Recent Comments

1. Give Your Unwanted / Unworn Clothes To Charity - 13 Sep 2006

   Years ago I took the decision that I really spent too much time and money on clothes and didn’t really need any more – so now I can only have new clothes if I give or throw something away (unless it’s a present, when it would be really hard to have to give something else away to keep the present – especially if maybe I liked the present less!!!). Currently my second-hand stuff that’s still reasonable gets posted to a friend in Zimbabwe who either needs them for her family or can sell to at least raise some little money when things are SO tough there.

2. DIY vegetables! - 13 Sep 2006

   I do quite well on fruit – blackberries and tayberries and apples (the latter if I get the pruning right!)but veggies are proving tasty to the slugs and snails but I am trying to stay organic. Any bright ideas anyone?!

3. Turn Off The Tap When Brushing Your Teeth - 13 Sep 2006

   I am surprised to find so many people leave the tap to run – it never occurred to me to do so, I can only surmise that I was taught to turn it off as a child so have never realised there was a different way! Glad I had the parents I did!

4. Dry clothes outdoors. - 13 Sep 2006

   I have a washer/drier but hardly ever use the latter – most of the year you can get washing dry on the line, the rest I put an airer over the bath. It’s only occasionally that I need to do towels in winter in the drier.

5. Compost Your Leftovers - 13 Sep 2006

   I have two compost bins – fill one during the year then leave it for the next year while I fill the other one. By the end of the year the one that’s been left is lovely stuff (though it is surprising how much it goes down!) so I turn it out onto the garden and then start filling that one while the other one then sits for a year. Easy!!!

6. Stop Taking Plastic Bags From Shops - 03 Oct 2006

   Grunthos: Lakeland Limited do a snazzy shopping trundle (sort of handled collapsable brightly coloured box) if you don’t want the granny tartan trolley!

7. Put Your Money Where Your Heart is (Bank Ethically) - 03 Oct 2006

   And another place for your savings is the Ecology Building Society – they fund mortgages on properties that others won’t lend for but that recycle buildings and improve sustainability. I’m glad to think my little savings are doing something useful while I’m not using the money.

8. Buy Ethical Palestinian olive oil - 03 Oct 2006

   Have just bought the last bottle in my local fair trade shop (Fair Deal, in Luton, but with the current problems in Gaza they are having difficulty getting any more. Can we do anything about the way Israel/USA/Europe is treating Palestine?

9. More tea vicar? (Don't overfill your kettle.) - 09 Feb 2007

   Bit surprised this is new – I suggested buying a smaller kettle as an action several months ago! I use a travel one most of the time when it’s just me, and have a larger one for when I have groups of friends around!

10. Get a water butt! - 14 Apr 2007

    Yeah, I too have bought one and not yet connected it – will try in the next few weeks, and just hope I don’t have the same sort of tales to tell as Carla! Or is living generously about having more fun anyway?!

11. Ladies: Consider a mooncup! - 25 Apr 2007

    Just started to try as I have a day at home (still not sure about use in public toilets, I confess) and have already learnt that it’s worth trimming my finger nails, before trying to remove it!

12. Get a water butt! - 16 Sep 2007

    I managed to get mine connected up before the last lot of rain so it filled up (sagged a bit doing that so the pipe didn’t meet up well – added a piece of bath edging to channel water down into butt; a bit ‘Hath Robinson’ but it works!!!) and I’ve been using it to water my veggies in this dry weather. Eating Swiss chard and the leeks are doing well.

13. Buy An Ethical T-Shirt (Support Someone In A Developing Country) - 16 Sep 2007

    Have just bought one from the Autumn Traidcraft range, and have had several very good ones from People Tree this year – inclusing one with a nice embroidery design on one side. Also Greenfibres do nice ones in a range of colours – both long and short sleeved.

14. Party On ... Without the Plastic - 09 Jan 2008

    I bought cups from WF Denny last year and have donated some to the two churches in the Luton Methodist Circuit that still insist on using plastic cups – and also told them I would sell them some more or where they could get them from themselves. AND THEY STILL WON’T TAKE NOTICE! I’ve written articles for the church magazine – what else do I do?

15. Switch to Green Household Cleaners - 09 Jan 2008

    Have been using stuff like Ecover for years – mostly because my hands don’t get eczema that way! And Ecover laundry bleach dissolved in boiling water is a good loo-cleaner too without knocking out the sewage works useful bugs! It’s really good in cold water too for getting blood dtains out of clothing etc. Our local Fair Trade shop does refills of Ecover products (saves storing big containers), and white vinegar can be bought in supermarkets – I use it for making chutney too (but only when it’s on offer and cheaper than the brown!)

16. How To be A Good Capitalist - 15 Jul 2008

    I’m still not convinced we don’t need a new system – capitalism does rather work on the linear model of resources in, through to production of goods which are purchased by consumers and eventually disposed! Cyclical systems might be better – see the great series of videos on this matter by going to www.everythingmustchange.org then click on ‘Planet’, then the ‘learn’ list and then ‘what is the story of all that stuff we use?

17. Buy Presents That Make A Difference - 15 Jul 2008

    Friends of mine who are getting married next month have opened a wedding list with Oxfam so we buy them such gifts. I was just disappointed the ‘Peace’ gift had been totally bought before I signed on!

