The cost of a barrel of oil has dipped to just $59.32 a barrel the lowest price seen since February 2007, a massive fall down from the record high of $147 per barrel this July.

Two of Britain’s biggest supermarkets yesterday sparked off a new battle in the petrol price war by promising to cut pump prices by 3p a litre to a new low of 94.9p. Both Sainsbury’s and Asda have upped the game at the pumps, with the former announcing price cuts to the 94.9p per litre of unleaded at the majority of its stores, and the latter countering by promising 94.9p nationwide on unleaded petrol and 107.9p on diesel.

This takes petrol prices down to their lowest since they began creeping up last September, and comes after an announcement that OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) would be cutting its output by 1.5m barrels a day to 27.3m barrels starting this November – in a matter of weeks – in a bid of halt the falling price of oil.

Petrol prices have finally crept to just under a litre – 99.9p in most places, but in some garages throughout the UK, the price of unleaded petrol is as low as 95.9p. Diesel drivers have less to be cheerful about, with the cost of their fuel still hovering over the £1 mark at around £1.15 in most garages – it has been noted that there’s roughly a 15p price discrepancy between the two.

The prices are significantly lower that they were last December, where the cost of unleaded soared to over £1.20 a litre, and diesel rocketed to well over £1.30. Supermarkets have been leading the way in the price cut, with Asda and Sainsbury’s dropping their pump prices from £1.04 a litre for petrol and £1.10 for diesel, and Morrisons following suit.

(more…)

My hometown is really behind the times in more ways than one. Bear in mind that this is 2008, and the local council have only just decided to start handing out Save-a-Flush bags to residents – these are permeable plastic bags that contain silicone gel crystals and sit at the bottom of a cistern.

Save-a-Flush bags have been around for a while now, and were introduced to help households with toilets that had cisterns installed between 1993-1999 (usually with a storage capacity of 7-9 litres). They work by displacing water from the cistern which would otherwise be wasted with each flush; the crystals absorb the water from the cistern and after six hours, swell up to maximum size. A fully expanded Save-a-Flush bag – also known as a Cistern Bag or a Waterman – will apparently displace about one litre of water, which equates to about £10 a year off of your rates if you pay for your water on a meter.

(more…)