It's raining now but it is going to be a hot summer so think about saving water now!

I believe water is the most precious resource on earth. Full stop! It’s the main substance that separates our planet from all others and makes life possible. That’s why it’s so important to know your water saving devices. The availability of water impacts every part of our lives. While salt water is quite abundant on our planet, fresh water sources become more depleted every year as ever-greater demands are placed upon them. These increasing demands, have made water more precious than ever.

Careless use of our water resources is the surest way to bring about a future water crisis. That’s why it’s important to learn about water saving devices now. The place for each of us to start saving is in our home, and most people are surprised by the impact they can make there.

Check out my top water saving devices here:

The fabulous Interflush WC water saving kit costs £17.95 fits on top of your WC siphon and connects to the front mounted flush handle. Did you know that every person uses 150 litres of water per day. 60 of these litres are used for toilet flushing. The Interflush™ saves half of the flushing water, that is 30 litres per person per day. Hippo's are great too at £1.20 each..With this in your cistern you will help conserve your water supply.Each Hippo will save between 2.5 - 3.5litres of water when fitted in an average cistern of 9litres

Watergreen at £19.99 has won the Waterwise Marque by Waterwise, the leading authority on water efficiency. WaterGreen is a clever syphon pump. Put one end in your bath; the other end out the window, connect to a hose, squeeze the pump and let gravity syphon your waste water onto your garden. It moves water from your water butt, bath, shower or sink to your garden - simply, cleanly and affordably. It can also be used to empty cisterns, blocked sinks and dishwashing machines. It stores neatly and can be used at any time. Best of all, you can use your hosepipe to move recycled or rain water, even during a hosepipe ban! Easy: a few squeezes of the hand pump gets it going, then it runs by itself. Efficient: empties baths in minutes and can be left unattended Flexible: fill a water butt, wash the car or use straight onto the garden Convenient: attaches to any standard garden hose Effective: recycles water - saving money, your garden and the planet.

Check out the Tefal Quick Cup at £59.99. For real instant drinks here's a very clever device that brings you instant hot water at 95C. In this way it uses around 65% less energy than conventional kettles. Only the water that is required is heated instantly - no pre heating is required and therefore no cooling and loss of energy takes place. it also has a filter and produces ice cool water!

Have you heard about the 'cycle to work' scheme?

Cycle to Work scheme

Do you cycle to work or would you like to cycle to work?

The Cycle to Work initiative takes advantage of legislation introduced by the government to encourage employees to bike to work as part of the government's Green Transport Plan.
By allowing Income Tax, National Insurance and VAT exemptions employees are effectively provided with the use of a bicycle and accessories as part of their employment package through a salary sacrifice scheme. Depending on earnings an employee could save up to 50% on the full retail price of a bike and associated accessories.

For more info visit http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/

Skill swap in the South West

All over the world, people are registering at the freeconomy community. They’re all tired of the lack of community in their areas and the focus on money, and have decided to do something about it. By signing up to freeconomy, you are able to contact, and be contacted by, others in your area with the aim of sharing your skills and to help one other for free. It’s a fantastic way to get to know people in your local community, and to make a real contribution to your area. The online freeconomy community is only just a year old, but is growing rapidly and already represents 90 countries. The idea is to share skills, tools and room/land with people who live near you.

The south west has several hundred members with more skills than you can imagine and there is something for everyone!

Registration is free and easy so join now.

Make your vote count this week

I am getting so much election literature through my door for the local council elections which are being held on Thursday, it is not funny! It is all being recycled though....

However, the Labour candidate's promo made me giggle stating about being green and how much they are into supporting recycling - but the leaflet was not printed on recycled paper. They certainly do not practice what they preach! However, when i bought this up with the Labour candidate ( a very nice chap) who was on the other side of the road canvassing the neighbours he was like... 'oh yeah, good point.'

I feel this is the same for my local MP who claims he is 'green and cares' but doesn't actually back up what he is saying. Due to this i have decided to launch a campaign to make our councillors and MP's in Gloucestershire greener! I am going to contact my MP's first and educate them on holding a greener office...I will keep you posted!

