Browsing: Weekly Round Up

This week I’ve had another forrage around in my brain to catalogue some of the things I’ve been mulling, and this time I actually doodled the words on paper!

So here we go, this is why these seven words/phrases are the words of this past week:

Read the rest of Clouds Of Thought – Week Two »

These are my words of the week, the words that sum up some things I’ve been pondering.  We all have themes and threads to our weeks, whether we unravel them or not.  Sometimes they are dependent upon the time of year, the weather, the business season, news, politics, upon family situations, work situations, personal situations…

Here are the reasons these are my top words of the week:

Read the rest of Clouds Of Thought – Week One »

Top of the morning to all, and welcome to the #216th Carnival of the green. First of all, a big thanks to Marie at Project Earth Blog for their fantastic green round-up at last week’s Carnival. Secondly…let’s jump right in…

Read the rest of Carnival of the Green #216 »

Well, our 365 Project on Flickr is off to a flying start!

Read the rest of 365 Project Update »

We’re happy to announce…Our New Venture, the 365 Days Project!

Read the rest of The EthicalSuperstore 365 Project »

Morning all, and welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Green. It’s just after 11.30am here in blustery Gateshead, so grab yourself a nice cup of tea, sit back and absorb the best green posts from last week’s Internet, incorporating our brand new feature™ #bestgreentweets

The Vetrazzo Process: A Photo Essay By MC O’Connor

Jim from bargaineering brings us five reasons to go paperless with your statements (bank, credit card, mortgage, etc.). Paperless is not only good for the environment but also good for you financially. Use less and everyone wins!

With petrol prices on the rise yet again, we look to hypermiling: a set of skills employed to reduce fuel consumption. Techniques range from simple to extreme, dangerous to downright illegal. Green Promise sheds some light on these practices, with safety and the environment in mind.

Biotunes presents Use recyclable, not just renewable, energy posted at Bioblog by Biotunes.

Marie Snyder questions the green-ness of the green bins.

Elizabeth at Go Green Travel Green discusses 12 Tips and Tricks for Green Business Travel. From staying in a green hotel to taking ecocabs, discover how to be a greener business traveler.

Jessica Nagel presents Love’s Baby Soft and Coca Cola posted at Sustainable Halo.

RecycleCindy from myrecycledbags.com (a website dedicated to recycling & crafting) offers her latest recycled tote bag which is crocheted from old plastic bags. Crochet your way to a wonderful reusable tote and a great way to repurpose those old plastic bags into a cool grocery bag. Here is the free crochet pattern link. Happy recycled green crafting to you!

Surbhi presents Wildlife Conservation – The Weak Link posted at The Viewspaper » The Viewspaper.

Beth Terry says: “For almost 2 years, I have collected and tallied my own weekly plastic waste on my blog, Fake Plastic Fish. Now it’s your turn. Are you willing to take the challenge and let us see your plastic pile for the week? This challenge is for educational purposes only. Leave your guilt in the garbage can and Show Us Your (Plastic) Trash!

Michal presents The FlexScan EV2303W Energy Efficient Monitor posted at Energy Saving Gadgets.

Is local food always the greenest choice? A new Worldwatch Institute study says no. Read about the study on Veggie Revolution this week, from Sally Kneidel. What could be greener than local?

Wren Caulfield presents Spring Cleaning: Do It Cheap, Do It Green posted at True Adventures in Money Hacking.

Jennifer Heigl presents Are You Getting “Localwashed?” posted at Daily Blender.

Pictures & video of a green home building project in Long Island. Those solar panels look awesome. 6.5kW!

Alex presents How to Get Rid of Ants with Apple Cider Vinegar posted at Home Life Weekly.

Instead of sending toxic cleaning products down the plug-hole, here are four easy and effective ways to use baking soda around your home from ooffoo.

Ooffoo have also just announced the winners of their reuse competition here in a post called Top 10 ReUse Tips & Ideas. 

Guffly presents Help the Enviroment with iTunes | Guffly posted at Guffly.

Kara presents Grilled Blue Cheese Portobello Burgers posted at An Hour In the Kitchen. 

Free Organic News presents Why Wear Natural Organic Fabrics Like Cotton, Wool, Linen And Hemp? posted at Free Organic News.

Busy Bee Kim presents how to pack a green school lunch posted at Busy Bee Lifestyle.

And finally, Erin, aka Conscious Shopper, discusses some of the ways available to finance a home energy retrofit, including tax credits, loans, and “weatherization assistance”. I think she means “weatherisation”. 

The Carnival Of The Green goes all a’Twitter

As Treehugger mentioned on Friday this is the first Carnival of the Green to incorporate twitter (What’s Twitter?). A few #bestgreentweets were submitted and these are the best three. Well done to all on twitter who joined in:

@Kare_At_EandM Unique Recycle of Plastic Bottle http://bit.ly/fYeMT #bestgreentweets

@greenbiztweets Group Releases New Standards to Green Utilities’ Supply Chains http://bit.ly/184rhf #bestgreentweets

@sustainablog SUNfiltered: 5 innovative non-profits making bicycling (and bikes) more accessible http://is.gd/zBtM #bestgreentweets

Thanks to our fine hosts last week over at Organic Mania.

Next week, the carnival stops at Surely You Nest.

TTFN!

Will there ever be sustainable palm oil?

Since it’s launch in 2004, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) finally delivered its first sustainable palm oil into Europe, which  shipped into Rotterdam last month.

Responsible for wide scale tropical deforestation and conflict between local communities, palm oil currently appears in anything from chocolates to cosmetics and is estimated to be in as much as half the products on average supermarket shelves.

