What are your tips for being more environmentally friendly? Tell Unilever for a chance to win a £300 voucher!NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

Unilever have asked us to find out what Mumsnetters' tips are to make sure that your family is more environmentally friendly.

Here's what Unilever say, "At Unilever, we believe there has never been a better time to create a better future for our children; a world where everyone has enough food to eat and no child goes to bed hungry; where everybody can enjoy life today while protecting the planet for future generations.

"If we all work together to take small actions every day that make a real difference, we can build a world where everyone lives well and lives sustainably.

"We're committed to taking positive action on climate change within our business, but we also want to inspire our consumers to make those small changes that can make all the difference."

So, what positive habits have you got in to which help you be more environmentally friendly which you can pass on to other Mumsnetters? Maybe it's as simple as getting yourself and your DCs into the habit of switching off the lights as you leave the room? Are you a champion for only buying sustainably sourced products or managing down the food miles in your weekly shop? Perhaps you're now using reusable instead of disposable products, everything from batteries to razors to ink cartridges? Or maybe you've ditched the car in favour of cycling? Whatever your tips are, we'd love to hear them!

Everyone who posts their tips on the thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 Love2Shop voucher!

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

We recycle everything, compost and only have 1 car.

We resisted the urge to have more than 2 carbon producing children.

All our power comes from Hydro and we heat using mostly wood.

Clothes and toys are given to others to be used after us.

In turn we are given clothing etc.

We recycle everything we can.

Wear jeans for as long as possible before washing. Use tumble drier in winter only.

Use our open fire to cut central heating costs.

Read newspapers online instead of buying them. Ditto books.

And dp has two full sheds of "things that might be useful"

We reuse loads of things, most things I try to throw away are pounced on by my 7 year old because they 'might be useful.'
We buy clothes in charity shops and my boys wear each other's hand-me-downs.
We also borrow books from the library and read magazines and newspapers online.

I think one thing that people often overlook and don't immediately consider "green" is getting rid of things as soon as you have finished with them. If you do this, they have the maximum amount of life left for the next person to use and fewer items need to be produced.

Eg if I see my dd's clothes are tight, the next day, I give them to a friend who has a younger daughter 2 sizes smaller. Her daughter will wear these clothes immediately. They won't spend time boxed up or deteriorating or lie unused. The same goes for toys and really, anything. Once you finish with your cot, get it shifted so another baby can get into it right away (unless you're having another!). So when I decided my dd had spent her last day in the cot, I put it straight on eBay and sold it to a heavily pregnant woman. Her baby would be in that cot in a few weeks.

Far too much stuff is put in attics, sheds and garages and it goes mouldy and ends up getting chucked out which is bad for everyone. I have no shed, I don't put stuff in the attic and only useful things like bikes and tools are allowed in my garage.

If stuff is stored, someone else has to buy new, more items have to be produced. It doesn't have to be about money - you can choose to sell or give away items as it suits you financially. I give away items like tshirts but sell things like buggies and cots.

Ditto phones. My phone is due for an upgrade. It still works fine so I will get my upgrade and give my phone to my mum, who doesn't have a phone but wants one. Millions of households have drawers full of old mobile phones - it doesn't feel bad for the environment putting a phone in a drawer, but actually it is. The phone, particularly the battery will deteriorate and eventually be chucked out when it was still usable.

Another "stuff" related thing is party bag stuff. Kids like party bags so I tend to use a paper bag (recyclable) and fill it with consumables like chocolate and an item like a book which can be read, passed on etc. rather than a cheap plastic item that will snap and end up in landfill the following week.

I think often things are done to help the environment that haven't been properly thought through and end up actually being a false economy and harming the environment.

We only run one car and do a lot of journeys on foot or public transport, repair stuff rather than replacing it (DH is a demon for gluing broken things back together), buy things second-hand, cut back on eating meat and dairy, and eat a lot of local organic veg.

I don't throw away any food at all. I'd rather walk to the shops more often than have a fridge full of food that you don't fancy eating. And I meal plan as well.

Reusing and recycling as much as possible. We hand down clothes and then repurpose material as much as we can instead of throwing them out - rags for cleaning, cushion covers, patchwork duvets etc. Anything nice that can't be reused is either sold on Ebay or donated to charity shops.

We also batch cook to save energy and recycle as much packaging as we can, and we walk to school and back every day. Often we pick up leaves, twigs and feathers on the way to use for arts and crafts rather than buying packaged materials from the shops.

