Have a Sustainable 2019!

by | Dec 31, 2018 | Featured News

HAVE A HAPPY AND SUSTAINABLE 2019

From all of us at Energy Co-operatives Ireland

hover over the map and click for some sustainability ideas, or see the ideas as a list below:

(click the headings to follow links)

Get rid of the drier

Ok, you don’t have to get rid of it, just don’t use it for drying clothes. It’s insanely power hungry. It is much more sustainably to make use of the cheaper solar powered alternative: the washing line. And yes this works in Connemara as well as it does in Cabra and costs nothing but a bit of organisation and an eye on the clouds (much easier since THIS was invented). We’ll write a full post on this again, but the cost of 1 washing line is €2.99. This compares over 1 year*for a standard Tumble dryer: 1496.5 kWh costing approximately €254.00,  and avoiding 523.775 kgs of carbon. Click Here 🖰 (links off-site)

*Based on my personal experience of a family of 4 needing one washing machine load per day.

Mend and Repair


According to Re-dress.ie, 225,000 tonnes of textile waste are disposed of in Ireland each year. It’s bad news for the environment whether that is organic waste (wool or cotton) or whether it’s synthetic containing plastic micro-fibres: Click Here 🖰 (links off-site)

Cycle


It rains much less in Ireland than we think – in Castlebar Mayo, it rains on 48% of days in the year, in Dublin it rains on 25% of days. But it doesn’t necessarily rain when you need to travel. Using THIS wonderful invention, will help you maximize your saddle-kms and minimise the ones behind the wheel: Click Here 🖰 (links off-site)

Buy Social

Community initiatives like the Dublin Food Co-operative or Edible Landscape Westport  are beacons of socially driven sustainability. Go out of your way to support them. And when you have, see of you can set up something similar in your local area: Click Here 🖰 (links off-site)

Telling others interested in sustainability what you’ve found out and what you’re doing at a community level is very important: it encourages others to act, it helps them learn from your successes (and mistakes) – knowledge sharing is vital in our collective efforts to achieve sustainability: Click Here 🖰 (links off-site)

energy co-ops ireland sustainability