See how good your teacher is at planet saving

• Beaumont primary school in Hadleigh, Suffolk, installed a wind turbine that generates enough electricity each day to run all the computers in the ICT suite. The project cost £27,000 and was part-funded by Clear Skies (£10,801) and matched by Suffolk county council's education department. The school estimates it will make an annual saving of £800 on its energy bills, and through the turbine and a number of other initiatives it claims to be reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by approximately eight tonnes per annum - equivalent to two return flights from London to New York. The school has also installed a number of PV modules on the roof, producing enough power to run the lights in two classrooms. Electricity is fed directly in the school's electrical system, reducing demand on the national grid, and when more electricity is generated than needed, the surplus will be sold back to the national grid - making the school money.
• Npower, for example, provided £30,000 to Nidderdale high school and community college in Harrogate, for the installation of a wind turbine; Scottish Power gave St James' Catholic high school in Barnet £5,666 for its solar panel installation.
• By switching your electrical appliances off at the mains, you save 130kg of carbon and £37 a year.
• If everyone in the UK switched off unused appliances it would save £800 million a year. Leaving appliances plugged in and switched on at the socket means they're still using energy - so turn TVs, games consoles and mobile phone chargers off at the mains to save yourself money.
• £140 million a year is wasted through leaving lights on in unused rooms, so always turn off the lights when you leave a room.
• The following appliances uses the following Watts when left on standby

  - Air Conditioner room/wall, 0.9W

  - Mobile phone charger On, charged, 2.24W; On, charging, 3.68W
  - Clock radio 2.01W
  - Computer Display CRT, Off, 0.8W; On 65.1W; Sleep 12.14W
  - Computer Display LCD, Off, 1.13W; On 27.61W; Sleep 1.38W
  - Desktop Computer On idle, 73.97W; Off, 2.84W; Sleep 21.13W 
  - Notebook Computer Fully On Charged, 29.48; Fully on, Charging, 44.28; Off, 8.9; Power supply only, 4.42; Sleep, 15.77
  - Furnace heating central Off 4.21W, On 339.71W
  - USB hub off 1.44, On 2.06
  - DSL Modem Off 1.37W, On 5.37
  - Cable Modem Off 3.84W; On 6.25W; Standby 3.85W
  - Inkjet printer Off 1.26W; Off 4.93W
  - Laser printer Off 1.58W; On 9.6W
  - Night Light Off 0.05W; On, 4.47
  - Cordless Phone Ready, Handset, 2.81W; Ready, no handset, 1.58W, Active, 1.9W; Off 0.898W
  - Scanner Off, 2.48W; On, 9.6W
  - Set-top Box DVR On, no recording 37.64W, On, recording, 29.29W; Off 36.68W
  - Set-top Box digital cable with DVR Not recording, TV Off, 44.63W; Not recording, TV On, 44.4W; Off by remote, 43.46W
  - Computer speakers On, no sound, 4.12W; Off, 1.79W
  - CD Player On, not playing, 8.62W; CD playing, 5.72W; Off 0.54
  - Television Off by remote, 3.06W; Off by switch, 2.88W
  - Radio On not playing, 9.48W; On playing, 9.92W; Off, 1.12;
  - Coffee maker off, 1.14W
  - Photocopier Off, 1.49W; On, 9.63W
  - DVD Player Off, 1.55W; On, not playing, 7.94W; On playing, 9.91W
  - Games Console Active, 26.98W; Off 1.01W; Ready, 23.34W
  - Microwave Oven Ready door closed, 3.08W; Ready door-open, 25.79W; Cooking 1433W
  - Answerphone Off, 2.01W; Ready, 2.25W

• Energy-saving light bulbs will last around 10 times longer than a standard bulb.
• They use up to 80 per cent less electricity than a standard bulb, but produce the same amount of light.
• If you fit all the lights in your house with energy saving bulbs and you could save around £37 a year and £590 over the lifetime of all of the bulbs.
• It is estimated that the average person in the UK consumes the equivalent of 12 trees a year. This present rate of world consumption is unsustainable and yet trees are vital to our life on earth.

• 1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees
• 1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees
• A "pallet" of copier paper (20-lb. sheet weight, or 20#) contains 40 cartons and weighs 1 ton. Therefore, 1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses 0.6 trees
• 1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets
• 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree
• 1 ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper (used for magazines like National Geographic and many others) uses a little more than 15 trees (15.36)
• 1 ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for newsmagazines and most catalogs) uses nearly 8 trees (7.68) (Source for all of above)
• The number of photocopiers in use in the UK is approaching the 1 million mark and laser printers have increased from 200,000 in 1989 to nearly 750,000

• 80.6m tonnes of printing and writing paper enters the waste stream each year in the UK -24% of total UK waste.

