Ten Green Ideas to try

Aug

09

Posted by dodo, Published on 09 August 2008

As the green revolution gathers momentum, you can buy food and gadgets that make your life greener, donate unwanted goods, throw green parties, and even exercise with the environment in mind.

Being green doesn‘t always involve spending money. It can be about putting good ideas into practice and about helping other people by behaving ethically.

Freecycling

Freecycling is about getting rid of stuff you don’t want and giving it away for free to someone who does want it. You can freecycle just about anything — clothes and shoes, handbags, electrical goods, furniture. Of course, you can make money selling on Internet auction Web sites but freecycling is a greener alternative. And, as well as offering your white elephants to others, you can pick up things you want that others are giving away free.

Eco-Friendly Green LifestyleSchemes like this cut down on the number of new goods that people buy and the amount of energy that goes into their production.

As a bonus, giving away what you no longer want makes you feel good and you’re doing your bit to stop the landfill sites filling up.

Buying Organic Vegetable Boxes

Buying locally grown, organically produced food is the greenest way to eat. Later I will explain that local food travels short distances and if it’s organic very few if any chemicals are used to grow it. Most areas have Organic Vegetable Box schemes so there’s likely to be one near you.

Some schemes deliver only locally grown produce so you get what’s in season and you may not have as much variety as you’d like. Other schemes include some imported organic food so you have better variety, but the food has to travel long distances so it isn’t as green.

Check out and compare the schemes carefully before deciding which to sign up to.

You can get more information about these schemes from the Soil Association, which is the main organisation in the UK for certifying produce as organic.

The supermarkets are also offering box schemes but the produce they deliver is likely to include a higher percentage of imported products, plus they’re competing with local farmers. Buy directly from a local farmer if you can.

Eating with Your Children

If your children are involved in shopping for food and cooking it, they have much more of an idea where it’s come from and what’s good and bad for them. Take them to visit local farms or city farms that have open days so they understand the link between food and the countryside. If they’re used to eating fresh foods, including fruit and vegetables, they’re less likely to develop a taste for processed food.

Buying Fairtrade Goods

Fairtrade is a trading scheme that works to make sure that producers in the developing world get equitable prices for their products, and that workers have reasonable working conditions and fair terms of trade with the firms they supply.

Shops and supermarkets carry an ever-expanding range of Fairtrade goods - around 300 at the time of writing - including tea, coffee, chocolate, bananas, herbs and spices, flowers, cotton, and footballs, and the list is growing as the scheme extends its reach.

Shopping for Green Gadgets

There are thousands of green gadgets on sale. More and more companies are getting in on the green revolution - coming up with new ideas every day. Just a few you may be interested in are:

  • Pouches for your cigarette butts and used chewing gum while you’re out of reach of litter bins. Litter is not just antisocial but cost councils a fortune to clean up. Cigarettes butts don’t degrade. At best they just cause unsightly litter; at worst they start forest fires. Chewing gum is notoriously difficult to get off the pavement, or your shoes and clothes if you happen to stick to it.
  • Solar powered or wind-up chargers for your mobile phone and iPod. These used to be the preserve of hill walkers and mountaineers but they’re more widely available now. You can get them from specialist shops for walkers or over the Internet. Type ’solar mobile phone charger’ into a search engine and all sorts of retailers will pop up.
  • Bio-degradable mobile phones are one of the latest inventions. They’re made from bio-degradable plastic and have a sunflower seed in their innards. When you’ve finished with your phone, you compost it and a sunflower grows. Look out for them reaching the shops.

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Ten Green Ideas to try


2 Responses to “Ten Green Ideas to try”

  1. Quality Nutrition Products Says:
    September 15th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

    Fat dairy products to increase their calcium intake to the Recommended Dietary Allowance of 1200 milligrams per day, the cell growth changed “toward normal.” The study did not use calcium supplements, nor did it prove that calcium could “reverse” an existing cancer. … Quality Nutrition Products

  2. Organic Garden Care Says:
    September 16th, 2008 at 11:02 am

    This is a business which developed organically too, starting off as a few smoked fish has done in a box in their back garden in Cambridge, supplying friends and a couple of local restaurants. … Organic Garden Care

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Filled Under: Environment, Organic Food, Organic Products, Organic Supplements
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