Kitchens – I love mine and enjoy spending many hours in there making delicious soups and other treats. Many use lots of energy keeping them productive with freezers and cookers, but there are a number of ways of making them more friendly to the Earth.

FACT: The UK throw away 6,500 fridges a day. To help minimize this number keep it clean and defrost regularly. Only throw away when it is no longer usable. If you wish to downsize or upgrade, try selling it or giving it away for free.

One area of the house that can use so much energy is the kitchen; keeping things cool, heating things up and keeping everything clean enough to eat off.

A simple step to get started: when cooking on the hob, bring the pan to boiling then place a lid on top and turn the heat off. The food will continue to cook, at a slightly slower rate, but you will be using much less energy. Some people like their food cooked for longer periods, if you find that it’s not done enough for you, experiment and work out what suits you, maybe after it has boiled, leave the heat on low for an extra five minutes.

The same principle also applies to the oven, although the range of how to do this will differ dramatically with what you are cooking and how long you should cook it for. The oven will retain a lot of the heat, and electric ovens will continue to emit heat after they have been turned off. Meat and bread are probably not things to experiment with, but vegetables and food that are precooked before being made into a dish should be fine.

With both hob and oven cooking, it would be safe to turn the heat off five or ten minutes before serving with most foods.

Cooking in bulk has many uses. When cooking, do extra and put it in the freezer. It is more energy efficient to cook more of the same thing (and only reheat later) than to cook the same thing in smaller quantities twice or three times. It can also be more cost effective to buy the ingredients in bulk, and it will save an additional trip to the shops. Just think of the time you will save not having to stand over the cooker another night in a row.

Bulk cooking also helps with freezer running costs as a full freezer uses less energy than an empty one. Then when the freezer is full of all your lovely, homemade, frozen meals, you can enjoy a week off doing ‘the big shop’ while you empty the contents, (saving you money in the process). Once it’s empty, defrost, as this will also improve the energy consumption. While you are slowly stocking it with your own range of ready meals keep ice cubes stocks high and the odd loaf of bread for emergencies.

When cleaning, be aware of your water usage. If you have a dishwasher, only put it on when it is a full load. If it is just a couple of little bits a small bowl of water is better. If using the dishwasher is the way forward, scrape plates, bowls, pots and pans before you put them in. There is no need to rinse or prewash. If you wash up in a bowl, rinse all messy items in a small bowl of cold water (not necessarily fresh water) to remove the majority of sauces and crumbs, and the bowl you use to wash up it will be cleaner for longer, saving a second, or even third, bowl of fresh hot water.

In reference to last months issue, when doing any kind of cleaning, be aware of the chemicals you use, as whatever you put in the water to clean, gets washed away into the environment.