First thing you have to decide is if you want a regular compost heap or if you’re going to go for a wormery or a bokashi compost.  A regular compost heap can have all your uncooked fruit and veg added, along with any garden waste you get - weeds, grass cuttings, prunings from plants and trees etc.  A bokashi compost means you can add cooked food waste including meat as well as all the normal things.  However, with a bokashi set up, you have to buy your bokashi powder and remember to add it regularly.  A wormery is generally much smaller and good if you’ve only got a very small space like a yard rather than a garden, as it tends not to smell and so doesn’t matter if it’s right by the back door.

Once you’ve made your decision which you’re going to go for, then you need to decide where you’re going to place it.  Remember with a bokashi set up you get a liquid forming that means you want to set it up on something (a bit like you would with a waterbutt) so you can pop a bucket or watering can under the tap to let you use all that lovely juice for feeding your plants.  With a compost heap you want to put it a little out of the way from the back door ideally as they can get a little smelly although if you buy one of the plastic composting bins then these tend to keep the smells inside much more than an open heap does.

So, you’ve placed your compost heap where you want it, and now all you have to do is add things to it.  For a regular compost heap, you can include:

Grass cuttings (a little at a time mixed with other things is best)
Hedge clippings (avoid putting rose leaves in unless they look totally healthy)
uncooked fruit and veg peelings and offcuts
weeds (except for perennial weeds like dandelions and bindweed - also best to avoid weeds that have gone to seed)
vacuum contents
hair from your hairbrush
hair from your pets
cardboard
newspaper
eggshells

For a bokashi compost you can include all of the above plus any other food waste you produce in the kitchen including raw meat, cooked meat and cooked fruit and veg and dairy etc. (all the things you’d normally have to leave out in other words!).

For a wormery you can add all the same things as are in a regular compost, but in smaller quantity.

If your compost is too moist try adding a bit more brown matter - dried leaves, card and paper etc.  If your compost seems too dry try adding more wet contents - peelings and green prunings etc.   If your compost doesn’t seem to be breaking down very fast you can add something called an activator.  Activators come in all sorts of different forms, but basically they’re things that are rich in nitrogen and help speed the process up.  Urine is a good activator as is nettle liquid which you can make by putting about 100g of nettle leaves into about 1 litre of water and leaving for a couple of weeks in a lidded bucket.  Or you can just add the nettle leaves to the heap, but that’s not as fast as making the liquid with them first.

Over time your garden and kitchen waste will rot down in the compost bin or wormery and become lovely rich compost to use on your garden.  When it does, you can scoop it out and store it in sacks till you want it.

Happy composting!

I started this by going through the post I recieve, even the junk mail, and every time something comes through which I don’t want to recieve again, I contact the people who sent it, and tell them to remove my details from their mailing list.  In this way I’ve substantially cut down on the amount of junk mail, brochures, catalogues etc. that come through my door and end up virtually straight in the bin or the recycling bag.  Obviously most of what I’m cutting down on is paper, but there are all the windows from window envelopes and plastic wrappers from catalogues and magazines etc. as well.  I’ve put up a sticker on my letterbox to say I don’t want to recieve any unsolicited mail or advertising too, so no more ‘free’ local paper - well I rarely looked at it, and no more leaflets put through with the post in the morning either - again 99% of the time I didn’t do more than glance at them.

My other big way of cutting down the waste that comes in to my home is to look at what I am buying when I do my weekly shop.  It’s been my practice for a while now to get my fruit and veg loose, and to bake my bread at home so I’ve already eliminated bread wrappers fruit nets and veg bags from my shopping (flour, sugar, and oil can all be bought in recyclable containers, and salt and dried yeast I buy in bulk so as to create as little waste as possible), so what else could I look at.  I did my regular weekly shop, and then when I got home I looked at it closely and decided what had to change. 

Meat was the first area where there was a lot of waste, all those prepackaged bits of meat from the supermarket that sat in plastic trays or worse still in polystyrene trays with plastic wrap around them. 

