Get Smart: Tips on Going Green

by Admin · January 14, 2016

From Jane Thompson, Johannesburg -�Well done to the staff and seminarians at St Francis Xavier Seminary in Cape Town who, caring for the environment, �recycle paper, glass and so on, thus putting Pope Francis� encyclical letter Laudato Si� into action, as Mitchell M Cloete outlined in his letter �Recycling puts encyclical to work� (December 16).

We can keep the environment clean � just put litter and rubbish in dustbins. I often put old plastic bread bags over my hands and pick up glass and litter in the neighbourhood and put it in our bin or public dustbins.

People can help reduce global warming by using less electricity, petrol, and so on.

For example, when cooking a roast in the oven, bake a cake or bread in a loaf-pan next to the roast; prepare a jelly when you have boiled water to make tea.

At work make sure that all lights, urns, geysers, machines and equipment are turned off at the end of the day, especially before weekends and public holidays. Use solar lighting and heating where feasible.

Drive a car that suits your needs but that is as light on petrol as possible, and coast (driving without pressing your foot on the accelerator) whenever possible.

Such efforts to conserve and improve the environment at our homes, workplace, cities and countryside will have a positive effect on the environment.