Home insurance - Tips & Advice - Green living
If you're reading this at home, take a look around you. How many gadgets do you own that use up electricity? Well, for a start, there's the computer you're reading this on. Then there is probably a mobile phone or two, perhaps a CD player, a radio, a clock, and that's even before we dig out the MP3 players, printers, cameras, microwave ovens and so on.
The majority of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels such as coal, which is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. We may live in the communication age, where everybody is constantly plugged in to something, but you can still be a gadget lover and try to be green.
Eco-gadgets
The list of eco-gadgets may be small, but it is growing. Trevor Baylis first invented the wind-up radio to help spread Aids awareness to remote parts of Africa, but it is a neat way to have electricity-free music at home. While radios may use up relatively small amounts of electricity, Mr Baylis has now advanced his original design to produce the portable, wind-up Trevor Baylis Eco Media Player – a wind-up MP3 player.
Both of these devices mean you don't need to worry about buying environmentally damaging batteries. Not only is this good for the planet – batteries are full of toxic heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury and are hard to recycle – but it also means you can’t run out of juice.
The Eco Media player also doubles up as a wind-up torch and mobile phone charger, both items that would come in handy if you were out and about but nowhere near a shop selling batteries – such as on a camping trip or anywhere in the countryside at night.
Eliminating waste
Normal mobile phone chargers, meanwhile, are notoriously wasteful, mainly because we forget, or neglect, to turn them off at the switch after the phone has been charged. The amount of electricity wasted from phone chargers left on unnecessarily in the UK is enough to power more than 33,000 homes for a whole year [source: www.unpluggit.co.uk]. Using a wind-up charger means you avoid contributing to that waste.
Leaving electrical devices such as TVs on standby rather than turning them off at the switch is also a wasteful practice – we waste the equivalent of around two power stations' worth of electricity in the UK each year by leaving TV sets and other gadgets on standby [source: BBC Science & Nature].
A helping hand
Turning something off at the plug when you're not using it couldn't really be simpler, but for those who find it too much hassle, there are a number of adapters on the market, which you can plug into your system to do the job for you. These gadgets will automatically cut the power to electrical products left on standby, but still enable the devices to be switched on and off using a remote control.
As well as the Baylis Media Player and other standalone wind-up mobile phone chargers, you can also buy solar-powered phone chargers. These would be particularly useful if you were going abroad somewhere sunny – where you would not only have a good, free, eco source of power, but also you wouldn't have to worry about foreign plug adapters. Many of these solar-powered chargers can also be used to charge other devices, such as cameras and MP3 players.
Water power
If winding things up is too strenuous, and you worry about getting enough sunlight for solar-powered gadgets, then there is always water power.
Although Japanese inventor Susumu Suzuki only revealed his water-powered batteries to the world at the end of 2006, already there are a number of gadgets on the market that will run on them – mostly clocks and calculators. When they run out, the batteries just need to be refilled with a little water and they're ready to go again. No toxic heavy metals required.
Related information:
Home insulation – ten ideas for making your house warmer and saving money on your fuel bills.
Computer insurance – make sure your home contents insurance covers expensive PCs and other equipment. We explain what's covered on with a Direct Line home insurance policy.
Wired for safety – how well do you understand the electrics in your home? It's important to get them checked regularly.
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