So change one… Buy my meat from the butcher to try to eliminate a lot of the packaging. This worked really well, even to the point of me taking along my own containers and getting the butcher to put my Chicken, Mince, Pork Chops etc. into my own containers as he went instead of bags so I can just get them home and throw them in the freezer as they are.  Zero waste achieved!

Cold meat and cheese was the other area where there seemed to be more waste than I thought was reasonable, so how to deal with this… Delicatessen’s aren’t easy to come by in my town sadly (If you have one locally, shout for joy, hug the owner and buy from them to make sure they don’t go out of business, you’re very lucky!).  There are however delicatessen counters in most of the larger supermarkets here.  The biggest problem I encountered here was a total lack of understanding on the part of the people working the counters, and the managers of the shops. 

Change two… I decided to try taking my own tubs in when I went and asking them to put the sliced cold meat, and the lumps of cheese into these containers rather than wrapping them in their plastic sheets and then bagging them.  This met with some rather odd reactions.  Most of the counters near me look at me oddly, but do as I ask, even if they secretly think I’m cuckoo so again zero waste achieved here too!  One or two however have refused point blank and made me have to call on management to try to get them to see that there is not a problem with putting my meat or cheese into my tubs and then sticking their price label onto the lid.   The worst store I had a manager who also refused to see any sense - apparently in that store, the staff HAVE to use pieces of plastic because it’s their store policy that they don’t touch the produce with their hands. (And they don’t use gloves because…?!) - eerrrr yeah ok and they think I’m cuckoo?!  

Overall it’s been successful though, and I’m now producing less waste because I’m bringing less in.  I’ve still got to figure out how to cut out the non-recyclable packaging on a few items, plasticised paper that cereal comes in - as well as a box!  I still can’t work that out, why on earth do I need both for goodness sake.  The few frozen items I still buy also come in plastic bags like peas - I could buy tinned, which would mean that the container would be recyclable, but they just don’t taste the same to me.  Tea is another issue, I can only drink decaf, and whether I buy loose leaf, or teabags locally I seem to have to buy them in a box which comes wrapped in plastic to seal it. 

Like most people, I don’t want to live in a world without nice products to clean my face with, I want toothpaste and soft toilet paper.  I even want some fancy smellies to put in my bath on occasion.  However, I want to have all these things AND be green.  So can it be done?

Yes it can, it’s not as easy as it should be, and the more of us who demand eco friendly products, the easier it should get.  At the moment walking into your local supermarket or chemist and buying things along with your everyday shop isn’t always possible yet, but I’m sure with a little pressure from us, the consumer, it will be.

Brands such as Lavera, Lush & Logona who make facial, body & bath products, Moom who do a range of natural hair removal items, and Natracare who make natural tampons and towels (as well as nappies), are going a long way towards making it possible for the modern home to be stocked with all the goodies you’d expect to find in a bathroom, and still be green.  Add to these, environmentally (and people) friendly shampoos, conditioners, hair dye and hair styling products that are all becoming available and all you have to think about is which one you want to use. 

Where can all these things be bought?  Well a few places you could look are:
Lush
Spirit of Nature
Lavera
Ethical Superstore
Naturally Thinking
Forest Soap Factory
Nigels Eco Store
Cellande
Fresh Face Cosmetics
Calm N Comfy
These are by no means all the online stores that sell this sort of product, but just a few of the many that are out there.   

Prices vary a lot – just as they do with non eco friendly varieties of the same products, so you’ll have to evaluate which ones are best for you and in terms of value for money, but it is nice to know there is a choice.  One thing I always try to remember is that I could well be not only extending the life of the planet, but my life also by using less chemicals on my body, so even if something does cost me a few pence more (and many of them don’t cost any more anyway), then I think it’s worth it.

One thing you could do would be to host a green coffee morning.  Having just done this myself I’d definately recommend it.  It gives you the chance to get together with like minded people who may have experience of different things to you, and with whom you can share information.  It can be a good way of finding out about new things - or even old things that you might have missed.  Even if none of you have any real expertise it’s still worth while doing as you can think of things you’d all like to know more about and put your heads together to each find something out to share with the group for example.

