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(Garden creatures) Make your home office green

By Annie Deakin

 Electronic equipment

Maximise natural lighting by using the sun’s energy to brighten your office. You don’t need any building permissions to install this Solar Mate panel (239.99) from Nigel’s Eco Store. Even in dreary old Blighty, it will store between 8-11 hours of light for its bulb. Screensavers save the screen, not energy, so switch off your monitor (which uses twice the energy of your PC) altogether when you go for lunch, as well as the PC itself. British Eco make it easy with these Bye bye standby plugs (19.99 for intrdouctory pack), which allow you to control your equipment wirelessly from up to 30 metres away. Handy for those forgetful days.

Make business calls on this Siemens Gigaset digital cordless phone (49.95) from John Lewis, which claims to use up to 60% less energy than regular cordless phones. For more ideas, read the Eco-design handbook for homes and offices (16.95) from the Design Museum shop and get up to speed with what else you can do.

Junk Mail

Almost 50% of all catalogues sent by post are never opened, yet nearly 62 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water are used every year to produce them. Get yourself removed from junk-mailing lists by registering with the Mailing Preference Service.

Printing and paper

Print only the information you really need from a document, and also print double-sided, using the smallest font you can and switching your printer to draft output to save ink. Make sure you recycle your print cartridges using one of the many post-it-back schemes, and use chlorine-free recycled paper. For every tonne of paper that is recycled, we save 17 trees, 42,000 kilowatts of electricity, 26,000 litres of water and 27 kilograms of air pollutants. Do your filing and store documents in these award-winning recycled lever arch files (2.45 each) from the Natural Collection.

Meetings and communication

Install video-conferencing facilities (easily achieved via the use of a webcam), so you can keep in touch with clients and the office without having to travel.

Electrical efficiency

Use energy-efficient, compact fluorescent bulbs, which use 75 per cent less energy and last 10 times longer than traditional bulbs. For desk lamps, choose miniature compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) or light-emitting diodes (LEDs). This Ocean energy saving lamp (95) from Hidden Art not only looks stylish enough to impress clients. Choosing electrical equipment with an energy-star label could cut your electricity bill by up to 80 per cent. The Energy Star logo means that the energy consumption of an appliance is below an agreed level in stand-by mode.

Don’t leave chargers running

Switch off the charger for your mobile phone, batteries, camera and other equipment when you’ve finished charging. If you don’t it will draw almost as much energy as when it is charging, and you will generate 35-70 kilograms of avoidable carbon dioxide each year. It’s estimated that 95% of the energy used by mobile-phone chargers in the UK is energy wasted in this way. Charge mobile phones instead with this Trevor Bayliss eco-pro charger (21.95) from Ethical Superstore. Environmentally-friendly laptop chargers are currently in development watch this space for Samsung’s fuel-cell dock, which promises to power a laptop running eight hours a day for an entire month without recharging.

Cut heating costs

Working from home might seem like a good, green idea, but extra carbon emissions created by heating and powering your home office may outweigh the savings you make by not commuting. Research suggests that a full-time home-worker emits 2.3 tonnes of CO2 annually, compared to 1.7 tonnes for the average office worker, partly due to the additional use of electricity and heating. So in those months where you can’t enjoy working in the garden, make sure you only have lights switched on in the room you are using, and use a portable heater rather than keeping radiators on all over the house.

Love gadgets? Don’t let them spoil the environment. Read our guide to buying the latest tech toys that happen to be green too. Get a stylish office with classic Florence Knoll furniture she revolutionised the post-war coporate look in the US.

Annie Deakin is a fashion expert and editor at mydeco.com and is currently very impressed by the great range of cutlery, bedding and diy.

Geo-environmental Solutions Needed in Solving Containment Problems

By William Hauselberg

 Any new construction or retrofitting of an existing structure comes with a number of environmental and civil engineering problems. These problems are made more difficult when there are environmental containment issues involved. Special care must be made to contain contaminated groundwater and leachate to prevent contamination of clean water sources.

Contaminated groundwater is a serious public safety issue and all attempts must be made to minimize the impact of any leachate that might find its way into the groundwater. When dealing with contaminated ground water or landfill leachate containment issues, it is best to hire a company that specializes in geo-environmental solutions to prevent and correct contamination problems.

These companies are equipped to handle any number of containment problems, and they have the experience to know what will work best in any situation. They will have ideas and resources at their disposal that will allow them to respond quickly and correctly to employ effective methods for landfill leachate containment and prevention of contaminated groundwater. They can evaluate your specific situation and make recommendations as to what would be the best course of action.

A number of methods can be used to contain contaminated groundwater and leachate. Groundwater barriers such as slurry cut-off walls, grouted barriers, In Situ Soil Mixing, biopolymer drains and permeable reactive barriers are among the options that might be available. It is important to institute the proper containment solution for your unique situation because clean water laws are strict and contamination ground water is a serious offense. Litigation, fines and criminal charges can result in inadequate or poorly constructed containment barriers so it is best if you hire a reputable company from the outset.

If you are having leachate or contaminated groundwater containment issues, you should contact a geo-solutions company to evaluate your situation. If you are about to begin a construction project and you need a safe way to contain contaminated groundwater, you should consult a geo-environmental company prior to breaking ground to prevent costly delays and corrective measures should a problem be found after construction has begun. A good geo-solutions company should be able to provide a practical and cost-effective assessment of the actual construction costs and evaluate any environmental risks, as well as providing litigation support and dispute resolution services should a problem arise.

The Author of this article is an expert Civil Engineer. With his huge experience, he has helped many people around the Globe for the geo-environmental solutions. When it comes to Quality law firm professionals like contain contaminated groundwater and groundwater expert witness he recommends Geo-Solutions.

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Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 9:08 am and is filed under environmental. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.