• Recycling one tonne of paper can save 7,000 gallons of water. It also saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, and 4,000 kilowatts of energy

• Fixing a dripping tap can save as much as 5000 litres a year - if everyone in the UK fixed their dripping taps we would save enough water to supply 120,000 for one day

• Vending machines in the UK dispense 3 billion polystyrene cups. A further 3 billion polystyrene cups originate from other sources, and together these cups use 24,000 tonnes of polystyrene annually.
• The UK produces 3 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. Approximately 85% is land filled, 8% incinerated and 7% recycled
• If you lined up all the polystyrene foam cups made in just 1 day they would circle the earth.
• Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.
• On a landfill site plastic can take as much as 500 years, possibly more, to decompose.

• Householders businesses and schools in the UK throw at least one million tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment away each year, and this figure is estimated to be growing by up to 80,000 tonnes annually.
• The processing of electronic waste in developing countries causes serious health and pollution problems because electronic equipment contains some very serious contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium and brominated flame retardants. Even in developed countries recycling and disposal of e-waste involves significant risk to workers and communities and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaching of material such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes. 
• A discarded printer cartridge thrown into a landfill can take up to 450 years to decompose.
• Seventy percent of used printer cartridges throughout the world are currently being thrown out
• In one year, if the world's discarded cartridges were stacked end-to-end; they would circle the earth over three times

• Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices (which must never fall lower than the market price), Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives.
• The FAIRTRADE Mark is an independent consumer label which appears on UK products as a guarantee that they have been certified against internationally agreed Fairtrade standards.  It shares internationally recognised Fairtrade standards with initiatives in 20 other countries, working together globally with producer networks as Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO). The Mark indicates that the product has been certified to give a better deal to the producers involved - it does not act as an endorsement of an entire company's business practices.
• The Fairtrade Foundation has licensed over 3,000 Fairtrade certified products for sale through retail and catering outlets in the UK.
• The following products can be Fairtrade certified: Bananas, cocoa, coffee, dried fruit, fresh fruit & fresh vegetables, honey, juices, nuts/oil, seeds/oil, quinoa, rice, spices, sugar, tea, wine, beauty products, cotton, cut flowers, ornamental plants and sports balls
• Jose, a fair trade banana producer in the Dominican Repuplic can now earn the sustainable price of $6.00 a box- currently a dollar more than the conventional market price - a big difference if you are selling over 100 boxes. Each box contain about 100 bananas
• Fairtrade Fortnight is 22 February - 7 March 2010.
• Half the vegetables and 95 per cent of the fruit eaten in the UK comes from beyond our shores.
• Increasingly, it arrives by plane - and air travel gives off more CO2 than any other form of transport. Agriculture and food account for nearly 30 per cent of goods trucked around Britain's roads and, according to a Government report in 2005, the resulting road congestion, accidents and pollution cost the country £9bn a year.
• The term 'food miles' was coined in the <1990s by Dr Tim Lang, professor of food policy at London's City University.
• Although air-freighted produce accounts for less than one per cent of total UK food miles, it is responsible for around 11 per cent of the total CO2 emissions from UK food transport. That's because transport by plane generates 177 times more greenhouse gases than shipping does, for example.
• Food transport is responsible for 25 per cent of the kilometres clocked up by HGVs on our congested roads. ll these journeys around Britain mean that HGVs transporting food transport are responsible for a quarter of CO2 emissions.The daily worldwide sales figures of biros exceed 14 million pens, and every single one of those will be in landfill for 50,000 years.

Each year we generate about 100 million tonnes of waste from households, commerce and industry. Glass, cans, plastic bottles can all be recycled. 

• On average the carbon emissions per person for a one km journey is 89g by bus, and 133g by car, making a saving of 44g if you go by bus. The average journey to work is 14km, so each journey saves on average (44x14) = 616g, or 0.616kg of carbon.
• Thirty minutes of activity a day will lower your risk of developing major chronic diseases.
• Doctors recommend walking 10,000 steps a day.This'll burn around 500 calories, depending on your weight and how fast you walk. As you need to burn 3,500 calories to lose 500g (1lb) of body fat, walking 10,000 steps a day will burn 500g (1lb) of body fat a week.
• Regular cyclists enjoy a fitness level equal to that of a person ten years younger.
• Cycling at least twenty miles a week reduces the risk of heart disease to less than half that for non-cyclists who take no other exercise
• If one third of all short car journeys were made by bike, national heart disease rates would fall by between 5 and 10 percent
• During rush-hour, a bicycle is about twice as fast as a car - good if you hate traffic jams.
  Bicycles require no road tax, no MOT, no insurance, no licensing, no breakdown recovery services, no parking tickets and above all no fuel bills (unless you count Mars bars).
• A good bicycle needs at most about £50-worth of maintenance a year - less if you do a bit yourself, and much less than a car.