Cleaning Up For Earth Hour

It's Earth Hour

Cleaning Up For Earth Hour

Hi Everyone - today is the day of Earth Hour, which is all about the world coming together to save energy....We already did a blog about switching off electricity when you don't need it though - so today we want to talk about one particular part of daily life which is really harmful to the environment.

When we were doing our blog on switch it off, we saw how the games console and tv used more energy than light bulbs. We also saw how heating an old cup of tea in the microwave used less energy than boiling the kettle for the same time (about 40seconds). This is because the kettle uses more power, it says 3.5kw on the plug, whereas the microwave was 700 watts!

The shower however, uses 9.5kw and you use it for a lot more than 40 seconds when you wash yourself. It seems most people tend to have a shower every day but if that is true, we are probably using all the energy it is recommended we use, just on washing ourselves. This is really bad news and even if we turn everything off when we aren't using it and try and buy things which use less energy, we probably wouldn't save as much energy than if we just spent less time in the shower.

Having a shower every day also uses a lot of water, which isn't great for the planet either but a lot of skin specialists also think it isn't good for your skin and hair to wash every day either. We've all got so used to washing frequently, that our body's oils are washed away and we probably smell more because of this too. We are not saying not to wash and be smelly all the time but if you wash the bits that smell the most by having a sink bath or using cloths and soap, it will work just as well.

We have a box of clean cloth wipes that we use and then wash in them in the washing machine. We use them for hankies too and it's a great way to cut down on waste.

Basically, we want to do all we can to help the planet and cut down on energy. If everyone took one less shower a week that would be a lot of energy saved. Even spending less time when in the shower, maybe washing your hair less, would help if we all did it.

Working together, we can stay clean and clean up the planet too!

Thanks for visiting....we hope you enjoyed Earth Hour too. There are some useful links below.

Amelie and Erin :)


https://www.earthhour.org/

Our Switch It Off Blog

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/08/shower-once-a-week-polluting-environment

http://www.ryot.org/study-shower-less-hygiene-health/912353

http://www.cheekywipes.com/

http://www.wisebread.com/how-to-shower-less-and-still-feel-clean