If you’ve never organised anything like this before it can be a bit daunting to begin with, but it can be as complex or as simple as you choose to make it and the more experience you gain the easier this sort of thing become, believe me.  Maybe grab a friend and organise one between you if you think going it alone would be too hard.

I chose to host my coffee morning at my own home being lucky enough to have a reasonable amount of space so I could do this.  It also saved on the cost of hiring a hall so I didn’t need to ask people who came along to pay anything for the privilage.  I advertised it on various forums on the internet and on our local freecycle cafe site too.  I also put a poster and leaflets in SUST (our local fair trade and ecologically friendly store in town).  You could advertise in similar places or even in your local paper, or on your local radio.

I settled on a very relaxed open chat for my event, but you could make it more formal with a speaker or something if you wanted to, however if you do this it is worth making a note of how much a speaker might charge and how you’re going to re-coop the costs or if you’re going to foot the bill.  I also decided to try for goodie bags to give my guests, and to do this I contacted various companies and websites who sell environmentally friendly products, told them what I was trying to achieve, and asked if they could help me.  Not all of them were willing or able as some are very small and just can’t afford to do this, but a few were kind enough to send me out some things to include and so I was able to offer people a bag (paper of course!) with some cleaning products, body products and personal hygine products in it to take away with them and try later on.

We had nine of us at my event and I’d say that was a pretty good number to be honest, it was enough to get two or three conversations going, but not too many so you couldn’t hear what was going on. 

If anyone reading this would like any more ideas or info on setting something like this up, I’d love to hear from you.  Ditto if you’ve already done something similar, it would be great to hear your experiences.

The NEERC would be designed to take 250,000 tonnes of household and commercial waste each year and convert it into energy.  It would produce enough energy each year to power a town the size of say Hartlepool, and the heat that it produced in the process could be piped to local industry as well in order to heat their buildings and reduce their energy needs and reliance on fossil fuels.

Further south in Slough, Berkshire is the Slough Biomass Plant.  It operates a combined heat and power plant which produces around 80 megawatts of electricity each year as well as heat.  It’s produced using wood chip, biomass and waste paper.

There are around fifteen of these waste energy plants in the UK and between them, they incinerate over 3 million tonnes of waste. (in 2005, 67% of municipal waste went to landfill, 23.5% was composted or recycled and 9% incinerated).

Energy recovery from waste describes the process where energy in the form of heat is recovered from the waste which is incinerated.  It is then used to generate electricity which is either fed back into the national grid or used to heat or power local communities or businesses.

There have been fears within the public about waste incineration and therefore waste energy plants, these worries are usually about the effects of emissions created. Waste incineration is however regulated very strictly, the Environment Agency regulates in England and Wales, (SEPA in Scotland, and DOENI in Northern Ireland).  The EU Waste Incineration Directive in 2000, brought in very tight emissions standards, and aims to minimise the impact of negative effects on the environment and on human health resulting from emissions to soil, surface water, ground water and air.  This is supported by Defra who were commissioned to research on the subject and concluded that health risks posed by incinerator waste are small compared with the other known risks people face in everyday life.

In the UK, the current enphasis is on recycling, however, the Government estimates that Energy from Waste could increase to around 25% if waste growth levels continue to be high.

It’s the whitewashing that companies do to make themselves look greener and more environmentally friendly than they are.  The Consise Oxford English Dictionary defines it as ‘Disinformation disseminated by an organisation to present an environmentally responsible public image.’

Greenwash is a bad thing.  It’s leading to a lot of confusion for a lot of people about how green something really is, and this in turn is making people think that making an effort to try and be greener isn’t worthwhile when it is.  I suppose with companies being pressurised to be greener, it’s not really surprising that they’re trying to make themselves seem as green as possible even when they’re not. 

There is however a good bit of news in all this.  Advertising watchdogs in the UK and in the USA are scrutinising companies like they’ve never been scrutinised before, and they’re clamping down hard on those companies that are making bogus environmental claims.  According to the Advertising Standards Authority, there has been a significant increase in complaints about greenwashing.  If you come across a company which is making environmental claims that aren’t true, you can report them to this agency and they will look into it.

