EcoWarriorMe

There has been a lot of discussion recently about rising domestic energy prices and competition failures in the market, most recently the figures published by Ofgem on the profit made per customer by the big six energy suppliers. While these snapshot figures may not be particularly helpful in telling the whole story, they certainly reveal enough to raise the issue to the top of the agenda. The market is poorly functioning and there is too much complexity, lengthy tie-ins on the best deals and better deals for new customers.  This is an inevitable consequence of different suppliers selling essentially an identical product, with price being the only comparison.  The lights aren't brighter with electricity from one supplier compared with another, only cheaper or dearer.

It is that time of year where spiders start migrating indoors, getting themselves stuck in the bath, climbing the wall or running across the bedroom ceiling. Do they creep you out or do you like them? They are one of nature's helpers fulfilling a valuable role in managing the population of common pests in the garden during the summer so lets not be too hard on them when the seek sanctuary. Legend has it that a spider was the unlikely inspiration for Robert the Bruce seven centuries ago while hiding in a cave in exile.

Coal plan legal challenge fails A legal challenge to plans for a new coal fired power station in the Ayrshire coast has been rejected. The challenge regarded the national planning framework that defined a need for a power station, which effectively means that planning permission can not be rejected by the local planning department. In reality, all that the local planners can do is attach conditions to that permission. There are other, better ways of reducing our emissions such that we wouldn't need this power station but it is hard to make profit from them and our politicians don't want to be on duty when the lights go out. The proposal does talk of carbon capture and storage as part of the scheme but, unfortunately, it is surrounded by weasel words - "if that technology can be proven". Given the burden of proof for climate change and the fact that CCS has not been attempted at full scale, and recent developments at Longannet cast doubt on whether it can be prov...

The following has been taken in its entirety from the government e-petition site: Banish the Plastic Bags Responsible department: Department for  Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 17 billion plastic bags a year are given to British consumers. The average Briton accepts 5 times a weeks. 200 million tonnes of plastic is produced worldwide and 10 % ends up in the ocean. When plastic bags get into the ocean they can entangle, suffocate and even kill marine animals. Plastic doesn't biodegrade, it just breaks up into smaller pieces . The number of plastic bags issued by UK supermarkets in the past year has risen by 333 million. Plastic bags are becoming a big problem and there are better solutions! Instead we should have reusable cotton bags/ recyclable paper bags/biodegradable starch based bags. Banish the bags and go with reusable/ biodegradable ones instead! If we want to cut the amount of waste sent to landfill this is the big step forward.. . If you are a UK cit...

Despite the austerity measures we currently face, the government has miraculously found £250 million to encourage local authorities to reinstate weekly refuse collections in England. There is, apparently, a huge public outcry about the change to fortnightly collections. Certain parts of the press have been stirring up scare stories about rubbish piling up on our streets for weeks, giving off bad smells and attracting vermin. Not only is a concern, it is also an election issue according to the Daily Mail. Many years ago, our council changed from twice weekly collections to weekly collections and similar stories were spun but were never realised. At that time the bins were changed from small metal bins that the bin men carried to the truck and emptied to larger bins with single use removable liners, starting a trend of producing plastic bags with a single use-putting it in the bin. I don't know the details of individual fortnightly bin collections around England, but the new f...