This is not my... Week 33 07
24/08/07 - Top ten gadgets gazooks!
24/08/07 Top ten Gadgets Gazooks!
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Top 10 Gadget Gazooks! |
OK I admit it, it's just going to be one of those days... this will be the fourth time I have written this today. Before the programme contribute scratches it's head then decides that uploading this article seems not nearly as much fun as going back to bed so pulls up the duvet and crashes losing it all! Grrr where is that confounded save option I ask you? Combined with a hour on the phone being ping ponged through the NHS phone system not quite as much fun as root canal work but definately on par with.
Anyway I have finally arrived here in the now dear reader to share with you the guardians top 10 evironmentally sound gadgets. These by the way get double high fives from us all here at this is not my...
Have a ripsnorting fantastic weekend everyone!
Ollie :DX
"1. IntelliPanel
If you're at home, stop what you're doing and listen. You can probably hear a low hum. That's the sound of the average UK home wasting £37 a year on standby, causing unnecessary carbon emissions into the bargain. While we wait for standby to be phased out - a move backed by environmentalists and the Currys boss, John Clare - there are standby killers such as the Intellipanel, a glorified multi-plug. Just plug your desktop PC or Mac into the master socket and your monitor, speakers, printer, external hard drive and more into the remaining seven: every time you power off the desktop, everything else is switched off entirely. The Bye Bye Standby does a similar job for your entire home, but it requires your active involvement with a remote.
Cost: £30
Available from: Oneclickpower.co.uk
2. DIY Kyoto Wattson
Remember the Electrisave gizmo that Justin "ethical man" Rowlatt used to measure his electricity usage at home? Well, the Wattson is its glamorous, iPod-like cousin - a gadget that glows blue when you're using little electricity and flashes red when you're consuming a lot. In case that doesn't drive the message home, its bright display shows exactly how many pounds you will have to pay annually, based on what you're using that second.
Once you've lived with one, you'll never again overfill the kettle or leave on unused lights, which should be good for your bank balance as well as the planet. Studies have shown electricity bill savings - and accompanying CO2 cuts - of 3 to 15%.
Cost: £125 if you pre-order the standard version; £350 to buy the limited edition version.
Available from: Diykyoto.co.uk
3. Roberts Wanderer (R9957)
Inventor and Eel Pie resident Trevor Baylis may have experienced a hard time getting financial backing for his wind-up radio concept - he used to travel the breadth of the UK for pre-arranged pitch meetings only to turned away at the door - but he's certainly been vindicated by its subsequent success. Now, the likes of Roberts and Eton have joined Freeplay in the fray, and Roberts has brought its experience to bear on this little FM wind-up. It's smaller, more handsome and better-sounding than most of its rivals, although the crank isn't the finest and the battery life is slightly bested by its Freeplay peers. Great for the bathroom, camping and picnics, it'll never need new batteries and won't use a watt of carbon-laden electricity.
Cost: from £30
Available from: Currys and Amazon
4. Solar Technology Freeloader
Clearly, owning enough electronic gadgets to open your own stall in Tokyo's Akhihabara won't gain you entry into the green pantheon, even if you charge them all with a solar charger like this. For those of us with just an iPod, mobile and digicam that need topping up, however, it's ideal. Stick the Freeloader on a windowsill and its internal battery should be full after five hours, ready to trickle electricity via a selection of adapters into mobile phone for 44 hours. The best thing about this solar gizmo is its price: it's half that of its (admittedly far more beautiful) rival, the Solio.
Cost: from £24.95
Available from: Naturalcollection.com and Ethicalsuperstore.com
5. Tefal Quick Cup
It's time to make the British tea tradition greener. The average kettle uses around 3,000 watts to boil your brew - that's roughly 300 energy-saving bulbs - which is a carbon nightmare when you consider that 28% of us admitted to overfilling the kettle in a survey earlier this year. The Energy Saving Trust reckons that if we all filled the right amount, the electricity saved could power all of the UK's street lighting. This green kettle automates the job for you by using a reservoir at the back and dispensing instant boiling water from a tap at the front - meaning you don't have to lift it, and thus avoiding the excessive weight problems of its rival, the Plunger kettle. To justify being twice the price of a second competitor, the Eco kettle, it looks as brilliant as a Dyson and has a built-in water filter.
Cost: from £59.99
Available from: Currys and Argos
6. Citizen Eco Drive black ion-plated watch
The best eco gadgets are the ones you catch yourself lusting over first, only to discover later that they also score greenie points. The latest in Citizen's long-running series of solar-powered watches is a prime example, with a handsome stainless steel build quality that aces its tackier plastic competition, and a discrete solar cell under the face that means you'll never need a new battery. Avoiding the manufacture of a few watch batteries is, of course, just the green icing here: the real energy-saving aspect is that many of us use dead watch batteries as an excuse to upgrade to a new one. And with 18.4m watches sold in the UK in 2003 alone, it'd make a big difference if we all stuck to one watch for life.