18. Offset your Airmiles - 15 Jul 2008

    Not being very sure that carbon-offsetting really is the answer (I agree with Nickd), I am currently picking up aluminium cans lying in the street and making sure they go in the recycling to offset my flight to the Domincan Republic next month (I am taking a group of young people to build houses with Haitian sugar plantation workers living in poverty) – a friend at DoE did the calculation for me and maybe Luton isn’t actually messy enough for me to find 12000 but I hope to have ‘offset’ 10% of the flight before I go.

19. Can You Be A Generous Reader ? - 15 Jul 2008

    One of our local village Methodist churches has a permament array of secondhand books on shelves in the back room – so it’s easy to buy, read and then give them back to help them make some more money! And for a small church they donate loads of money to charity! And they have an allotment – in fact now I think about are really a ‘Generous Community’. Maybe we should encourage the growth of more ‘Generous Communities’.

20. How to Leave Work at Work - 15 Jul 2008

    I gace up my job last year – too much stress seriously affecting my health (and the ungenerous way I then treated other people) and have been free-lancing this year. Have been amazed at the way work has come along, am sleeping at nights, enjoying what I do (and wonder what on earth I did with the 50% extra money I earned the year before!)

21. Yellow and Grey - The New Green - 15 Jul 2008

    Ever thought about taking a mug to work (see list of Generous Actions!) and thereby not using a PLASTIC cup at all?!!!!!!

22. Keep The Warmth In Your House - 05 Feb 2009

    You may also want to sign up to Ebicos’s Fuel Poverty Challenge (www.ebico.co.uk). we commit to reducing our fuel use by 10% (I think I’m going to find that hard as I already do most of the things suggested!) and they will fund assisting people living in fuel poverty to also reduce their costs and fule use and improve their houses.

23. Buy Ethical Palestinian olive oil - 05 Feb 2009

    How tragic to read again the comment I amde in OCt 2006 – I have again this week bought the last bottle in my fair trade shop as supplies have dwindled due to Israel blitzing Gaza again. Oh how I pray Obama may be able to change things.

24. Choose philanthropy, choose to give - 21 May 2009

    I decided long ago to give a certain proportion of my income a month and keep an account of it. That way when a request comes up I know the money is there to do it as it’s already put aside. It’s quite liberating as it’s not then even considered as part of my normal spending money that I am having to manage without. However a couple of year’s ago CAFOD challenged people to give 1% of their income to charities, and I thought I already did more than that – but was then challenged to give 1% more!

25. Party On ... Without the Plastic - 25 May 2009

    A year and a half since my last comment and the two churches ARE buying paper cups instead of plastic or polystyrene – ‘just’ got to work on the district synod now!

26. Go Fair Trade At The Office - 25 May 2009

    The organisation in which I work has set up a multi-faith steering group to try and make Luton a Fair Trade town. They’ve recently persuaded a new Asian-owned coffee shop to go Fair Trade and the Council have endorsed the idea (but are having to be pushed to do anything more!!!!)

27. Buy Nothing on Buy Nothing Day (In November) - 25 May 2009

    There’s a guy writing in the Guardian who is trying to buy nothing all year! I did do a ‘buy virtually nothing month’ in January and restricted myself to food (and also used up some of the food in the freezer etc) and essentials (though also did a re-think about what is an essential). I’ve gone a bit consumerist again though recently (and bought a bunch of new clothes from ethical People Tree) so think I should perhaps do it again.

28. 'Grey' water your garden - 25 May 2009

    My waste pipe isn’t external to be able to fit one of these valves, but I do use the bath water to water the garden, flush the loo, wash my hands etc

29. Make your garden bee-friendly - 25 May 2009

    Got a huge rosemary and plenty of lavender and loads of weeds with flowers! Also I seem to have a patch of sandy soil next to my front door loved by mining bees! They started using it last year and are back this – drilling little holes in which they lay their eggs and disappear again. Supposedly solitary, I’ve got lots of them using this patch – but serendipity rather than any effort of mine!

30. Have a power-cut party - 25 May 2009

    Having done ‘Eart Hour’ in March this year I am trying t have an earth hour each Saturday – haven’t yet coincided it with a party, but I like the idea!

31. Plant A Tree - 25 May 2009

    Helped the local ‘Friends of the Earth’ group plants some native species in public green spaces recently – and discovered some areas I didn’t know existed!

32. Uncommon courtesy - 03 Oct 2009

    I quite agree – and as our local Sustainable Community Strategy talks of Lutonbecoming a place where people greet each other, I have started doing it: smiling or saying ‘Good morning’. More people than I expected do respond – try it!

33. Think before you buy - 03 Oct 2009

    And when you DO buy, have you considered the ethics of the product/producer? See www.ethicalconsumer.org – I use it to make purchasing decisions like my parents used to use ‘Which?’

34. Pass On Those Unwanted Gifts - 03 Oct 2009

    We do the Romania Shoe boxes www.linkromania.co.uk each year – and quite a lot of those gifts of shower gels and other ‘smellies’ (that I can’t use because of the risk of eczema) can go into those and be a nice addition to the ‘every day’ items we are also asked to include.

35. Taking the balanced approach? - 11 Nov 2009

    I can see the sense in what Marianne has said, but that sort of responsible farming won’t supply the vast amount of meat we currently consume. We do need to eat less meat (especially when apparently we in the UK import grain from Sudan and Somalia to feed into our cattle while their people starve, which is what horrified me into eating less meat!) and then, yes the meat we eat should be from farms such as Marianne’s or those which utilise land (such as the Lake District Fells) that can’t be used for much else!