Actions speak louder than words..

Anyway my point is to make your vote count this election and vote for a candidate that actually has and will make a difference rather than just regurgitating what they have been advised to say!

Save our Post Offices Campaign

WH Smiths is not good enough for elderly and disabled of Cheltenham!

Following the successful county wide rally in Gloucester on 19.4.08, Save Our Post Offices campaigners will be outside WH Smiths in Cheltenham at 1pm on Thursday 24th April the opening day of it becoming the central post office to access its disabled access and the impact of the closure of the main post office on the elderly and disabled in Cheltenham.

Lawyers acting for Save Our Post Offices have alerted Glos County Council chief executive Peter Bungard to the council’s legal duty under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to take account of the impact of post office closures on the disabled and elderly. We believe moving the central post office to WH Smiths will restrict access and so make the keeping open of Hewlett Rd, Edinburgh Place and Woodmancote even more important.

Cheltenham resident Sydney Tavender representing St Dunstan’s Association for the military blind will be helping Save Our Post Offices with our assessments. Sydney says: ‘it’s a disgrace moving it to WH Smiths, it shouldn’t be on the first floor, there’s no escalator coming down, the lift is a goods lift at the back of the store and they’re doing it on the cheap by not paying what the old post office staff got.’
Contact Sydney on 01242 516827

Save Our Post Offices is appealing to those elderly and disabled who feel they will be severely affected by the closure of their local post office and feel WH Smiths is an inadequate replacement to contact Save Our Post Offices with their details. We will pass these on to Glos County Council for them to take account when formulating their plans regarding the replacement of any of the county’s post offices.

Save Our Post Offices also notes that Royal Mail director Richard Handover was chairman of WH Smiths until 2005 and now WH Smiths have the franchises for 76 crown post offices around the country.

Report of Rally in Gloucester Sat 19th April 208

On Sat 19th April Cheltenham post office campaigner Carmela Walker Bishop joined others from Gloucester, Stroud, Dursley and Lydney, outside the Guildhall to hand in a letter for Barry Dare (Glos County Council leader) supporting what the council has done so far to develop a rescue plan for our post offices under threat from the government closure programme. A motion has been passed to ‘investigate’ a plan and a cross party meeting involving MP’s and councillors from around the county took place on 16.4.08 to discuss what the council could do, with talk of saving 5/6 post offices. But Save Our Post Offices believe much more needs to be done to produce a comprehensive plan covering all threatened post offices that the local community believe are vital to keep open.

The rally was addressed by:
Save Our Post Offices campaigner Carmela Walker Bishop (Cheltenham)
83 year Dolly Berryman from Podsmead (Gloucester)
County Councillor Brian Oosthuysen (Stroud East)
County Councillor Phillip McLellan (Barnwood)
Town Councillor Ronnie Harding (Dursley)
Save Our Post Offices organiser Chris Moore (Stroud)
County Councillor Roger Brown (Cirencester) sent his support but was not able to attend.

Chris Moore says 'The government are attacking our communities by closing our post offices and selling some to big business like WH Smiths but Gloucester County Council could put together a comprehensive rescue package for our condemned post offices where there's a will there's a way.'

Lend your support on this important issue by contacting:

Chris Moore (Save Our Post Offices campaign)
07810 732379 or chrismoore61@yahoo.co.uk

Why i love freecycle

Have you heard of Freecycle.org? I hadn't until about a year-and-a-half ago until my sister Rachel told me about it – she is an avid freecycler!! Basically, you join an email list (Yahoo Group) for your town and when you have something to give away, you ‘offer it’. Group members reply and you pick one to come pick up your item. If you're looking for something, you can post a ‘wanted’ email and see who has what you're looking for. It's easy and free, though there can be A LOT of emails flying around, especially on weekends where everyone seems to be cleaning out their garages.The mission of Freecycle is to reduce waste and keep useful items from going to landfills, but I have found that there are so many other benefits:

First, people can get things for free. Second, people usually post up stuff that they think isn't worth selling, which makes Freecycle good for avoiding landfill. Third, people come and collect what you've advertised, so it's very convenient for you.