Carbon offsetting is one thing that’s been facing steadily growing critiscism as it seems to provide a ‘get out of jail free card’ to industries and recently the ASA ruled against British Gas, saying that it couldn’t call one of it’s tariffs which offsets emissions ‘zero carbon’.  The reasoning behind this is that gas will always produce carbon emissions when used.  Offsetting is not in itself a completely bad idea, but when companies say they’ll offset against the emissions created by your flying to another country, or the first x number of miles worth of emissions created when you drive your new car, in order to get you to travel with them, then it’s not really going to count for much if the car they’ve produced is a gas guzzler, or the type of plane used is creating worse emissions than another company.  The trick for offsetting of this nature on a personal level is to make sure that you buy the car or take the flight that creates the LOWEST emissions possible in the first place, and then if you want to, you can offset as well, by donating to a reforestation charity or similar.  Don’t rely on the company to do it for you - chances are, you’re being brainwashed by greenwashing if you do.

Another form of greenwashing to look out for, are companies who say that they are greener than their competitors - whilst what they’re saying can be true enough, it doesn’t necessarily make them ‘green’.  For example, if company a says that they’ve made their product more concentrated, so that it uses less energy to transport it around the country than company b’s similar product, then that might well be technically correct, but if both companies are producing a product that’s chemically made, and if company a is importing the chemicals from abroad while company b sources them locally then there are many many more factors to consider than just how much energy is used to transport the item AFTER it’s been created.

It seems that most of us don’t think businesses are being honest about their green credentials.  In fact, a recent surveys showed that a mere 3% of consumers felt that businesses were being honest about this. with over 30% thinking that they activaly exaggerate their greenness.

Perhaps it’s time for the companies to put their money where their mouths are, and instead of trying to sell us the consumer lifestyle they need to be trying to sell us the sustainable lifestyle instead. 

The last decade it seems shows a decline in the use of cycling as a method of transport with miles traveled down to an average of 38 per year per person across the country rather than 43 in 1996 which is a drop of 12% overall.  London and Yorkshire showed an exception to this, with London showing an increase of 39% and Yorkshire 22%  It’s believed that the introduction of the congestion charge may have helpped bring about the increase in london.

The massive escalation of air travel is very concerning as this is the most damaging form of transport by far.  Over the past 5 years alone, air passenger numbers have increased by 54 million, with British airports dealing anually with around 235 million passengers.  The airport with the largest growth during this period is Stanstead which is up 73% since 2001, Liverpool, Bristol and Southampton airports have all doubled their air passenger numbers in this time as well. 

Car users again have increased with british households now owning 27.8 millon cars (an increase of around five million over the last decade).  The worst regions for this have been the North East and the East midlands who’s car registration figures are up by about 30% each, although overall, new car registrations in 2006 were 10% down compared to the 2001 figures.  The other problem is that the distance we’re travelling by car is increasing.  Over the last two years, there’s been a 3% increase in the average distance travelled per person per year taking it up to 5,900 miles per person per anum.

It seems household recycling however has improved with homes now recycling an average 27% of waste compared to 15% five years ago.  East Anglia shines out at the top with 34% of household waste recycled, with the East Midlands a close second at 32%, while London, and the North east are at the bottom with just 21% of their waste being recycled.

Overall it’s a very mixed report, with the statistics on household recycling being the only bright spot in an otherwise pretty gloomy report.  Paul Vickers who is the head of regional statistics at the ONS has been quoted in the Times Newspaper as saying:  “All regions are recycling more, with the eastern region recycling the most,” he said. “But air travel is up, and we have seen a substantial increase at regional airports, and the stock of cars owned is growing steadily.”

Whilst Mike Childs, the head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said:  “The Government must do much more to help people live less polluting lives. This must include tougher energy efficiency standards for products and cars, greater investment in public transport, and taxes aimed at making it cheaper and easier for people to go green.  If ministers are serious about creating a low-carbon economy they must take urgent action now”.

