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Home and the environment

Each household in the UK creates around six tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That's six times the weight of the rubbish a household throws away in a year. It's also double the carbon dioxide emissions that the average car produces in a year.

Cutting carbon dioxide emissions in the UK

The average household could save around 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO 2) a year by making their home energy efficient.

If everyone with gas central heating installed a new condensing boiler, we'd cut emissions by 12.5 million tonnes. We'd also save around £1.9 billion per year on our energy bills and enough energy to heat over 3.3 million homes for a year.

If everyone installed cavity wall insulation, we'd cut CO 2 emissions by 4.6 million tonnes, enough to fill 1 million hot air balloons.

If every home that could had 270mm loft insulation we'd save 3.8 million tonnes of CO 2, the same as the annual emissions of around 650,000 homes.

If everyone put an insulation jacket on their hot water tank, we'd cut CO 2 emissions by 900,000 tonnes - enough to fill around 182,000 hot air balloons.

If everyone in the UK installed just one energy saving light bulb, we'd save enough CO 2 to fill the Albert Hall over 1,900 times.

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