We thought we'd go Green this week and look into the increasingly important issue of saving our planet! It sounds dramatic doesn't it? But we all can help out by doing the simplest of things, every little does actually help in this fight! With sections on: Recycling & swapping; Ethical Retailers; Education, Information and Directories; Organisations; Food; Green Stores and an eye-opening Final Thought, there's plenty to read.
Recycling & Swapping
Recycling is a major focus in today's society. Every little helps, whether it is simply recycling your plastics and cardboards or exploring the world of online swap-shops, which in a sense is a form of recycling used or unwanted items. There are loads of great reviews of online swap-shops on the site. Have a look at: Green Metropolis "A brilliant idea. Recycle your books - advertise them on the website, which is simple to use, and you will get £3 for every one you sell" egarobar. Their slogan is 'Where books grow trees'; this is because GreenMetropolis.com donate 5p to the Woodland Trust for every book sold. Envirofone.com is an online mobile phone recycling service, and What's mine is yours where you can swap, buy & sell clothes, jewellery, furniture and much more. The Freecycle Network silver explains all: "Their mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources and eases the burden on our landfills, membership is free and the website is non profit making." "You can Freecycle everything from furniture to cars and everything in between" according to Kittyx, so why not check it out and do your part for the environment today.Green Metropolis; Envirofone.com; What's mine is yours; The Freecycle Network
Ethical Retailers
The High Street is also becoming more environmentally aware with some stores setting the standard in hope that all will follow. Corrina is a fan of Lush due to many of their products not having packaging "the soaps are really nice to use (again, no packaging). The natural approach means that these freshly made products are kind to your hair and skin with no nasty chemicals" and according to their website when their products do need packaging they are made from 100% recycled plastics. Have a look at their website for detailed information explaining their ethos. 'Inspired by nature, driven by passion', that is The Body Shop's ethos, they protect the planet, campaign against animal testing, support community rights, activate self esteem and defend human rights as well as running on-going campaigns such as HIV awareness and the prevention of domestic violence. bingbangbong has reviewed both, Gossypium "The products are reasonably priced and ethically sourced and the whole website is a delight to move around", and World Vision Trading where you can "buy a mosquito net or a birth certificate for a child" or "a meal for 70 children for just £12." Shared Earth is a Fair Trading company whose aim is "to improve the livelihoods of disadvantaged people in developing countries, benefiting local community projects and keeping alive traditional skills that would otherwise be lost." (Quote from homepage.) The supermarkets are starting to do their part by either recycling carrier bags, charging for bags as a deterrent or offering longer-lasting bags to encourage re-use.Lush; The Body Shop; Gossypium; World Vision Trading; Shared Earth
Educational, Information and Directories
Firstly, a big thanks to oinkoink who has done a lot of reviewing in this section, keep up the good work! There are loads of educational and information-packed websites out there just waiting to give you tips, answer your questions and point you in the right direction, but here are just a few that our HelpHounders have noticed. Information sites such as: Love food hate waste which has tips on how to reduce the amount of food that is thrown out; The Centre for Alternative Technology has both online and in store information on how to go green yourself and reduce your carbon footprint and We are what we do supplies information to encourage us all to incorporate environmental practises into our everyday lives. Ecostreet and Links organic are both online directories that only list eco-friendly or organic companies. Recycle More and Recycle Now are both easy to use online sites packed to the brim with information on how, where and what you can recycle, they both offer a handy postcode finder to identify your local recycling centres and give you your local authorities' break down of what can and cannot be recycled through the pick-up service. So with information like this at your finger tips, there really is no excuse!Love food hate waste; Centre for Alternative Technology; We are what we do; Ecostreet; Links Organic; Recycle More; Recycle Now
Organisations
There are many organisations that dedicate their time to saving the planet or at least attempting to slow the rate of destruction that we are inflicting on, well, ourselves! I am going to focus on two, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Firstly Greenpeace, they have been campaigning against environmental degradation since 1971: "We investigate, expose and confront environmental abuse by governments and corporations around the world. We champion environmentally responsible and socially just solutions, including scientific and technical innovation. Our goal is to ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity. We organise public campaigns: prevention of climate change, protection of oceans and ancient forests, elimination of toxic chemicals, against the release of genetically modified organisms into nature and nuclear disarmament and an end to nuclear contamination" And Friends of the Earth 'Making life better for people by inspiring solutions to environmental problems': "Fighting climate change, promoting green energy and opposing nuclear power; Fighting the effects of the global free trade system; Exposing bad business and challenging corporate power; Working towards greener farming and a five-year ban on genetically modified (GM) food; increased recycling and against more incinerators and landfill sites; reduce impact on the environment of the movement of people and goods in the UK; protect the world's wildlife habitats and Providing research and policy development." They both have fantastic websites that are easy to navigate around, so why not go and check them out and see what you can do to help them in their fight.Greenpeace; Friends of the Earth
