The Green Village Articles for the ‘Recycling and Waste’ Category

Greening The Office – A Guide To A Greener Workplace Part 1

Everybody knows the importance of saving energy at home, but when you consider the average amount of time spent at work is 37 hours a week, it becomes easy to see the huge amount of capacity for energy saving and being greener in the workplace.

Although many companies have policies of corporate responsibility and tell people about their environmental commitments, there is also a large amount of companies currently doing little or nothing to reduce their environmental impact. But it’s not just down to employers to be making changes and green decisions; employees can make changes to their daily routine and actions in the workplace by recycling office waste and reducing the amount they contribute to their company’s carbon footprint.

When it comes to offices jobs, there is so much electrical equipment buzzing away all day, from computers to fax machines, photocopiers to air conditioning, and many many lightbulbs humming from at least 8am-5pm and often on into the evening. However not every job is in a building of rows of computers and office equipment. Most places of work do have common areas where changes can be made however; simple changes that require minimal effort, in order to reduce the impact the business has on the planet we live on.

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Posted in Companies and Organisations, Energy and Resources, Environmental Impact, Green Planet, Recycling and Waste | 1 Comment

Charity Shop Chic – Greening your Wardrobe

Buying a new outfit or three is most girls’ (and a fair few men’s) idea of fun, but although throw-away fashion can satisfy most budgets, the implications of fast fashion and keeping the prices low for consumers often cost the environment a great deal more. Every single year in the UK, over 900 million items of clothing are cast aside and typically find their way straight into landfill.

One way of preventing such a waste of textile products in the UK is to recycle unwanted clothes. There are a number of options available to people to enable them to do this, such as selling them on at car boot sales or on eBay, putting them in recycling bins, such as those for textile recycling organisation TRAID, or donating them to charity shops. This ensures a new life for clothes, shoes and other textiles, as well as many other unwanted items, and also reduces the ridiculous amount of waste being shipped off to landfill each year.

Supporting charity shops also helps raise money for a wealth of causes, from third world charities like Oxfam, children’s charities such as Barnardos and NSPCC, animal organisations, both national charities like PDSA and local organisations that support local animal homes and shelters, charities supporting the elderly and infirm, and many cancer and hospice shops such as Douglas MacMillan in the Midlands, Marie Curie Cancer Care and The Donna Louise Trust. And in addition to knowing that donations given and the money you spend supporting these charities will work hard to make a difference to many lives around the world, your money will go further and your green credentials get a welcome boost. (more…)

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Posted in Ethical shopping, Green Living, Green Planet, Recycling and Waste | 2 Comments

Carrier Bag Criminals

So Sainsbury’s have become the latest supermarket to remove carrier bags from their tills. This adds their name to a growing list, along with Asda and Co-Operative Food, and what a good idea! Take the bags away, and it will encourage people to use their own bags instead! Well… that, unfortunately, is not always quite the way it works out, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed this.

Just this week, I was picking up a few bits and pieces from my local Sainsbury’s and heard announced over the tannoy, “Sainsbury’s will no longer be offering plastic bags at the tills in order to encourage customers to use their own bags. Bags will be available if you need them – just ask the cashier at the till”.

“What a good idea!” I said to my partner at the time. “Sainsbury’s’ environmental policies keep getting better!” (more…)

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Posted in Companies and Organisations, Green Planet, Recycling and Waste | 2 Comments

Supermarkets – Super Powers

Now I’m not talking here about Tesco becoming telepathic or Asda having the ability to fly. I’m talking Super Powers in the sense of World War II and supremacy on the scale of America or Russia.

Everyone knows the names of the big Supermarket chains, and even the smaller ones, but that’s by the by. Most of us depend on (or think we do) at least one of these giants to provide our food, fuel our cars, replace electrical goods when they decide they have had enough of this cruel world, and even protect us against all manner of things with house, car and travel insurance to name but a few.

So. Here is my big question. In a world where resources are running out, global warming is looming on the horizon, and people’s awareness of issues such as animal welfare, food miles and genetic modification are at a level where they want to see action and action fast, couldn’t somebody with the publicly known wealth of an organisation like Tesco or Asda, or even some of the oil companies to broaden the argument, use some of their wealth to help the rest of us? Let’s face it, I know it’s not going to happen because it can’t, but if everybody stopped buying from supermarkets, their profit would fall fast. They have only made it because of us. (more…)

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Posted in Companies and Organisations, Environmental Impact, Food and Farming, Green Planet, Recycling and Waste | No Comments

Waste Not, Want Not – the war against packaging

It seems easy once somebody points it out. But until those words are first uttered, we can find ourselves still going through the same motions and habits day after day not even realising the cold, hard truth of the matter. We only have waste because we create it.

People have become used to the convenience of the dustbin.

  1. Fill up the bin in the kitchen
  2. Empty it into the wheelybin 5 times a week
  3. Garnish with any leftovers from various wastepaper baskets and bathroom empties
  4. Serve to the pavement to be collected
  5. Start again…

Maybe I’m being facetious here, but at the end of the day, is it not the case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’? As long as that dustbin lorry keeps popping along every week to take away our refuse, we don’t need to worry about it. (more…)

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Posted in Green Planet, Recycling and Waste | No Comments

Reduce, Re-use, FREECYCLE!

Everybody is well aware of the growing need to recycle and generally minimise the amount they throw away. Landfill sites are filling up and closing and there isn’t the same availability to open new sites that there used to be. But even if there was, just burying what we no longer need doesn’t help anybody. That’s where a fantastic community called Freecycle comes into its own.

Freecycle is an online community that anybody can sign up to. If you have unwanted items lying around the house (or garage, shed or attic!), you can list your goodies in an offer on Freecycle and wait for other community members to get in touch. There really is truth in the saying that one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.

There are currently 4,542 groups worldwide, with a total of 5,455,000 members. Each group is moderated by a volunteer local to that particular group and ensures that the facility operates as it is supposed to. (more…)

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Posted in Eco Home, Green Living, Green Planet, Recycling and Waste | 1 Comment