Secret Santa

Looking for ideas for your secret santa this year? A few years ago someone bought me one of those wind-up torches. It is fantastic! Finding a torch in my house used to be a nightmare. I don't need a torch very frequently and so when I did need one it would invariably have flat batteries. I have found my wind-up torch to be a great Christmas present. It is in its third year now and still going strong.

I'm sure they are widely available on the High Street, but here's a link to one from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Proteam-EN1217-Energy-Saving-Dynamo/dp/B0015V57Z6/ref=pd_sim_lp_2. They cost just less than a fiver.

Done that already and need another idea? What about an eco-stapler? That's another thing that's really annoying. Do you ever remember when you are out and about what size staples your stapler takes? I never do, so I frequently run out. An eco stapler clips up to three pages together with a cut and fold action. Again they cost less than £5 from here: http://www.myecostore.co.uk/magic-stapleless-stapler-p-413.html but probably available on the High Street. I like these woven juice carton purses - £5 , the Elephant Dung Notecubes -£7.95 and the colouring pencils made from recycled newspaper from 'myecostore'.

Oxfam is a great place for eco-gifts for your secret santa. Take a look when you are passing or have a look at their stocking fillers page online: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/ethicalcollection/giftguide/stocking_fillers.html

Making money from green living

I came across this great post today on saving and even making money from green living.

There are many ways that you can save money, just by spending a little, but this blog is all about the small things that cost nothing but collectively could make a big difference. On BBC Radio 5 in the UK today, this very thing was being discussed and it was suggested that governments are likely to put more effort into the bigger picture when they can see how people are making an effort with the small stuff.

Christmas Shopping

I don't even like to think about Christmas shopping until December. But December is here whether I'm ready or not.

This year I want to make a more conscious effort to ensure that the presents I give don't contribute to the ever increasing landfill problem, so I've been having a good look at the packaging of everything I buy.

Yesterday, I raided the cupboard under the stairs and retrieved all the Christmas gift bags from last year ( or the year before, or the year before that maybe!). I found 15 bags. I have now bought two rolls of wrapping paper from Oxfam, made of 100% recycled paper and which can, of course, be recycled after use.

I've bought a few bottles of wine. I know that won't go to waste and most people that I know these days recycle their glass. Every ton of recycled glass used saves 1.2 tons of raw material.

I also bought some big tins of Quality Street. It tells you on the box that the outer coloured wrapper can be composted, the inner aluminium recycles just like a drinks can and of course the tin can be used again and again until it gets so battered it too needs to be recycled.

Books will certainly be featuring in my Christmas purchases - no packaging and they can be passed on to friends or charity shops when people have finished with them. If you feel bad about writers missing out on royalties when you pass on books to friends, have a look to see if they have websites where you can donate the equivalent sum of money they would have received in royalties if the book had been bought new.

Toys are always the things I'm most wary of, packaging wise and so I've decided to try and get the shopping done this week so I'm not making last minute decisions that tend to stop me from even considering what packaging surrounds the gift. Hopefully that way, too, I won't be responsible for frustrated children and parents spending hours trying to find their way into the toys through the hundred completely useless layers of plastic and cardboard wired and glued together, supposedly to make something look better than it is.

Happy shopping and Merry Christmas!

A use for broken crockery

I save up broken bits of crockery in a tub in my garage and use them to put in the bottom of plant pots over the drainage holes. As we had a nice weekend I decided to get my pots ready for bringing in my geraniums. They are my favourite plant, not least because they need very little watering even in dry weather and if you bring them in to a shed or a conservatory or a cool windowsill in your house, then they will go on getting better and better, year after year.

A word of advice when you put your crock into your pots: wear a thick pair of gloves so you don't cut yourself!

The kitchen compost caddy

Do you hate emptying the kitchen compost caddy?

I don't like the idea of using bags in my compost. It can surely only add to the time it takes for everything to decompose and besides, you have to buy them. But I did recently try out a new trick for my compost caddy. I have found that when I empty my compost bin and rinse it out it helps if I then tear up some egg box cartons to line the bottom. I've found that whatever gloopy mess I put on top comes out more easily when I have a cardboard layer on the bottom, making the emptying job much easier and the caddy needs less rinsing.

Bags of Life!

I stumbled upon a fantastic local campaign today when I was out shopping. I bought a few things for my daughter’s birthday party and as I was paying I came out with my usual, ‘It’s okay thanks, I’ve got my own bag,’ at which point I was handed a little voucher.

‘Don’t bring my life to an end. Re-use me!’ was the slogan and a cheeky little picture of a polythene bag, bright eyed was pleading to be saved from the dreaded landfill.

It turns out that several of the shops on the high street have joined in a campaign with local schools to give out these vouchers to people whenever they refuse a bag. The vouchers can then be handed in to local participating schools and there’s a competition to see which schools collect the most with environmentally friendly prizes for the most successful.

A visit to the OTCN website shows this is just one of a number of schemes being run across the county aiming to reduce the number of plastic bags produced and thrown away. It is all too easy to forget that plastic bags are made from natural gas or oil, precious resources we can’t just keep throwing away.

Bottle tops

I checked out with my local recycling people today and found out that, yes, we can put metal and plastic bottle tops in our curb-side recycling boxes*. I delved a little further and found out that the best thing to do is to collect them up into a can – for steel caps use a steel food can such as a baked bean tin - then squash the can with the tops inside it so they can't fall out. This apparently helps to make sure they are efficiently recycled and don't get in amongst other materials such as paper and plastics. I'm told it helps not to have small bits of materials (of any kind) on their own as they fall through the holes in the separation process and end up being dealt with as mixed "fines" which are either land-filled or incinerated.

I also enquired at a local craft supplies place – they turn scrap into art and craft materials – and they take metal beer bottle tops there. So, if your local council don't collect them maybe you could find a place like this near you.

* Your local authority may have a different policy so, if in doubt just email them and ask.