of the pets that he was seeing in his surgery.
Burns Pet Nutrition are known for being an ethical company with excellent customer service and nutrition support which can be accessed via their website http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk
Tags: cat, dog, environment, green, pet
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