news release
    22nd December 2004

1. Pick up 1 bit of litter for every good ride - as a thank you. If you surf, windsurf, bodyboard, kayak, kite surf, sail or do anything else on the water and get 1 good ride, thank the sea or river by picking up 1 piece of marine litter. If you have 2 good rides pick up 2 pieces of litter and so on. Many hands make light work.......

2. Put a water saver like HIPPO in your toilet. We don’t mean the Hippopotamus amphibius, (whose name means river horse), that frequent the rivers, lakes, swamps, and wallows of Africa, but HIPPO, the water saving device. A HIPPO will save between 2.3-3.5 litres of water per flush ( www.hippo-the-watersaver.co.uk ) . A house brick does the same job, they take up space in the cistern so the cistern takes less water to refill. An average cistern holds 9 litres, if there is less space in the cistern they can not hold as much water or flush as much water. The ball cock will stop your toilet from overflowing. Not only you be helping the environment but you should be reducing your water bills as well, everyone’s a winner!!!!

3. Bag it and bin it! The sewerage system is not meant to deal with cotton buds, sanitary towels, tampons, condoms, razors and all the other toiletries that make their way into the system. They can cause blockages and overflows and sorting this mess out pushes up your water bill. Bag them and bin them!!!!!

4. Change your electricity supplier!! SAS will be teaming up with an electrical company that sources all of their electricity from clean and safe renewable sources such as windfarms. They will charge you exactly the same as your current electricity supplier does, so it won’t cost you any extra, but you can save the Earth. This company has promised to donate £15 to SAS for everyone who signs up to them from our link, so if you do that you can help us out as well. Climate change is everyone’s buzz word at the moment, there is good reason for this. CO2 levels are far higher than they have been in the last 500,000 years and this increase is from our industrial revolution. Power stations, cars and industry have been burning fossil fuels that produce CO2 as a by-product for too long. The impacts from climate change are having an increasingly negative effect on the water environment. Make the change, do your part.

5. Turn lights off!!! Change the way you use electricity, turn lights off when you leave the room (unless someone is still in there), and turn the TV/video/DVD player/stereo off at the wall. Leaving electrical devices on stand by uses loads of electricity, costing you and the Earth!!!

6. Get on ya bike mate. Cycle, carshare or use public transport to replace 1 car journey a week. Walk journeys that are close by, making both you and the Earth healthier.

7. Recycle paper, plastic, metal, cardboard....... Most local councils have a recycling scheme or if they don’t there will probably have a private firm doing a collection close to you. Non recycled rubbish generally ends up in landfills. Landfills near the sea and rivers can be a source of marine litter costing councils to pick the litter up and costing turtles, whales, dolphins and sea birds their lives.

8. Turn taps off when brushing your teeth. In between rinsing your toothbrush and brushing your teeth turn the tap off. This is minimal effort but can go a long way to save water. Did you know that less than 1% of drinking quality tap water is used for cooking and drinking.

9. Reuse your plastic bags. More than 8 million plastic bags are given out in Britain every year – that’s 130 for each man, woman and child. They are hard to recycle and many end up in landfills, so can easily end up in the marine environment. Once in the sea they can resemble jellyfish and can be eaten by turtles, whales, dolphins and other marine animals.

10. Use your power as consumers!!!! Don’t buy the product that is packaged with loads of plastic and companies will respond to your buying habits. Don’t get the same washing powder that your mum used to get! Buy one that has the minimum impact on the environment. Use shops and banks that have a social and environmental conscience such as the Co-op. As consumers you can change the world, be careful with what you buy, where the T-shirt was made and by whom. Are they environmentally friendly???

11. Persuade a friend to make these resolutions.

12. Make sure you join SAS/rejoin SAS.

13. If your a smoker and don't intend to give up over the new year, make sure you don't drop any butts.  Get a free SAS butt bin online and make sure that your cigarettes butts don't harm the environment and animals.

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