 For me, it used to be kettle on, tea for two, then back to bed for another cheeky five minutes. My slumbering other half might have stirred by this point and be reaching out for his mug, blinking like a sleepy mole.
These days, it's all change. I go straight into the garden. Breath in the morning smells, examine the snail damage from the night before and generally take an inventory of what’s going on out there. It’s lovely, even though the sun has rarely reached it and barefoot, in my nighty, it’s chilly. But this isn’t proper gardening time. I resist the urge to check my tomato plants for aphids (here's one in the picture), or pinch out any shoulder branches, or even excavate tiny slugs from my strawberries. Otherwise I’d never get to work. Instead I wander around taking deep breaths, listening to birds and wondering if the neighbours think I'm a loon.
If I was a scientist, I’d say something about how taking deep breaths outside helps you benefit from extra oxygen which gets you off to a good start. If I was an anti-caffeine freak, I’d say it was almost as good as a shot of espresso. As it is, I’ll simply say that since taking up the habit my days have been calmer, more pleasurable altogether. This week, I’m nominating my tiny Hackney garden as my favourite green space.
If you have somewhere similarly inspirational, please nominate it for our 2008 Green Spaces Travel Awards. It could be somewhere you’ve stayed on holiday, a lunch hour hideaway or simply a journey that you’ve taken. If we feature it either in The Times or timesonline as part of our monthly selection, you’ll win a copy of Alastair Sawday's Green Places to Stay. Click here to enter.
Tempting as it is to raid Topshop as soon as the weather warms up, there's really no need with the selection of affordable and chic dresses from ethical labels. Start by browsing Adili or my current favourite, the LaLesso website. Yes, you may have to order online, but at least this keeps you away from the lure of the high street.
The sultry madam on the left is wearing a Tiwi dress from Lalesso, a label that is one of ethical fashion's best kept secrets. It offers dresses and skirts made according to fair trade principles. This one is £34, made by one of 22 workers at the workshop on Diani Beach, Kenya, each of whom is paid over three times the average manufacturer's wage. To find out more, click here.
The Marianne Dress, a lightweight number for the beach or lounging around on hot days, is inspired by free-spirit pop princess Marianne Faithful. It is made from organic cotton by Organic Stereo, Brighton-based designers of 'progressive clothing'. Newcomers on the ethical fashion bloc, the company uses eco dyes for its garments, which are made in a factory in Portugal.
This organic shift dress from the Natural Collection might not dazzle immediately, but it strikes me as one of those dresses you end up wearing day in day out, sometimes over jeans, and in winter, over tights. Best of all, it's reduced to £30. It's made by a French label called Ideo that recognizes the need for affordable ethical fashion. French speakers should check out its website here.
Behold this clever design that manages to be both a dress and a skirt. It's called, predictably, a skirt dress top. The elastic top has straps that can be tied up if you wish. It comes in three different colours, for the unbeatable price of £17.50. Its ethical credentials are impressive. Read here about Nomads Clothing's fair trade and environmental policy.
Made in New Zealand, this splotch print dress (below) makes up for in style what it might lose in transport emissions. And remember, it is organic cotton. I love the fact that it can be worn back to front to create a V-neck, and that it's callled 'splotch print'. Sounds as if a mucky barbecue wouldn't worry it, which makes it my kind of summer dress.
 Most of us have to ease green issues gently into our romantic lives. While love may conquer all, it won't survive an in-depth interrogation about a partner's recycling habits on the first date. Once you've been together a few years (in my case make that eight) you reach a point in your relationship when you can happily hurl abuse at your loved one if he (or she) so much as leaves the tap on a for a moment longer than is necessary to rinse a plate or dampen a toothbrush. By then, the extent of your eco-fascism will have been revealed. But at the beginning, my advice would be to take it slow.
Here is an extract from my book, How Green Are My Wellies, published by Eden Project Books on 16th June. It is available for £13.50, free p&p, if you call 0870 1608080, or go to this website.
Hope it makes you smile.
Tips for a Successful Green Date
Don't mention the C word too early on. Climate change is not a romantic subject. Instead, indicate a passing interest in green matters by suggesting eco-friendly restaurants, such as Water House or Acorn House if you're in London. Somewhere close to you that is known for local, seasonal produce, if you are not.
While at the restaurant, drink tap water (along with the hard stuff, obviously, I'm not expecting you to stay sober). Should your partner ask for mineral water, frown slightly to show your disapproval, while maintaining a mischievous smile.
Eat by candlelight. It will save energy and guarantee a flattering glow. This is easy at home; harder at restaurants, but you could ask your waiter for dimmer lights and more candles.
Don't count carbon calories. There is nothing more unattractive than someone who won't enjoy their food because they are too busy totting up its environmental impact. On a first date, forget food miles completely, or at least try not to talk about them.
By all means, ask if there is a sustainable fish policy at the restaurant. Stop short of asking for the CV of your sea bass and the lowdown on who its grandparents were.
Insist on a moonlit walk home - to save your carbon footprint and to provide plenty of kissing opportunities.
If the date has gone well, it could just end in the bedroom. Here you might think that green concerns have no place. It'd be nice, after all, to have one territory that is spared a green makeover. And shouldn't we be ablel to drop our ideals, as well as our organic hemp knickers, at the bedroom door? This is what I thought until I was won over by the concept of an eco-boudoir - soya-wax candles burning virtuously, organic massage oils and a bamboo bed with plumped-up cushions made from recycled materials.
Hints on Greening your Bedroom Behaviour
Take baths together. Even better in the water-saving stakes is to take brief, flirty showers together since a five minute showers uses roughly 30 per cent less water than running a bath.
