The 3 R's are very much raved about in the world of green living. But making our wasteful society a more sustainable place to live doesn't always rank highly in the general household; especially when we have our children running round but most of us try to do our bit, no matter how small.

We're not talking extremes here like the recently publicised family who threw one waste bin of rubbish away in a year, but if we all do a little between us we will make a big difference.

REDUCE

The 'Reduction' element is aimed at the amount of waste we throw away, in some cases careful choices at the supermarket can instantly reduce the amount of waste you produce.

For instance; ensuring you only buy what you need, instead of bowing to tempting 'BOGOF's' on fresh food leading to it going to waste. Even special offers on disposable nappies leads to issues - ever brought too many of one size? Also avoiding excessive packaging on processed foods or ensuring as much of the packaging as possible is recyclable, Jars are a good example of recyclable packaging.

Fortnightly waste collections carried out by most councils in the UK and possible progression to 'weigh & pay' waste collections, raises the question to the increasing costs of waste, one of the largest preventable impacts on our landfill sites are 'Nappies'!

Millions make their way to landfill everyday, should the weigh and pay schemes come in, disposable nappies prove a costly convenience for the average household.

Reusable or washable cloth nappies would provide the most 'viable' option for most households, although it may be argued that cloth creates as much of a carbon footprint as disposables when washing /drying is taken into account. Water and electricity are resources which are already available, cloth nappies are capable of  clothing many bottoms and don't have an immediate impact on landfill.

REUSE

Reusing anything is better than creating waste from it. Cloth nappies, washable baby wipes are all fab examples of regular reuse. However other things which can be reused such as carrier bags/shopping bags, buying second hand baby clothes & toys instead of buying new clothes all the time. Give yourself a maximum number of outfits (ie 1 dozen per size - as you wash frequently anyway).

There is also a good second hand market for re-usable/cloth nappies which are a good way of trying a variety of makes without the expense of buying new. An added benefit of buying 'preloved' nappies is that the pre-washing has already been done -  saving you the energy, water and resources.

Bottles &  jars can be re-used to store alternative items and newspapers can also be re-used crafts and animal bedding among other things. Even better if you can get a local milkman, bottles are washed and re-used without having to go through energy intensive recycling processes.

RECYCLE

Bottles, jars, cans, cardboard and newspapers are the things we tend to think of when considering items that you can recycle. In some cases avoiding excessively packaged alternatives could be the preferred option - supermarkets still put tonnes of un-neccessary packaging on their products.

A recent trend as led to the emergence of 'Upcycling'  for instance taking an item and converting its use to something else. eg old jumpers converted to nappy covers, or scrap material to make a shopping bag or quilt, broken plant pots or plates into trendy mosaics. The only limit is your imagination.

There are tonnes of ideas on the internet for upcycling, why not give it a try!

Reducing the fmaily Carbon Footprint. We are all aware that we need to do our bit to help preserve the environment for future generations but with so many different ways to be 'green' it can all be a bit confusing.  We've put together these simple and cost effective ideas that you and your family can do straight away, some you may do already and some you may not have thought of.

Recycle, it's easy!  Not just seperating your rubbish but see if some of the things you normally throw away can be re-used, keep all the packaging you get sent in the post so next time you need to send something you don't have to buy a new jiffy bag.  Our granparents would always do things like this but we seem to have lost this art and tend to throw things away.

Be carefull what you buy.  The Uk is one of the worlds largest importers of unsustainable wood which contributes to deforestaion and accelerates global warming.  Make sure any product containing wood is from managed forests or FSC certified.  When in the supermarket check where the fruit and veg is from, anything in season should be grown in Britain, it doesn't make sense that apples come from South Africa at this time of year!  Buy things that are built to last, if something seems a little more expensive but is better quality it will more than likely last longer thus saving you money in the long run and reducing you carbon footprint at the same time.  We as consumers have huge power, if we stop buying unsustainable products, they'll stop making them!

Save energy. The simplest thing you can do is insulate your home, it's now free to people on low incomes and 50-70% off the costs for everyone else see www.freeinsulation.co.uk for more info.  Change your light bulbs.  Use your car less, most people are doing this already because petrol has gone up so much, it's nicer, healthier and cheaper to walk short distances.

Use washable napppies.  The benefits of washable nappies are obvious, save money (you can do the calculations yourself), lower your carbon footprint (just think how all those disposables are produced and distributed around the country) and reduce landfill waste.

Often small changes like these have a bigger impact than some more costly green projects.  For example changing your car to a 'green' hyrbid will lower your petrol consumption but how much carbon has been immited to produce that car, it would be better to prolonge the life of your current car and try to lower your petrol usage by changing your driving stlye. If we all made these little changes we can make a big difference.