Sheffield residents urged to 'go green' on Connect to Your Council Day » Environment » 24dash.com

Sheffield City Council is encouraging its residents to ‘Go Green’ today by supporting a national ‘Connect to your Council Day’. 

The day aims to remind local people that they can easily access information on green issues and an expanding range of services by using the environmently-friendly method of logging on to the council’s website.

Residents who contact their councils via the internet rather than travelling could help save nationally over 14,000 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 5,362 return air flights from Heathrow to Malaga each year. 

As part of Connect to your Council Day, organised by Communities & Local Government, Sheffield Council is inviting residents to check the environmental impact of their own lifestyles by following the link on its homepage – www.sheffield.gov.uk - their carbon footprint on the CO2 calculator.

The carbon calculator will show how people, their family members and friends, fare on the eco-scale by answering a series of questions based on everyday lives.

As well as finding out how green – or not – they are, residents are being challenged to go about reducing their carbon footprint by making simple lifestyle changes, which can have a positive effect on the environment whilst actually saving them money. 

For example, turning a thermostat down by one degree could reduce carbon emissions and cut fuel bills by up to 10 per cent. More care in planning grocery shopping helps cut the annual £424 of food waste of the average UK household whilst benefiting the environment by reducing methane levels.

It would also lessen the harmful environmental impacts from producing, packaging and transporting food. This week (May 4-10) is National Compost Week and tips on getting garden-wise and putting resources back into the earth can be found on line via the council at www.sheffield.gov.uk/greenhomes or check out www.compostawarenessweek.org.uk  

Sheffield Council offers a range of environmental services on its website. Whether it be paying for a brown garden waste bin, or reporting dog fouling, fly-tipping, and streets that need cleaned, it is all just a click away.

The Connect to your Council Day is part of Communities and Local Government’s Take-Up Campaign, which aims to encourage citizens to put themselves in control by accessing their local authority services online - anytime, anywhere.

At the touch of a button, residents can ‘report it, pay for it and do it online’. Anything from paying their council tax or applying for planning permission, to reporting anti-social behaviour or smoking in public places.