Forget the Lightbulb Tax Get Swapping

In a response to the UK government recent proposal of a light bulb tax. Internet ecopreneurs are helping the environment by giving people a forum to trade unwanted goods for something more useful.

(PRWEB) July 26, 2006 -- In the month that the UK government has declared a light bulb tax in an attempt to lower household carbon emissions, a more effective energy conservation strategy is being championed by budding internet ecopreneurs.

The internet swap site is starting to gain momentum amongst the cyber community providing a way for people to gain useful goods whilst helping to reduce the burden on the environment.

Such sites provide a portal where people with surplus or unused goods can trade items for something they may find more useful.

Colin Paterson a founder of one such site www.eswapit.com says, “In the UK we are dumping millions of tons of useable goods into landfill sites or burning them in council incinerators. It is my goal and the goal of many other like minded people to provide a free platform to encourage the reuse of such goods. Many people do not realise that encouraging reuse is more environmentally sound than recycling in most cases. As the energy involved in the recycling process and transportation of the goods can be staggering, let alone what you do with the waste left over from the recycling process itself. However I will state whether you reuse or recycle it is always a much better option than producing goods from scratch.”

In his opinion Paterson states that Governments are missing a trick he says:

“To encourage people to conserve energy you have to make conservation fun, that’s what I have set out to do with my site. We have all read about the guy with the paperclip who eventually traded it up to a house. Well that sort of thing provokes an interest in everyone and if we can harvest that interest it has to be beneficial to the environment. You can’t try to do it via taxing people, it just won’t work we have already seen it with the increased road duty on 4x4 vehicles in the UK, people who want these type of goods can usually afford the tax.”

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