Free DIY Planet Repair Kit Has Arrived

The free “DIY Planet Repair Kit” that I wrote about last week has arrived. It contains:

- A booklet - a practical guide with simple and money saving ideas.
- A 4-minute shower timer - to help you take shorter showers, saving both water and energy.
- A DIY Planet Repairs Mug - a helpful reminder to only boil the amount you need when making a a cup of tea or coffee.
- Stickers - to help remind you to unplug, switch off and turn down.
- A window sticker and badge - to show your commitment.

Pretty good for free, just like the British Gas Green Survival Pack I got last month. Unfortunately it is only available to Londoners but hopefully other places and countries can follow suit. Does your city have a similar scheme to this?

Become A Cycle Hero

Okay, I missed it. Cycle Hero Week or Cycling for Climate Change Week was on 1 4-22 July, but looking at the website it’s still quite interesting and has lots of information on there about cycling and how it helps stop climate changes, so check it out if you get chance.

While I’m on the subject of cycling and transport, Sustrans is a sustainable transport charity that encourages people to choose a method of transport that is healthy and environmentally friendly. According to the charity there is now more than 10,000 miles of walking and cycle routes on traffic-free paths, quiet lanes and traffic-calmed roads in the UK. Which means around 75% of the UK population lives within two miles of a route. You can find a map of them all here.

Sustrans also offers a free information pack to help you get out and about by bike. Just go here to claim it and then get yourself out there!

How Your Business Can Recycle Paper

It may seem obvious, but a lot of us still do not recycle office paper and newspapers. Offices of small and medium sized businesses account for nearly two thirds of all commercial waste and yet most are not recycling. Paper used in photocopies and printers has the lowest recycling rate of all types of paper, at just 14% in the UK.

It’s easy for busineses to recycle paper, the following links should get your business started in no time.

UK

Recycle Now
WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme)
Paper Round (Friends of the Earth)
London specific:
The Laundry
London Remade
First Mile

USA

Recycle at Work
National Recycling Coalition

Australia

Recycle @ Work

Please let us know below of any other links that you think would be useful.

It’s Safe And Green To Drink Tap Water

It’s probably been the marketing success of the last ten years - bottled water. I don’t even remember the last time I saw an advertisement on TV or even on a billboard for it, yet we still spend millions of pounds, dollars and euros on it.

But what’s wrong with tap water? In the main - the UK and North America at least - nothing. And outside those areas or if you don’t like the taste, there are ways to change it rather than buy bottled water. Here are the reasons why you should drink tap water:

• Plastic bottles use a huge amount of energy to make. They can be recycled, but again energy is needed to do so. When they’re not recycled they go straight into landfill. In the US, 84% plastic water bottles they use each year are thrown away. To make those plastic bottles it takes of the 47 million gallons of oil.

• Buy a water filter in your home. It’s less expensive and far less environmentally damaging than bottled water. But they are difficult to recycle, so if you can do without then that’s better.

• The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says 90% of its drinking water is safe. It’s estimated 900,000 people a year get sick from water and 900 people die each year. That’s from both drinking bottled and public water.

• Bottled water can cost up to 10,000 times as much as when you get it from the tap.

• In the US, a study found out that a quarter of bottled water was just tap water with or without extra filtration.

• Some bottled water comes from abroad as well - think of the energy used in transporting it.

• Bottled water companies are sometimes taking water from places that need it, like Pakistan. Check out ResponsibleShopper.org for more information.

• Bottle water costs around 5 cents an ounce. Doesn’t sound much? Gasoline costs just over two cents an ounce.

• Plastic waste is now at such a volume that vast eddies of current-bound plastic trash now spin endlessly in the world’s major oceans. This represents a great risk to marine life, killing birds and fish which mistake our garbage for food.

• Drinking bottled water means less attention is paid to public water systems. If people didn’t buy bottled water and complained about their tap water, work would be done to improve the taste and quality. And stop leaks.

• People will often buy bottled water when out and about and don’t want one of the many fizzy, sugar-filled drinks on offer. But you can still make a choice as brands such as One and Belu use their profits to pay for clean water schemes in the developing world.

And a final thought, if your friends don’t like the taste of tap water, give them a blind taste test. E magazine reports: “When Good Morning America conducted a taste test of its studio audience, New York City tap water was chosen as the heavy favourite over the oxygenated water O2, Poland Spring and Evian.”

Life Goggles Has Moved Servers

Life Goggles is moving servers this weekend. For most of you it will make no difference, and if you can read this message then we have already finished. Sorry for any interruption

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