Food
You can also do your bit for the environment by choosing to eat the correct food and by choosing the right suppliers. Innocent have been taking the country by storm for the last 2years with their 100% natural and truly delicious smoothies, their website hosts some entertaining aspects as well as the important stuff, their ethics: keeping things natural-"100% natural, healthy renewable ingredients"; Responsible ingredients-"farms certified by independent environmental and social organisations"; Rainforest alliance-"working together for over 2 years now"; Sustainable packaging-"lowest possible impact on the world"; Resource-efficient business-"Our first focus has been to reduce our carbon footprint"; Sharing the profits-"donating 10% of our profits each year to charity" What a great example to set, keep up the good work Innocent! Riverford Organic Vegetables has also struck a cord with our HelpHounders due to a few reasons; "Great value for money - much less expensive than organic from the supermarket and in my opinion better quality" says Corrina who gets a weekly organic fruit & veg box delivered, sounds lovely! silver agrees, he gets a "recyclable collapsible cardboard box" full once a fortnight and thinks, "The product range is wide and there is always something new to try. Good value all round" So why not have a look at their product range online and see if it can persuade you to sign up! The River Cottage Caf&eactute; minno believes "H F-W [Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall], sets high standards" and is a "huge fan of the man - he's doing a power of good for food in general, local produce in particular" and is "sure everyone who lives in reach of Axminster is thrilled to have River Cottage in their midst."Innocent; Riverford Organic Vegetables; River Cottage Café
Green Stores
There are also many shops and online stores out there which either specialize in or stock eco-friendly or 'green' products, and it seems that a number of our HelpHounders are in favour of eco/environmentally-friendly products which deserves a pat on the back, good on you HelpHounders! Here are a few we stumbled across whilst searching through the tags: Love Eco who have "handpicked a range of stylish and affordable eco-friendly gifts and accessories for you to enjoy" (quote from website.) Nigel's Eco Store "Eco. alternative products, consumables, information and other eco. Solutions for our every day eco. living... Current concern for our planet, our environment and realisation that someone else is going to pick up our rather nasty pollution tab, Nigel's attempts to bring us an easy, all things eco. market place to satisfy our consumerist ways." Asimov. Quirky Bags mizzy thinks it is "a really good idea to stop people throwing plastic bags away as they take 100s of years to decompose." And Quirky Bags try to encourage this by answering the conundrum of: "If I'm not going to use plastic bags, then what practical alternative is there?" minno thinks they are "conundrum solvers." Natural Collection 'Green and Gorgeous since 1999' had a vision "to create a distribution platform to support sustainable innovation and ideas." they do this by "offering a wide selection of ecologically considered products and services"(quotes from website.) minno used them to buy a "Gravity Water Filter. No excuse for buying bottled water ever again", they sell a large range of products from Household to Fashion. And last but not least, Ecocentric "lovely beautiful low energy, sustainable, ethical and recycled products that are as good for the home or as gifts as they are for the environment." (Quote from website) and bingbangbong agrees and especially loves the "huggable Candeloo night lights" and knew that she "just needed a pair" so is very happy that she found the site by accident because now she's "in love with the stuff."Search HelpHound's tags: ECO; ECO FRIENDLY; ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY; RECYCLING; RECYCLE
Love Eco; Nigel's Eco Store; Quirky Bags; Natural Collection; Ecocentric
Don't just take our word for it, check these sites out today, and as asimov so wittily puts it, "More and more of us are jumping on the Eco band wagon... surely that ol' wagon has no alternative but to get bigger and bigger to accommodate us all!"... Lets just hope he's right!
Final thought:
"By living so far beyond our environmental means and running up ecological debts means we make two mistakes, first, we deny millions globally who already lack access to sufficient land, food and clean water the chance to meet their needs. Secondly, we put the planet's life support mechanisms in peril"
Quote by Andrew Simms - BBC News Article
(Andrew Simms is nef's (New Economics Foundation) Policy Director and head of the Climate Change programme at nef's Centre for Global Interdependence. Andrew is also a board member of Greenpeace UK and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Europe.)
Quote by Andrew Simms - BBC News Article
(Andrew Simms is nef's (New Economics Foundation) Policy Director and head of the Climate Change programme at nef's Centre for Global Interdependence. Andrew is also a board member of Greenpeace UK and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Europe.)
