Swapping ideas

“Swapping” ideas for Great Big Green Week 2025. Thanks to Miriam Sampson for these.

The Theme for the Week is Let’s Swap Together for Good

You can upload the swaps you are making to the Great Big Green Week website

Everyday Lifestyle Swaps:

There are many areas of our lives in which we can make a simple swap which will benefit the environment and help reduce climate change.

Travel: Transport accounted for 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK in 2022. (Gov.UK)

• Could you go into town by bus instead of taking the car, or, if you are able, cycle.
• If you are taking a holiday abroad could you travel by train instead of by air?

Food: Agriculture accounted for 31% of GHG emissions globally in 2020, and most of this comes from industrial animal farming. Transporting our food also contributes to GHG emissions.

• Could you swap a meat-based meal for a plant-based one every week (or even every day)?
• Could you buy locally-grown vegetables from a farm shop or box delivery service, or grow your own instead of buying from the supermarket?
• Try to buy fruit and veg that is in season and grown in the UK instead of produce that is shipped from all over the world.
• There are lots of ideas and recipes on the Love Food, Hate Waste website

Packaging: UK households are throwing away an estimated 1.7 million pieces of plastic packaging a week, that’s 90 billion pieces per year! (Grrenpeace) Plastic is made from fossil fuels, and plastic waste creates waste mountains and pollutes rivers and seas. If it is incinerated it releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

• Could you get your milk delivered in glass bottles instead of buying it in plastic bottles from the supermarket? ‘Milk and More’ and “The Modern Milkman” both deliver in this area.
• Buy your fruit and veg loose at the supermarket or greengrocer instead of in plastic packaging. Take your own net bags or paper bags if necessary.
• Take a reusable water bottle when you go to the gym or take a walk or cycle ride, instead of a single use plastic one.
• Try using solid shampoo and conditioner bars instead of plastic bottles of shampoo and conditioner. You can buy them from Lush shops or from ‘gruum’ and other suppliers online.

Clothes: The fashion industry accounts for about 10% of global carbon emissions. Much “fast fashion” ends up in landfill.

• Instead of buying something new could you mend what you already have, buy a “pre-loved” garment from a charity shop or get it second-hand from a website like “Oxfam online” or ‘Vinted’?

Household items: Many household appliances and other household items end up in landfill.

• Instead of buying newcould you get your broken item repaired at the Repair Cafe in the Cascades? Or you could use their “Library of Things” to borrow something you only need to use occasionally.
• When you no longer need a household item could you place it on the Portsmouth  ‘Freecycle’ website for someone else to use, instead of throwing it away? You might be able to find something you need there as well, instead of buying new.

Garden: Many garden fertilisers are made from gas or its by-products. Watering the garden with a hose in the summer uses a lot of water of drinking quality. Lawns do not encourage biodiversity. Swaps you could make in the garden include:

• Use organic fertilisers, e.g. seaweed- based.
• Install a water butt to collect water from your roof and use that to water the garden.
• Use wastewater from your bath or shower (install a diverter valve or put a bucket in the corner of the shower) or saved from your kitchen (e.g. water used to boil an egg or to rinse salad), to water plants.
• Let grass grow long in part of your lawn, let nettles grow or plant wildflowers to encourage bees, butterflies and other insects

Your search engine.

Did you know that you could swap Google for Ecosia – an excellent website which uses its profits to plant trees? Check Ecosia out here.

Larger long-term swaps:

Energy: Do you buy your electricity from a “green” energy supplier? If not, it’s easy to switch. Good Energy, Ecotricity and Octopus all get their electricity from renewable sources.

Banking and savings: All the ‘Big 5’ high street banks invest in fossil fuels. If you don’t want your money to be used in that way the Co-op bank or Nationwide building society are better options.