A recent article in The Independent highlighted the fact that the world is on track for a 6C rise in temperature by the end of the century and another news item claimed that there are now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world's oceans, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year. So what can we do to help?

Reducing the amount of electricity, gas and petrol we use can help significantly help contribute to the environment as well as recycling, reducing the water that we consume and minimizing the waste that we generate.

In addition, buying eco-friendly products will also help bring down the overall carbon footprint that we create; a good example around the house being the use of plastic bags that only take 18 months to totally biodegrade and buying reusable shopping bags as opposed to using conventional plastic bags and continually getting carriers from the supermarket made of plastics that can take a generation or longer to decompose fully.

Did you also know that 22% of all insecticides and 20% of all pesticides in the world are used in the production of cotton. Sourcing organically grown cotton will significantly reduce the impact these chemicals make to environment and ecological balance in the places where cotton is produced.

On a lighter note, there was an intriguing BBC news item about the gardening staff at the National Trust property, Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, who have introduced a 'pee bale' for staff to use when relieving themselves. The idea is that when they need to spend a penny, they urinate on bales of straw which are then in turn added to the compost heap helping the process happen more quickly.

Maybe you don't need to go that far, although the choice is yours - but what are you going to do to do 'your bit' for the environment and help you and your family become more eco-friendly?