Junk Mail - The postman hates it!!

Junk Mail - don't we just hate it? I had 4 pieces through my letter box today alone. I am registered with the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) to stop much of this junk mail but you do have to renew every year and i had let mine lapse.

Unwanted mail is not something we just have to live with. We have the power to be more selective about what comes through our letterbox.

MPS is for you and everyone who wants to be removed from up to 95% of direct mail lists in the UK.

HOW IT WORKS

The MPS stops personally addressed unsolicited mail. Once you are registered it takes between one to four months for the service to have full effect, though you should notice a reduction of mail during this time. Meanwhile, any junk mail that you get through the post can be recycled. Check out Recycle for Gloucestershire for more information

REGISTERING IS FREE!

To register with the Mailing Preference Service:
Visit http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/ or Download, complete & send the attached registration form, or
Call 0845 703 4599 (local rates)

These other preference services are great for getting rid of unwanted annoying sales people and faxes

Telephone Preference Service linkwww.mpsonline.org.uk/tps
Fax Preference Service linkwww.mpsonline.org.uk/fps

Earth Day 2008 - 22 April

Will you take the train or bus to work? Start washing your laundry in cold water? Just turn off a few more lights? Lower your heating? However you're planning to honor Earth Day on the 22nd and combat climate change, i would like to hear all about it – the more unique, the better.
Yes, we can tackle climate change – but only if we all pitch in.

Google is taking part using their maps where you can post a notice of what you will be doing on April 22nd.

Check out this google tool which gives you a chance to do your part – and inspire your fellow citizens to do theirs. Share your ideas, put yourself on the map and let your fellow users know what you've committed to do for Earth Day 2008, and for the rest of the year.

For me, i shall walk to work, lower my heating in my house and put on an extra jumper if i am cold and buy a standby buster . I have wanted one of these for ages as they let you switch appliances off completely so that they use no electricity - rather than leaving them on standby, unnecessarily using electricity that is costing you money and contributing to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Buy Local, Buy Ethical...

I am on a mission to change my food buying habits and switch to locally grown or ethical goods as much as possible. I have been on this quest for the last few months but realise I need to step up a gear!

So what does buying locally mean for Gloucestershire. According to the Soil Association:

• Buying local means boosting the local and rural economy - latest research from the New Economic Foundation shows that money spent on locally-produced food generates almost twice as much income for the local economy as the same amount spent in a typical supermarket


• It ensures farmers' fair share by avoiding the middleman. Creates better understanding between town and country and helps support improvements in farming. Cuts down on air miles, the least environmentally-friendly form of transport!


• It reduces processing and packaging

A big part of this new initiative will be to increase awareness about all of the great locally-owned businesses that are available in Gloucestershire. I hope that I will be able to motivate many of you to change your buying habits and support local businesses and where this is not possible with certain foods and the like - to go for green or ethical food. If you know of any local businesses that should appear on our website, send me an email and I will do my best to review and write about them .

A few of the stores that I visit regularly are:

• Over Farm Market - http://www.over-farm-market.com/

Great local produce such as cheese, veggies, stuffed olives and they do great homemade scotch eggs- plus a great day out for the family as they have a farm park!

• Gloucestershire’s Farmers Markets - http://www.gloucestershirefarmersmarkets.org.uk/

Fab local produce in Gloucester and Stroud

• Ecotopia - http://www.ecotopia.co.uk/A great range of foods (available over the web with next day delivery) based on one or more of the following principles - organic, fair-trade, ethical, recycled packaging. Check out their 'cafe direct' fairly traded coffee (It is the best coffee i have ever tasted and the farmers who produce it get a fair price and access to education and healthcare - see my previous post on the importance of buying fair trade coffee).

I also love Bottlegreen products. Nestled in a tiny village of Woodchester in the heart of the Cotswolds, the Bottlegreen factory has been carefully crafting a delicious range of soft drinks and Sorbets for 18 years. They are a great local success story. http://www.bottle-green.co.uk/

Over the next few months I shall be writing about other business and provide a brief summary about what they do, what they are known for and where they are based.I hope that my posts on buying local will motivate you to start buying local!

