The Environment

Keeping It Local

Serving a relatively small area with a high density of people allows computerSorter to make many visits on foot or cycle, only resorting to the car when needing to pick up equipment for repair, or the weather's particularly wet.

Sometimes The Car

...is the only option. It is fuelled by pure vegetable oil (conversion by Vegburner) which is a far greener source of energy than fossil fuels.

Electricity Supply

The computerSorter office's electricity is supplied by Ecotricity, who supply wind generated electricity to UK homes and businesses through the national grid. Their electricity costs the same as other suppliers, yet they invest heavily in alternate, clean sources of electricity. Switching to them is painless.

A recycled solar panel charges an old car battery which is used for charging smaller devices like mobile phone, GPS, MP3 player etc.

Rechargeable NiMh batteries are used whenever possible instead of regular AA or AAA batteries (almost everywhere but the smoke alarm). As well as being better for the environment, good ones last longer on a full charge than an alkaline battery and they work out much cheaper.

Paper

...is avoided whenever possible. Junk mailers are contacted and asked to remove address from mailing list, contacted the Post Office and asked to , registered with the Mailing Preference Service (see This Daily Mail article for more info on packaging is reused whenever possible. All paper and card is recycled.