Are You a 'Green' Pet Owner?
29/06/2006

Burns Pet Nutrition - The Holistic Approach to Health and Nutrition 

http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk/

I recently spent a weekend promoting Burns with nutritionist Rebecca Hutchens at ‘Daisy Chain Live’ an environmental show staged at the Three Counties show ground, Worcestershire.

Burns Pet Nutrition is currently making a push to become even more green and ethical than before. Fair trade tea and coffee is drunk by our staff and our cooks use vegetables grown on site by Faith and our gardener Mark. Our new office building has had solar panels installed and a well has been dug so we can source water. We recycle all our plastic, glass, paper and tins and compost our kitchen waste.

We were pleased to see Burns customers attending Daisy Chain Live but noticed that the majority were cat owners, we are intrigued to know if that is because cat owners are more environmentally conscious than dog owners?!!

So, to help all our customers’ dog and cat owners alike, we have put together some ideas to help you all become greener.

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.

For more information on energy saving have a look at the Energy Saving Trust website on http://www.est.org/ or ring their helpline on 0800 915 7722.

Fiona Campbell

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