My daughter brings her emptied yogurt pots home as they don't have a separate plastic recycling basket in their lunch room. A little we could do and have suggested that to the school now.

I have replaced the plastic containers at home with stainless steel now and happy to follow the style from good old days, Helps to be more healthy and Environment friendly. They indeed look very lovely in the Kitchen, Only thing is I can not see through the jars but DD loves to put the stickers on with the name of the contents.

I have used cloth nappies as much as I can for DD2 (Couldn't stick on to them always though).

We use extension cards with individual switches, so the elec/electronics are switched off when not in use.

HP Instant Ink helps us recycle our old Cartridges.

We do the obvious really - minimise energy usage, walk whenever we can instead of using the car, recycle anything that can be recycled, grow veggies to reduce food miles, use water butts, buy second hand when possible, plan meals etc to keep food waste to an absolute minimum etc.

The thing that really bothers me is all of the superfluous packaging on fod and kids toys etc.

reusable nappies

We're a vegetarian/vegan household and we have very little food waste, what there is gets composted. As much packaging as possible gets recycled and we don't use plastic bags (well, the asda delivery comes in plastic bags but we give them back to the driver). And I've been using a mooncup for years (thanks MN!)

Guerilla tree planting.

Collect acorns and conkers, get kids to grow them in pots, then find likely looking places to plant them out.

We do weird combo leftover meals & composting but my fave top tip is one that saves time & effort too.

I was always caught out when it was someone's birthday & had to dash to town to buy a mum/bro/auntie card. For the last couple of years (since pregnant with dd), I've made a list of all the ones I need for a year & bought them all in one trip at the cheap card shop then divid them into polypockets for each month & into a file then gets checked at the end of each month. Life is so much simpler & I'm no longer asdisappointed with myself for being disorganised

I was tempted to add my tips to this thread, but then remembered that Unilever had been in the news recently:

"The factory at Kodaikanal, which was owned by Hindustan Unilever, closed in 2001. More than 1,000 former workers are alleged to have been affected by mercury poisoning, which can cause skin problems, sensory impairment and a lack of coordination." (Guardian 7/9/2015)

Full story.

So I'd like to ask Unilever, just what are you doing to address the situation?

I feel quite strongly about second hand toys - buy second hand and sell it on afterwards, most of them are designed to withstand really tough treatment and clean up very well.

I use up the last bits of conditioner, hand wash, toothpaste, ketchup... something learned from my parents that my husband finds quaint as he whisks out a new whatever as soon as it looks nearly empty.

As well as setting a good example with buying sustainably when we can, recycling and trying to reduce energy and water consumption, we regularly TALK about why we do those things.

When they are very young, we simplified it to explaining that the penguins need somewhere to live and the ice caps would melt quicker if we didn't help the environment in this way and as they've grown older we can explain in more detail.

Sometimes we comment on things like excessive packaging used by brands so that the kids can start to think about things like that.

It's just important to bring into everyday life so it becomes second nature to do these things and then to also understand why its important.

I am surprised only one poster has mentioned this.

I avoid Unilever products for environmental and ethical reasons. I refuse to buy from a company that had caused toxic contamination in a poor community, avoided cleaning up to an acceptable standard, and evaded paying compensation to poisoned workers and children. If you want tips on how to be more environmentally friendly, here's one: don't contaminate places and poison people, and, if you do, take responsibility for it.

The unilever logo has hearts, flowers, leaves, trees, fish, birds etc, is this some sort of sick joke.

My goodness, I hadn't seen that!

Makes this thread seem hypocritical to say the least.

What are you doing about it Unliver?

We get milk delivered in glass bottles from the milkman. Bottles are reused, farmers are paid a reasonable amount for their products.

Thanks for everyone's comments so far. Unilever would like to say, "Hi, Unilever is working to make your everyday items in a more sustainable way, such as compressed deodorants, or sustainably sourced Knorr ingredients. Our aim is to make choosing to live more sustainably with a smaller impact on the environment easy, inspiring you to create a brighter future for our children"

breadandwine thank you for that link. As I don't purchase Unilever products I don't monitor their environmental behaviour so was unaware of that.

Mumsnet - seriously, after reading that and looking at twitter #UnileverPollutes I think you should re-examine whether this thread should be on this site at all.

I've just started a thread in Site Stuff asking for clarification of MN's policy on accepting sponsored threads.