Dump energy-hungry tumble dryers this summer, says CofE advisor

Now summer is on the horizon and the temperature is soaring, the Church of England's Environmental Adviser, David Shreeve, is calling for households to switch off their energy-hungry tumble dryers, and, instead, dry their clothes on good, old-fashioned clothes lines.

He makes the environment-friendly plea in the latest edition of 'People and Places', a podcast series profiling a wide range of people who work in today's Church of England.

When prompted for practical energy-saving advice that anyone could employ, he replies: "I think my tip would be for everybody to make sure if they don't have any to go out and buy some clothes pegs - because I think more and more we should use the benefits of the environment, and I do think tumble-dryers should be turned off and a lot more clothes put out in the sunshine to dry, and that would save an awful lot of energy."

Co-founder of the Conservation Foundation in the 1980s, David Shreeve and his team supported some the Church of England's early moves towards greater environmental responsibility.

"It made me realise that the Church should be involved in environmental issues," he says on the podcast, acknowledging that although it took some time to mobilise the Church in these matters, "people really do see the links now between faith and the environment."

For the Church of England, an umbrella project, called 'Shrinking the Footprint', was devised in 2006, in response to General Synod's realisation that the Church did not know the impact of its own environmental 'footprint'.

"Nobody knew," David adds, "until we did our first stage - which was measuring our 'footprint', which was to try and find the total energy used in 16,000 churches and the diocesan offices and bishops' houses."

During this mammoth exercise, the project was augmented with a useful website to help the Church reduce energy consumption at www.shrinkingthefootprint.cofe.anglican.org

Recorded in Kensington Gardens, the full interview with David Shreeve is available on the latest 'People and Places' podcast, which also features an interview with Harrow-based pioneer youth minister and author Cris Rogers, and Ealing-based General Synod member Elnora Mann.

The podcast series has been produced in association with Premier Christian Radio, and available online at www.cofe.anglican.org/podcast and www.premierradio.org.uk/programmes/peopleandplaces (and via iTunes).