♥ Home Solar Panels- The Importance

Would you like to reduce your expenses at home, particularly electric bills? Well, it would be a nice idea for you to invest in home solar panels. Decades ago, this has been introduced, but only few took their way into it. Not until economic crisis, people already deemed that home solar panels could be truly a great help to make their expenses a bit lesser than what they are used to.

Keep in mind, the thermal energy comes out for free and the sin is the only way to have it. So, why not make your own way to use it and help yourself minimize your expenses? Actually, various solar panels could be used in order to achieve home solar panels. These special panels are comprised of the semi-conductors that are working with the solar cells. There will be a huge area of P-N junction in diode created. Moreover, when the solar panels have the contact in the solar energy, it could now produce electrical energy. Using solar energy could get mixers, geysers, and heaters to work. As a result, you could find radical reduction into your monthly bill for electricity.

On the other hand, the economical do-it-yourself kits are always available and only involve a reasonable small investment. Such kit is capable of assembling the kit on its own and significantly reduces the investment. Panel repair is facilitated once you kept some essential tools at hand. Usually, these kits supply the entire items needed for the installation. These kits have all of the small items like poles, screws, bolts; solder gun, plywood, meters and the complete manual.

Installing home solar panels could surely reduce 90% of electric expenses. You could surely drop off the grid by simply installing different DIY solar panels. You will certainly notice the change right after the week you have installed it.

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♥ Environmental Management's Role

Environmental management involves the management of all components of the bio-physical environment, both living (biotic) and non-living (a biotic). The main role of environmental management is to manage the productive use of natural resources without reducing their efficiency and quality. It is a practice by which environmental resources and its health are regulated.

In order to utilize our natural resources properly without reducing the productivity and natural quality, we need to know what kind of damages have been done by human to the nature as well as the preventive measures for the upcoming disasters.

An undeniable truth is, even our billion years old earth is now failing to absorb the damages caused by human activities.

Many environmental issues have aroused drastically from the last decade such as green house effect, ozone layer depletion, melting of ice bergs, serious climatic changes etc which create a disastrous path to reduce our earth's life span. To avoid or prevent these sorts of natural issues, environmental studies play a major role in order to create an environmental awareness which helps to maintain the natural resources healthy and stable.

The environmental management studies or programs helps us to know well about the major and minor environmental issues on the earth, so that we can find the solution to fix it or we can prevent it well ahead, "Prevention is better than cure". In order to know about the environmental issues what made by humans, there are many public and private organizations have come up with environmental educational centers, environmental programs, ecological case studies etc, These studies will helps us to learn in depth knowledge about the ecological damage as well as sustainable environmental damage control in a better way.

Environmental studies which enable professionals to take steps and set up a system to have a positive effect on the environment would be the need of hour now.

Such environmental management certifications and training programs are offered by some reputable institutions to train professionals to engage in activities to make good impact on earth.

The important role of these qualified environmental managers in workplaces is to ensure that environmental auditing, hazardous materials management and environmental assessment have been set up as regular exercises.

However taking care of earth is the primary responsibility of every human in any kind of profession.

Let's start thinking and save our Environment!

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♥ Staying Compliant: Cawleys' Guide

Any operator running 24-7 needs to keep a close eye on drivers' hours, but Milton Keynes-based Cawleys goes that extra mile to prevent slip-ups.

Tachographs are analysed on the spot so traffic controllers have all the necessary information to debrief each driver at the end of every shift. The time lapse between starting the shift and driving off is also scrutinised to see if drivers had sufficient time to complete their daily walk around vehicle check.

Complete compliance

Transport manager Dave Buckingham (pictured above right) says: "We feel it's a very important part of the day to know exactly what the driver has been doing and has complied with everything we do."

Cawleys' fleet ranges from 7.5-tonners for collecting office waste through to liquid tankers that deal with chemical and toxic waste. It operates throughout London, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

Although controllers spend around five minutes debriefing each of Cawley's 120 drivers, Buckingham feels it is time well spent. "If the driver did not do the daily checks, for instance, and went out with a bald tyre which caused an accident, the costs would not come into it."

The personal touch is also applied when communicating new legislation. "The biggest change for us was the drivers' hours revision three years ago," recalls Buckingham. "We had to review our drivers' working week because they were all working five-and-a-half days and could no longer work every Saturday."

Daily debriefs were extended to around 20 minutes so the changes could be fully explained on a one-to-one basis. This was backed up with a booklet, but Buckingham is wary of relying solely on printed information to communicate legal changes to drivers. "It could go into the next bin they walk past or into a drawer at home."

New legislation is also covered during toolbox talks delivered by the company's in-house driver trainer Rob Jones. Buckingham describes him as an important contact point for drivers who feel uncertain about any point of law. "I don't know why but, even in our culture, some drivers don't like asking the office. Rob is a former driver himself and is at the right comfort level for them to ask him questions."

Rewarding good drivers

Cawleys has no formal incentive scheme to raise driver productivity for fear of compromising its stance on compliance.

Buckingham says that with skip lorries in particular, some drivers are invariably quicker at completing jobs than others. As a result, they end up doing more work.

He feels that offering a clearly defined reward for this could result in some areas of compliance, such as keeping within speed limits, being ignored.

Instead, depot managers reward drivers on an ad hoc basis. "He will obviously see what work the driver has done on a daily basis and also what the vehicle has earned for that week. We don't put a figure on it. Drivers are aware of it, but they're not chasing it."