Certainly it seems something needs to be done, and fast.  The government’s actions over the last year or two just don’t seem to have worked, the increases in petrol prices don’t seem to have done much either it seems, so what’s next?  Do we need fiscal incentives implimented to get people on the right path rather than subtle increases in prices on non-green methods?

Chemical cleaners have also been linked to the rise in adult asthma as well, in fact, a study carried out last year states that one in seven cases of adult asthma can be attributed to using general household products such as glass cleaner, furniture sprays, and air fresheners.

What can you do to reduce the risks to your childrens health and to your own? - Simple! Move away from the chemical cleaners and try out some of the newer brands such as Natural House who’s range is completely organic and which can be bought from John Lewis and Waitrose stores.  Maison Belle is another range which is free from detergents, non-toxic, fully biodegradable and scented with essential oils.   Alternatively you could make your own chemical free cleaners at home using simple ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice, essential oils, borax, bicarb of soda, soapnuts, and other far less harmful ingredients.

These greener cleaners might not cut through the grease and grime quite so quickly, but they’re much less harmful to us, and also to the environment, so it seems to me that the extra elbow grease needed is worth it.

The commission was launched officially in November 2007 and it’s aim is to look at the whole range of issues surrounding green taxes and environmental tax reform (ETR) in detail.  Green tax reform involves higher taxation of environmentally harmful goods and activities as a method of encouraging the public and businesses to behave in a more environmentally responsible manner.

The idea of this tax reform is that it would send out the message to people and businesses that they will be rewarded for conserving energy and using it more efficiantly, and using products which are more energy efficiant and compliant,  and those who don’t move to more energy efficient products and methods would find themselves paying higher taxes accordingly.

The Green Fiscal Commission will look at four areas over a one year time frame, these areas are:

This commission is an independant body, and is not affiliated to any political party and it’s aim is to examine the evidence impartially and then make public it’s results in order to encourage debate within this field. 

Professor Paul Ekins, Director of the new commission believes that green fiscal reform is essential to counter climate change.  He also believes that when the commission has finished it’s work, politicians and policy makers will have a set of proposals for a fair and balanced reform that will be well thought through from which to choose and impliment in their own way.

Wouldn’t it be nice though if we didn’t HAVE to rely on electric, gas, water etc. from the national grid.  Especially with the prices going up and up all the time and the knowledge that as time goes on there could be more and more power cuts and things if we don’t sort things out globally.

What about things that we COULD do at home to take us ‘off grid’ even in a very small way.  Well we could start really small, and buy one or two things that would give us power, light or entertainment if/when there are power cuts, or if we wanted to just not use any power for a while.  I’m talking about things like wind up or shaker torches, wind up radio (I’d advise though, if you get one of these, go for the more expensive digital sort so that it’s ‘future proof’ as well as powerless!), solar battery chargers could allow provision of battery power to any number of devices as well, and you can even get solar chargers for things like mobile phones and laptops these days, so you could go powerless and still keep a fair bit of technology around.

Solar panels on the roof are not cheap to install, and do require some planning to make sure you do things the best way, but can be fitted to heat water meaning you don’t rely on the grid for this either, and with steadily rising gas and electric costs, and the fact that there are sometimes government grants available, the cost may well be worthwhile.  Installing a wood burning stove, or opening up old fireplaces would bring heat into the house that’s not reliant on the grid (a brickette maker can let you recycle those old newspapers into something to supplement your wood supply too).

Water is a much harder concept to take ‘off grid’ unless you have your own stream, well or spring, as is providing electricity to power larger items such as fridge, freezer, tv, etc. and in a modern house in a modern street it could be hard to achieve complete freedom from the grid, although there are people who have managed this side of things too (though I don’t know of any in say a terrace who’ve done it), by using filtration systems for rainwater and large storage tanks under the garden, by installing composting toilets and re-wiring houses and installing small wind turbines and photo voltaic solar panels and things.

Overall though, there IS a lot more that we CAN do than we might think, and the cost of a lot of the smaller stuff would be out weighed by the savings made too.