Cost: £250
Available from: Citizen
7. Horizon H-Racer
Like its roadworthy peers, this hydrogen-powered toy car is of little practical use. It does, however, make for a fun, educational and 21st-century twist on the chemistry set, complete with an environmental theme. The car comes as a kit for eco junior to build, and is powered through a mini solar panel that creates enough electricity to create a small light show and turn tap water into hydrogen.
Cost: £60
Available from: Horizonfuelcell.com and Science Museum
8. Reware solar beach tote
We've had the solar backpack, the solar messenger bag, the prototype solar handbag and the concept solar briefcase. Now meet the one that surely should have come first: the solar beach bag. Reware, which makes this cotton carrier, has a good track record on solar bags, having produced the world's first with flexible panels. Its beach bag only works in real-time - to keep weight and cost down, there's no battery - but when the sun is shining on your exotic beach, you simply plug anything smaller than a laptop into the car charger socket to top up. Most mobiles should hit full after four hours of charging.
Cost: $250 (ship to UK for £124 plus postage)
Available from: Rewarestore.com
9. USBCell
As a nation, we sent 19,000 tonnes of batteries to landfill in 2000. Meanwhile, rechargeable batteries that save cash in the long run despite higher upfront costs still make up a fraction of the ones we buy. That's why I love these unique USB-connector ones that render clunky battery chargers obsolete.
Cost: from £7.99 for two
Available from: Usbcell.com and Play.com
10. One to look out for: Asus EcoBook
You can already buy a bamboo-clad monitor and keyboard, so it should come as no surprise that you'll soon be able to buy a laptop clad in the wonder grass. Bamboo has recently been deployed as an eco material in socks, towels and much more besides because it grows incredibly fast and requires little water and chemicals to grow. The EcoBook itself is more symbolic than world-changing - only the panels are made from bamboo - but if enough people buy one, rival PC makers might finally get the message and start producing greener machines.
Cost: £TBC (on sale later this year)
Available from: uk.asus.com
23/08/07 Top ten!
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Top 10! |
Top ten things you can do to go green (that may be slightly inappropriate bit interesting nonetheless)
10. Share a shower (it is a bit of an old one, but I thought I would throw it in).
9. Turn off the shower between lathering's, shavings etc. and save a bit’o’water.
8.Stop buying plastic water bottles and support the local glass industry - buy a glass for your office and better yet only wash it every couple of days to save even more water, sometimes bacteria is good for you and helps you build antibodies (my excuse when I did not clean my room as a child).
7.Wear the same thing twice - no one will notice if you keep a couple of days before doing it.
6. Hot deliverymen are the new hot pool boys. Get yourself a good one from the local box scheme delivering organic produce to you door and only eat local where possible.
5. Buy a few candles and have some good nights of solid lovin. You wonder why people had so many kids in the olden days - with no TV or music through the stereo they had to do something to keep busy.
4.get yourself a sewing lady and get all your clothes made- they will probably fit you better, be unique and not have been flown from England to china to England again just to make you look pretty.
3. Turn off the heat and share a bed with someone.
2. Ride baby ride - either your bike or with someone else.
1. Autumn is coming, rather than using plastic bags every time your doggy does a do do use a big leaf that is lying near by. It might not work for the bigger dogs but if it is little...
Have mighty fine day!
Lara xx
22/08/07 Paw Prints
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Paw prints |
Not only do I think about my carbon footprint, but I have also recently begun to think of what the Guardian calls "my carbon paw print"...yes, our pets leave their mark as well, and not only on lampposts.
I have spent the day trying to research some stats about the impact of pets on the environment but really, there is not to much to be had on it, what their was on it was mostly concerning animal feaces (If 14,000 dogs, which is the pet population in Bankstown alone, went for a walk each day, and the owners left behind just one dog poo, it would mean that approximately 511 tones of dog faeces would end up in our creeks and rivers each year!). This is detrimental to the chemicals that it carries into the water systems and can cause an increase in algae production, which eventually kills rivers and lakes.
I know the easy answer is just to pick up your poo but I started thinking about my own dog - the cans that I have to recycle each week, the energy it took to build the microchip that he was given recently so he would be allowed into the UK, the cost and impact of his canned food, all of the vaccines, shampoos, flea collars, toys, treats, the bags used to collect the poo, the list is endless.