Cawley's top tips

Show employees what their responsibilities are and the thinking behind them by using clear, effective communication methods.

Ensure systems and procedures are realistic and workable and review them frequently.

Keep records up-to-date and publicise ones such as accident rates to help to raise awareness.

Persevere with any changes because the benefits will not always be realised immediately.

Prepare drivers for new assignments by warning them of potential hazards before they go out on the road.

For more compliance advice and fleet management best practice, go to our Compliance page and sign up for our monthly bulletin, in association with Tachodisc and TomTom Business Solutions.

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♥ Money Saving Ideas for Saving Your Home Energy

Many factors to save are facing us on a daily basis. Save money, save our planet, save the environment, save energy to name but a few.

But how many of us really take notice of these cries for saving. Many of us try to save money from our salaries, but with the low interest rates, how helpful is this?

In today’s slow economical world, there is one sure fire way you can save money on your household heating bills, along with helping the environment. C’mon, we all have to do out bit don’t we?

I work in the UK as an Energy Assessor covering Hampshire. During the past 3 years, I have seen firsthand how a great deal of money can be saved by making a few simple and cost affective changes to your home and in the way that you live on a day to day basis.

The first thing we all need to do is to increase the loft insulation (if you have one) to at least 270mm. This is really cheap to do, is very quick to facilitate and will stop your precious heat from escaping through the roof. If you feel inclined to, you can also insulate between the rafters for added protection. Just remember to leave gaps near the soffits to allow for air circulation as you could cause condensation if you don’t.

Next, if you have cavity walls, look at having these filled professionally to stop any heat being lost through them. If you have solid walls, you could look at having internal or external insulation applied, subject to any listing consents. From 1983 onwards, the building regulations stated that all properties built thereafter should have cavity wall insulation. From experience, this isn’t always the case and some builders have neglected this! Double check beforehand.

If you have an open fireplace which isn’t often used, consider using a chimney balloon. These are very cheap to buy, come in various sizes and can be inserted into the chimney to stop and down draughts or losing heat up through the fire place.

Another worthwhile exercise is to change all of your lights / light bulbs to low energy bulbs. The laws have recently changed and you can now only buy low energy bulbs. However, all too many homes are still clinging on to their old bulbs because they are brighter. They’re not! Today’s low energy bulbs are very bright and as time goes on they will get better and better. Much money can be saved using these bulbs not only through the electricity used, but they also last 10 times longer than our ‘old’ ones.

If you have a hot water cylinder with a jacket with your heating system, upgrade the jacket to at least 100mm to increase the insulation. Turn down the thermostat a little to save some energy. If you haven’t got a thermostat on your cylinder - then get one!

Whilst on the subject of heating. Ensure all of your radiators have Thermostatic Radiator Valves and turn them down or off if the room is unused. Ensure you have a room thermostat and again keep this low and finally, if you have a non condensing boiler, consider upgrading it to a condensing boiler.

In order to keep this article short, there are so many other ways to save money around the home. I will leave you with the thought of switching off electrical appliance at the mains when not in use. Items on standby, including the phone charger can use quite a bit of power.

Now, stop wasting money and protect our planet for the next generation.

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♥ Non Woven Bags China Made

Non woven bags China are one of the countries that supply these bags. Several of the Asian countries produce the non woven bags because their manufacturing process is fast, cheap and quickly shipped. Non woven bags China produces them by the hundreds of thousands. When non woven bags China ships the finished product it will most likely be shipped from a seaport in China to any number of major shipping seaports in the countries that have ordered and use the non woven bag.

These non woven bags are made form a polyethylene, a polypropylene, recycled plastic bottles or other recycled materials. When you see the material talked about you will generally see the first letters used such as PP, or PE or OPP film laminate. You may also see PET/rPET which is either polyethylene terephthalate or r for recycled PET. When the bag is made from PE it is a co-poly merged with ethylene. In reality PE is not biodegradable because it will not disintegrate in landfills for years. But the material is a very sturdy fabric that can be re-used multiple times over many years. Also the PE is often recycled and reused again to make more material. So in this sense it is eco friendly.

When a retailer or supplier orders these bags they can get them in many different forms such as beverage cooler bags or even made into aprons. The bags can have a zipper closure or a fold over flap with a snap. They can be open with a slit cut out for a handle. Since they are not a woven material it will not ravel. Often they are ordered with a webbing handle so it can be carried. Sometimes the handles are longer so it can be carried from the shoulder. The buyer can chose many designs for these bags when they order them. The bags can be ordered as high volume orders or even a low volume order. The bags can come with an optional binding material which makes them look more expensive. If they have the OPP film laminate they may have brilliant and colorful pictures or advertising on them. This is due to the fact that the material takes color very easily.

There are other forms that these non woven bags come in such as a higher and classier looking bag that has a metallic laminate over the material. This bright shiny metallic laminate gives the bags a wonderful shine and makes them look quite expensive. The metallic laminate coats the non woven material and then they can be printed on also.

Medical companies use this type of non woven bag made with a liner that when filled with a frozen ice pack can keep diabetic or other medicines cool on the patient’s way home. They are used for advertising that particular brand of medicine and often have an advertisement laminated under clear plastic so the medicine can be re-ordered easily. These bags are used for promotions, as gift bags, for shopping and for advertising also.

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