Retail giants, such as Unilever and Sainsbury’s, have bought from this first batch. While Sainsbury’s Natural Resources Manager vouched for it’s authenticity, and claimed it to be of ‘a higher standard’ that ‘doesn’t compare with anything we have sourced before,’ Greenpeace were somewhat less convinced.

They said that although the palm oil could potentially be ‘something good’, the current RSPO’s standards and criteria are ‘not strong enough to guarantee that any of the palm oil it certifies is actually sustainable’.

Currently, 80 per cent of global production comes from Indonesian and Malaysian plantations and Greenpeace say it is the leading cause of forest destruction in Indonesia.

Are you still boycotting palm oil products? Do you have any products to recommend that don’t include palm oil? Let us know.

Read the rest of Green News Roundup November 2008 »

Green news we loved: In case you missed them first time around, here’s our September round up of the most talked about, most innovative solutions or simply the most spectacular green news to hit the headlines.

Read the rest of Green News Roundup September 2008 »

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Green, powered by the good folks over at Treehugger, and hosted this week by us, here at How Ethical!

If you’re a regular How Ethical reader and this is your first carnival, then let me explain. This post is a travelling fairground of posts, rounding up the best of last week’s environmental, green and sustainability news.

So, without any further ado, let’s get straight on to the submissions (in no particular order)!

Vancouver’s City Council has approved an “EcoDensity” policy. Adam, from Market Urbanism, asks “How is EcoDensity different from regular density, which already comes pre-equipped with environmental benefits?” in a post called EcoDensity: Scary Name, but Not-so-Bad »

Tiffany Washko presents posted at Natural Family Living Blog.

A big box store gives preferential parking for carpool and high efficiency cars … but the mainstream SUV guys don’t quite get it yet!
Prefered Parking for Gas Sippers (in theory) »
via Betsy

Inspirational story from Ametrine all about Gardening For A Sustainable Planet posted at Ways To Simplify.

The joys of Summer Simplicity.

via GP at Fish Creek House

Introducing The TwoFlush from Aquanotion, a dual flush conversion kit for standard North-American style toilets. It can potentially save hundreds of liters of water by providing a choice between a full flush and a low-flow option every time you flush. Complete with installation photos!
via Andrew Davidson

Tiffany asks “Is green guilt good or bad? Is green a new religion?” in a post called Is It Green, Religious, Or Just Smart?

Here’s a great idea to help save water: Dear Housekeeping: Please Don’t Change My Towel by Elizabeth at Go Green Travel Green

Jen from the Daily Mitzvah posted on a neat company called TerraCycle that upcycles juicepacks, grocery plastic bags, cookie wrappers, and soda bottles into useful products — everything from totebags to organic plant food to natural household cleaners. They’ve rejected standardized packaging — your natural window cleaner might be in a Coke bottle or a differently shaped Dr. Pepper bottle. All their packaging is either another company’s rejects or material from elementary school drives, in which TerraCycle pays the kids per item. And they’ve gotten their products into “big box” stores, to reach audiences that don’t typically buy recycled.

Read more: TerraCycle Happily Sells “Trash” »

Glastonbury starts next week, and (if you believe the mumblings) this year aims to be the greenest Glasto in recent years. Ethical Superstore explores How to Have an Ethical Music Festival.

And finally, our host from last week not only wants us to Grow Organic Sprouts Sustainable Wisdom For All, she also wants to give us an eco fashion update in a post called Eco-Fashion Euphoria: Prairie Underground. Both posts via Victoria Everman :: Sustainable, Creative, Enlightened Living :: San Francisco. Nice blog that one, very good.

That’s all for this week!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this read, there are some great articles in there, and thank you all for your submissions.

Remember kids, spam blogs don’t get no love from me!

Thanks for popping by. Until next time, which will be some time in 2010!

Do you want to know more?

Find out more about Carnival of the Green and how to host it yourself! »

You can check out last week’s Carnival of the Green over at Victoria E »

Next week’s Carnival is hosted by the Two Hands World Shop »

Perhaps you’d like to check out How Ethical’s most popular post of all time? It’s got some really nice photography…

Is Honey Good for You?

Did you ever watch that BBC2 series called “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, with moustachio’d ex Army, ex Scrap Heap Challenge General Lieutenant-Colonel Dick Strawbridge¹?

It was all about Strawbridge and his family moving to Cornwall and trying to live a low impact life. The episode I watched was all about building a solar heat sink that would keep Dick’s greenhouse toasty warm throughout the night.

Which brings us on to Renewable Energy UK. This is an awesome site, all about building DIY projects just like the Lieutenant-Colonel’s heat sink.

I think I’ll have to start saving up my aluminium cans to build my own solar air heater.

:: http://www.reuk.co.uk

Spotted this range of limited edition, organic, fairly traded t-shirts:

:: http://www.tshirtart.eu

Speaking of T-Shirts, watched this video on YouTube all about manufacturing Organic Cotton T-shirts in Palestine.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5YaQ9MZ4WE[/youtube]

Hopefully, we can get some of them soon. Right now, we’ve got their range of 100% sweatshop and cruelty free, 100% vegan trainers, so click on the link to see the No Sweat products already available from EthicalSuperstore.com

Also added to the blogroll this week:

Butterfly Treasures – Neat little site that stocks gifts and accessories.

:: http://www.btgiftsandaccessories.co.uk

Mondomudi blog – Fair Trade Phil’s blog, news and views from around the ecosphere.

:: http://www.mondomundi.com/blog/

Environmental Graffiti – UK blog, well written and featuring some great content.

:: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/

¹Thanks Wikipedia