It is my mission to have a green dog and watch this space for how it is all going. More and more companies are opening up all the time promoting organic dog treats, food, biodegradable bags and in the relaunch of our new website we will be having a pet section (Ollie and Susie I hope this is okay, but I think it is a good idea).
In the meantime, it is autumn; if you run out of bags, use a leaf the throw the poo in the nearest bin (if you have a big dog I hope you have big trees nearby). If you are going to use plastic bags, buy biodegradable (www.biobags.co.uk) ones, there are so many of them on the market. Buy left over ground mixed meat from your local butcher and cook it up with a little rice or some potatoes - you will be eating locally and your dog will be in heaven and finally make your own dog treats if you were only buying the big brand ones before (I have an included a recipe for some at the bottom of the email).
I am off to find some more facts, I am sure there are some out there on the subject and in the meantime, happy cooking.
Lara X
Pumpkin cookies from the poop.com:
1 1/2- cups whole-wheat flour
1/2- cup pumpkin, canned
1-tablespoon brown sugar
1/2-teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2-teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons Crisco
1 whole egg
1/2-cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, cinnamon and nutmeg and cut in shortening. Beat egg with milk and pumpkin and combine with flour, mixing well. Stir until soft dough forms. Drop by tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool and serve.
21/08/07 Every little hurts
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Every little hurts |
While on the same vein from yesterday. Tescopoly is an alliance of organisations concerned with the negative impacts of supermarket power. Not only is this a fantastic source of collated information on the alarming spread and impact of supermarket chains worldwide. But it also provides you with the tools and avenues to pursue if you would like to do something about it, in the mean time buy from your box scheme or head down to your local farmers market or local producer every little helps!!!
Have a fantastic Tuesday!
Ollie :DX
20/08/07 Wait-rose!!
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Wait-rose!!! |
Ok so not the wittiest title for today’s daily editorial. But with Waitrose news to expand at an alarming rate across the UK at the outcry of small Deli's and suppliers I think it might be time we tell them to wait up a little apply the breaks.... do we all really need another supermarket instead of our little local deli???
The Guardian investigates read all about it here.
Have a fantastic Monday
Ollie :DX
This section will be a daily, well - Monday to Friday daily, editorial. (Have to keep some time aside to keep up the ritual wine drinking / dancing as if being chased by bees.)
I promise to make it my mission to investigate something each day on exciting forays to find new stuff, fun stuff, ethical stuff and anything involving break dancing men with extremely toned physiques.
Let me know if you think of something I should go and visit or if you have any great ideas or information. (Any dodgy suggestions will be politely declined... or not so politely, depending entirely on what they are!)
For today, though, please just have a look below to find out how this whole thing came about. I hope that you are having a lovely morning.
See you tomorrow,
Susie x
Background to This is not my...
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What is this site all about?
Well, as all good ventures do, it started in the pub with the ominous words "I know, why don't we...?" |
What was different, though, was that it still seemed like a good plan in the morning (and somewhat less injurious than trying out extreme ironing, the other suggestion...)
Anyway - once again we had been supping beers and putting the world to rights when someone mentioned the unmentionable, despite our disaffection with the state of the world, none of us was actually doing anything positive to change it.
Whether this was complacency or apathy, who knows - but we were definitely leaving it to others to make decisions and take action for us on issues about which we felt strongly.
We live in a free society, but often things seem to happen as a fait accompli. The war in Iraq, ID cards, the fact that we will eventually succumb to watching some of Big Brother no matter how hard we try...
And we just go along with it. But that is ok, right? I mean, we aren't exactly encouraging the abuse of others - are we?
Ok - so maybe my new top might have been made under less-than-perfect conditions and I suppose that means I am supporting those conditions, but - I have to buy something to wear, so what other choice do I have?
And that was the problem. What - and where - are the choices?
So we decided to investigate. Surely in this free society we have other options; we just need to know how to find them.
So we went online. There are some great directories already for ethical and/or environmentally friendly products, but for us these didn't go far enough. We were on a bit of a roll and decided that these products deserved more active promotion.
We wanted to make as many people as possible aware of the practical things they can do to live life in a better way.
So on this site we will provide information about easy, positive and ethical consumer choices. These are choices that won’t necessarily cost you more, either.
In our directories you will find environmentally friendly and ethical companies and products across the following categories:
Clothes
Energy
Food and Drink
Health and Beauty
Home and Garden
Office
Recycling
Restaurants
You will also find plenty more to lure you back to the site on a regular basis. So come back to have a wee look.
Plus we will be working on video's, events and curious antics to keep important issues in the public eye – and provide us with much entertainment and amusement at the same time.
Give us a shout if you want to get involved!
Anyhow - take a look. Explore… investigate… probe away.
We hope you like it; we hope you use it.