Do you know a community initiative that needs trees?

I am delighted to announce that i have now achieved 75,000 members of my facebook forest group. For those who don't know about it, this is a group designed to create eco awareness and for every 50 members, Ecotopia.co.uk are donating a tree to community projects.

75,000 members mean 1500 trees. We have donated trees to many projects:

The first Facebook Forest is being planted on a small plot of land just outside Minchinhampton on the Edge of what is to be the first carbon neutral market garden. Lucy Offord who is creating the market garden welcomes the Facebook Forest saying how this exciting project compliments the development she is carrying out with the market garden. The first site will have room for hundreds of trees. These will vary from year old to more mature saplings to help establish these new woodlands/ forests.Ecotopia will be looking to establish further Forests alongside other such environmental projects

We shall be supporting the Honeycombe Project by a donation of trees.The Honeycomb Project is a community interest company that creates eco awareness within communities in the UK and provides sustainable human habitats by following nature's patterns . For those that don't know this is a not for profit company somewhere between a charity and company. Assets of land, buildings,tools etc can never be sold for the profits of the directors, ever! They are protected by an "asset lock" which means any land they purchase will always belong to the community we serve! So all land bought for community farms will be held in "perpetuity" which means it will always be a community farm/orchard/allotment.See http://www.be-the-solution.co.uk/ for more information

We are also helping supporting anti social behaviour projects throughout Gloucestershire -watch this space! We are looking for more community projects to support so contact me on 07885975671 or on sarahobbin@btinternet.com for more info

Check out http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12906572587

Join CarShare Gloucestershire

Thinking of Car Sharing?

Car sharing is when two or more people share a car and travel together. It allows people to benefit from the convenience of the car, whilst alleviating the associated problems of congestion and pollution. CarShareGloucestershire has been set up to provide a free carsharing service for all those who live in and around Gloucestershire. Registration is quick and easy - So register today and enjoy the benefit of car sharing.

Why buy fairly traded Coffee

Many people start the day with a few cups of coffee, or if you’re like our very energetic team at Ecotopia - a few pots of coffee. But have you ever thought where it comes from? If you haven’t checked out “Black Gold,” the acclaimed documentary that takes a look at the multi-billion dollar coffee industry and the poor farmers who cultivate the beans, then you should! You probably will never set foot in a large supermarket to buy your coffee again.

The film follows Tadesse Meskela, the General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, as he visits coffee-growing regions in Sidamo and Oromia, as well as a coffee processing center, a coffee auction house, and his union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa. He also travels to England and the US in an effort to promote Ethiopian coffee by eliminating the numerous middlemen.

With great frankness, Meskela uses “Black Gold” as a stage to describe the chronic situation Ethiopian coffee farmers face. When the price of coffee hit a 30-year low at the start of the Millenium, farmers struggled to feed their children and send them to school. Some quit farming. Others began growing a more profitable line - a local narcotic banned in the US and Europe. With their families malnourished and being forced to travel long distances to accept foreign aid, some farmers saw no alternative but to bring their families to government feeding centres.
So why do they call it black gold?

Coffee is traded as a commodity—just like oil or gold—and is second only to oil in commodity value. Because of the production surplus brought about by sun-grown coffee, the price of coffee has been chronically depressed on the world market, making it difficult for farmers to make a good living from year to year.

The price of coffee is rising, but little has changed in these communities. In Ethiopia, country that depends on coffee for about 40 percent of its export revenue, farmers make as little as 2.5p for every cup of coffee sold in Europe. Meanwhile, multinational coffee corporations collectively rake in as much as £160 billion each year, according to the film.

So why buy Fairtrade?

Fair trade organisations work directly with cooperatives of small farmers to eliminate much of the middleman costs and provide the growers with a stable price that ensures a reasonable standard of living. For instance, in 2004 the UK Fairtrade market guaranteed participating coffee growers a minimum of 126 cents per pound for arabica coffee beans, compared to a world market price of 52 cents per pound. Many fair trade organisations also encourage their growers to employ sustainable farming practices (such as organic and shade-grown).