RE: Your best 5 green tips?
Successes,
1. Compost - made our own before council brown bins were introduced. We still make our own, but the brown bins have been great for the things we couldn't deal with ourselves, like prunings, stuff from outside the hedge and large quantities of weeds.
2. Sodium bicarbonate.
3. Vinegar.
4. Microfibre cloths - we need to use practically no cleaning chemicals.
5. Homegrown fruit and vegetables - always have red and blackcurrants, rhubarb, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, they thrive on neglect. Usually have tomatoes, potatoes and lettuce - rocket, lollo rosso and baby iceberg and occasionally have beans and peas. We have a plum tree, apple tree, cherry tree and a peach tree and the are producive in that order. Our garden is not big, the trees are planted in the space where the very ropy privet hedge used to be, about eighteen inches of earth between the drive and the fence and about ten feet long, but the earth is very good and rich and as far as I know goes down a long way. Everything gets topped up with compost in the early spring and sometimes before autumn, if we have enough.
Failures,
1. Energy saving lightbulbs, my a*se. The damned things blow in about three months and I use up a great deal of energy changing them and cursing them roundly for their expense and bad value.
2. Car - public transport here in the city is useless. Hubby works unsocial hours and starts before the buses, I work night duty and treat myself to the car if daughter desn't need a lift to school as she would have to get two or three buses to travel three miles. I have to say that the mornings when I get out of work and step into the car instead of walking or cycling are bliss. It takes me about ten to fifteen minutes to get home with the car and I can have my shower, coffee and toast and be tucked up in bed for 9.00am. If I walk, bus or cycle I'm usually only getting in at 9.00am ... We do have only one car, so I suppose we aren't doing too badly for a family who could really use two?
3. TV - himself is a tele addict!
4. Tesco is my local shop
RE: Your best 5 green tips?
Ive never found low energy lightbulbs to be bad value, I have 5 in my flat that are still going strong after 11 years. You can also buy them cheaper now than you ever could, they are less than a quid, when I bought mine all those years ago they were about 8 quid a bulb.
I found that my electricity bill went down greatly as soon as I started using the bulbs.
On the subject of recycling, us people that live in flats dont have a blue or a brown bin suffer.
I have to trek over a mile to my nearest recycle point and have only just been allowed to keep going to it after months of wrangling with my local council because I dont drive, I had been banned from it.
I dont much like companies such as Asda and Tesco who have jumped on the green bandwagon when it comes to recycling yet their own brand clothes are made by people in sweatshops.
If companies like that can be green, they can in my view be ethical.
RE: Your best 5 green tips?
ooh this is a good one!
5 things + side (sorry few more than 5)
- recycle recycle recycle
- re-use re-use re-use (if possible)
- buy products with less packaging:)
- shop ethically:):):)
- switched to 100% renewable electric 3 months ago (good energy) :):):):)
- try to cycle to work when i can;)
- low energy lightbulbs (although not all of them)
- using vinegar and eco friendly household products. i like the ecover range.
- going round and turning all pc's in the office off every night dispite telling people they should[:o]
not worked
- composting - well it did work very well but had to stop using it as it is too close to the house and get lots of fruit flies everywhere. tip - always place at the end of the garden!
- use car far too much still.
- trying to get through to stupid people that global warming is happening and we can all make a difference.[:@][:@][:@][:@][:@]
- not being able to get people to turn off their pc's at night [:@][:@][:@]
RE: Your best 5 green tips?
Ecover isnt BUAV approved for people who like to use animal friendly products, even though they dont animal test they dont meet BUAV regulations.
I use faith in nature products.
RE: Your best 5 green tips?
i think that is because of the company that owns ecover, but i think i am not sure that they have been sold and now are? i will need to check on that one.
thing is ecover products are so much more accessible for people to buy as they are sold in supermarkets, whereas the other eco friendly products which are more ethical are not. supermarkets really need to get there act together and start selling much more eco friendly products and start to put them more promeniently on the shelves!
for example toliet rolls. i have (and i daresay most of u reading this) use re-cycled ones but so many people do not! ok so they may not be quite as soft as the major brands but does that really matter? and they r much nicer than they used to be. the same goes for kitchen rolls!