A new booklet by Plus Property gives useful tips on saving energy

EARTH ALERT

Green forward

A new booklet by Plus Property gives useful tips on saving energy

USNISA SUKHSVASTI

We keep talking about recycling our used items instead of throwing them away. Sometimes it's easier said than done. What on earth do you do with used mobile phones, computer screens, bicycles or school uniforms?

A new booklet, Green Forward, published by Plus Property has a useful section on where you can send your used items.

- Wheelchairs, crutches, walkers and other equipment for the handicapped: Ban Nontapum Home for Children with Disabilities, Pakkred, Nonthaburi. Call 02-583-8396, 02-583-7999, or visit http://www.nontapum.com/.

- Computer monitors, keyboards, mouse: Wisuthikhun Foundation, Chatuchak. Call 02-941-5588 - 90, or visit http://www.wsk.or.th/.

- Old clothes: Foundation for Rural Youth (FRY), Bang Bon. Call 02-416-8073/4, or visit http://www.fry1985.org/.

- Used school uniforms: Mirror Foundation's Second Hand Clothing Programme, Chiang Rai. Call 05-373-7412/3, or visit http://www.bannok.com/2hands/.

- Old bicycles: Thai Cycling Club, Pathumwan. Call 02-612-5510/1, 02-612-4747, or visit http://www.thaicycling .com/.

The booklet, printed on recycled paper in cool shades of yellow and green, and illustrated by cartoonist Patrida Prasarnthong, is part of Plus Property's corporate environment and social responsibility policy, where it tries to instil environmental awareness among its staff, followed by its homeowners. The book also serves to share its ideas with the public.

Contents in the book are divided into five main chapters:

1. Tips for greening the home, broken down into what you can do in different rooms, with bits of useful information like "The standby mode on your TV and stereo, DVD, VCD and computer uses electricity constantly, adding up to a whopping 4,000 baht per year unnecessarily. Do you know? If everyone unplugged unused electric items, you will help reduce up to 29 million tonnes of carbon per person per year."

2. Postcards from customers on green tips.

3. Green tips from business alliances.

4. How to green your home.

5. Green tips from Plus executives.

The book is not for sale, but free copies are available by logging into http://www.plus.co.th/greenforward/.

One of our readers, Jeremy Colson, sent us his tip on saving electricity. "I have a UBC satellite decoder on top of my TV. It uses about 15 watts of electricity per hour, or 360 watts per 24 hours, which is 131,400 watts or 131.4KW per year. That's quite a lot of electricity. However, I only switch on the decoder when I watch TV, which is about two or maybe three hours a day. I reckon I am saving about 115KW per year. Oh, and by the way, I pay six baht per unit of electricity, so I am also saving 690 baht a year, but that's not as important as reducing my carbon footprint. One more thing. UBC has more than 500,000 subscribers. If every subscriber switched off their decoders when they weren't watching TV, Thailand could save about 5.75 million watts every year. Now, that really is a lot of electricity, and as we all know, electricity in Thailand comes from burning gas, oil or coal, which produces a lot of greenhouse gas."

How are you helping to reduce your carbon footprint? Share your eco-friendly activities with us by emailing usnisas@bangkok post.co.th.