So what type of low energy bulb should you buy?
Both CFL light bulbs (low energy light bulbs) and LED light bulbs offer substantial energy savings. LED bulbs offer the greater saving overall using less energy and lasting longer at 60,000 hours, however a greater initial investment is required. In addition alternative fittings may be required and at present they only provide directional lighting.
With improvements in LED’s making them more and more viable, they will be the choice of the future, but for now we would recommend choosing CFL bulbs. The energy savings are still very good and although they have a lesser life span at 6,000-15,000 hours, they are much cheaper and can directly replace your current bulbs which only last 1,000 hours, helping the environment and your pocket straight away.

Will just swapping light bulbs make a difference?
By swapping a normal bulb to an energy saving bulb you could cut energy wastage by three quarters and save £9 on your electricity bill. It might seem like a small change, but if every home in the UK changed just 3 light bulbs, enough energy would be saved to light the UK’s street lamps.
But don’t energy saving light bulbs use more energy when first turned on, therefore wasting more energy if switching lights on and off?
Carbon Footprint carried out an in-house investigation and found that if anything low energy bulbs used slightly less energy when first switched on, gradually building up to a continual wattage (which only took a couple of seconds).

CFL Low energy light bulbs contain mercury, is that safe?
Low energy bulbs do contain a small amount of mercury which is not at all dangerous when contained within the bulb. The bulbs should be disposed of responsibly and can either be collected in your normal household waste bin or can be recycled at your local council’s Household Waste and Recycling Centre or at collection points provided by some light bulb retailers.
Should you break a bulb in the house, it is advised that the broken material is swept up using a damp cloth and both the debris and cloth put into a double layered plastic bag and taken to a collection point for disposal. The room should then be well ventilated for at least 15 minutes.

Reduce the use of electrical appliances
When replacing appliances, try to buy appliances which use less power and have a good energy rating
Turn things off when not in use
Replace standard light bulbs with their low energy equivalents

Making Aluminium cans from old ones uses one twelfth of the energy to make them from raw materials.
For glass bottles, 315kg of CO2 is saved per tonne of glass recycled after taking into account the transportation and processing
Making bags from recycled polythene takes one third the Sulphur Dioxide and half the Nitrous Oxide, than making them from scratch

Everyone should try and re-use products for as long as feasibly possible. It is amazing how often people buy certain products and use them only once or twice, even though they can be re-used many times. For instance can you think of some items of clothing you have worn only once?

The production of the packaging uses additional energy
The extra volume and weight will have to be transported (by lorries, aircraft, ships etc.)
The packaging will be thrown out and will need to be collected from your home by a large waste disposal truck
Packaging then takes more space at land fill sites