If you fall asleep reading this chapter tonight, you’ll be able to start living out of it tomorrow morning. I’ve set it out in more or less the order that people around me do the things described in the tip. Get up, put on the kettle, head for the bathroom, open up the house, take the dog for a walk …. You get the picture.

Not all tips are created equal, in fact, the first one is described as a no brainer. Each tip, though, addresses a specific challenge. Where you go, how you get there, what you buy there.

Quite a few of the tips here are concerned with daily or impulse purchases.

The influence that you have as a consumer is considerable. If you buy only those things that help save the planet, you encourage industry, commerce and government to supply only those things to save the planet.

One of the primary challenges we face is the amount of stuff we throw away. Funnily enough, its directly related to the amount of stuff we buy. Buying less stuff is a ‘necessary condition’ for saving the planet.

If you only had a limited amount of some resource, say folding money, would you give it to someone so they could wrap their garbage in it? Nevertheless that’s what we collectively do when we buy a can of drink or any other packaged goods.

Buying better stuff also pops up in this chapter. Items that are designed to last only a short time gobble up the energy used to make them and vanish. In the process they create waste as well.

It is not hard to act on these considerations, but it does require some forethought. You will need to plan ahead to follow most of these suggestions.