In this week’s episode of Ours to Protect, we discuss how to live a sustainable life. In this episode, Max is joined by Robert Stringer from Energia to discuss solar panels as well as Leo Donovan from WEEIreland who will be discussing sustainable waste disposal. Here are some tips and tricks to help bring sustainability into your life.
- Generate your own energy.
Energia, a leading provider of renewable energy solutions has conducted a study on the best locations for solar panel installation in Ireland. In this study, Energia found that Wicklow is in the top three most sunniest counties in Ireland, coming after Wexford and Waterford. Therefore, Wicklow is the perfect county to have solar panels installed.
“The “Garden of Ireland”, Wicklow, grabs the third spot, with a yearly total of 1345.44 sunlight hours. September and December are when the sun shines the brightest compared to other counties, which is wonderful as you will not have to worry about running out of energy when the days get shorter and you can take full advantage of the clear, crisp winter days.”
https://www.energia.ie/about-energia/latest-news/ireland-best-county-to-go-solar Benefits include:
- less carbon emissions per unit of electricity
- an improvement of BER rating.
- Dispose of waste sustainably
The environment is struggling when it comes to the littering of disposable vapes into our rivers, forests and streets. Disposable vapes contain lithium batteries that do not degrade for hundreds of years. Lithium batteries contribute to landfill along with nicotine salts, poison and extremely flammable chemicals. Therefore, sorting for safety is another reason for recycling your device, including for sustainable reasons.
The EU is critical of raw materials from outside of Europe and are often contained in products that we use day to day, therefore, recycling centres are instructed to take out 30% of the critical raw materials out of the device, to be recycled.
Tip: Have an appliance bin. If your headphones break, put them in the appliance bin, and in no time, you’ll be surprised by how many appliances you throw out into a general bin per year. Once the bin is full, bring it to your local recycling centre or electric retailer to be recycled properly.