Undies should be organic, like these. Non-organic cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed crops around; roughly a quarter of the world's insecticides are poured on to cotton fields each year, with about 150g being used in the making of one T-shirt.
Too embarrassed to charge a solar-powered sex toy on your sunlit balcony in full view of the neighbours. I would be, too. Stick to one that takes rechargeable batteries. And keep it in the bedroom.
The most biodegradable contraceptive on the market is a condom made from the intestinal membrane of lambs. Suitable only for lovers with a strong stomach. Definitely not for vegans, who have their own special brand, called condomi (find it here), which uses cocoa powder instead of the milk protein required to process latex.
Don't throw normal condoms down the toilet. The Environment Agency estimates that two billion items of sanitary protection, of which condoms form a big part, end up in the UK's sewers every year, from where they have to be removed, washed (otherwise they are seen as contaminated) and sent to landfill. Better to wrap them in some recycled loo paper and pop them in the bin.
Choose your moment carefully. Just before bedtime means that you'll warm up the bed and yourselves, and you can turn the heating off during the winter months.
Do it for the planet. Having sex is carbon neutral and a darn sight less damaging than most other leisure activities. Providing it doesn't always end in babies.
 Invest in a Wrap-N-Mat. I like this reusable sandwich wrapper - available here - which doubles as a mat for outdoor lunching (see picture). It is nothing more complicated than a pretty napkin with a wipe-clean plastic lining on one side and a Velcro fastening strap. The idea is that instead of using cling-film or silver foil, thus adding to landfill, you wrap up your sarnies, or any other lunchtime snacks. This morning, I used it to wrap up a couple of chocolate digestives (my teatime weakness) and although this meant the package was too small to be able to use the Velcro fastening, I secured the bundle with an elastic band. When it gets mucky, I can put it in the washing machine, so long as I choose a low setting of 30 or 40 degrees, which being the predictable greenie that I am, I would do anyway.
Look for natural packaging. Choose food such as bananas and avocadoes that don’t require extra packaging. And what about boiled eggs, served with a pinch of sea salt - for which you may need to use a wrap of recyled silver foil? They may have gone out of fashion, but with such green credentials, they deserve to be reinstated.
Tumblers made from recycled glass. Made by a Bangladesh based project that is supported by Tearfund, they look as though they’d survive the odd tumble that befalls anything taken on a picnic. And in winter, you can take them out of their wicker holders to use them as hand-warming glasses for mulled wine. Find them here.
Use materials you already have. Make the most of recyclable containers that are already lying around your home. Jam jars make a brilliant home for a slug of salad dressing and old takeaway containers can be used for lettuce leaves, among other things.
Here’s a biodegradable picnic set. But I’m not convinced that the greenest way to start the outdoor eating season is to invest in a new set of everything, even if it is all made from biodegradable cassava, a tropical plant which gives us the school canteen favourite, tapioca.
I’d be inclined to pinch stuff from the kitchen, such as proper cutlery from the kitchen and those plastic plates that have been lurking at the back of kitchen cupboards.
 This was the view asserted by Monty Don yesterday at Hay Festival, as the rain thundered outside the tent and we all wondered when global warming might show its face and dry our soggy shoes. The much-loved gardening expert was speaking for the first time after his stroke, six weeks ago, to announce that he will take over from Jonathan Dimbleby as president of organic charity The Soil Association.
It was a brave thing to say, but given the audience at Hay - the vast majority were organic supporters and grew their own vegetables (something established early on in the talk with a quick ‘hands up’) - it went down surprisingly well. Here, people believe in supporting UK food production - in the face of climate change, rising food prices and peak oil - far more than they stand up for international trade.
What he meant was that in answer to the classic green dilemma - should we buy from developing countries to support their economies or stick to home-grown produce – he favours the latter. We should build up our own levels of self-sufficiency and encourage other countries to do the same, he explained.
To qualify this view, he went on to say that poorer countries should also be sorting out food plans that involve feeding their own populations rather than relying on exports. In the long run, he believes this would help them, although it may initially provoke economic fallout.
I’m not so sure. I worry that global trade is too much part of our economic system to simply reject it and to say that each country should work with what it’s got. Hasn’t globablization – for better or for worse – gone too far for that? Wouldn't we be better off looking at how to make trade fair, following the lead of organisations such as the Fairtrade Foundation? And what about Caribbean countries that provide most of the world’s bananas and rely on this for the success of their economy (especially since they have the capacity to produce more bananas than their population could possible eat)?
Patrick Holden, chair of the Soil Association, and the other speaker at this event, had a softer line. He suggested that while we should try to become self-sufficient in staple foods in the UK, there is no reason to abruptly halt buying food that we can’t grow here. His message was this: buy what you can from the UK and top up from other countries, instead of damaging their trade by stopping buying foreign goods altogether.
No doubt if these two organic heavyweights are going to work together, they’re going to have to thrash out their differences.
 There’s an awful lot being said about eco tourism at the moment. That it’s the future of travel, with more mainstream travel operators coming up with responsible travel policies than ever before. That there is no such thing, especially if you’ve flown there anyway. Even that we should stop trying to make holidays ethical and admit that what matters is a decent beach, a cloudless sky and a vat of pina colada.
It’s confusing. On the one hand, we want to relax on holiday, to unwind and forget our troubles, including our guilt-induced responsibility to the planet. On the other, accounting for the environment is being promoted as something that can make for a better holiday, a more satisfying experience. Whatever you think, here are some factors to consider if you haven’t already booked your summer escape.
How do you know it’s ‘eco’?
Here’s a good example of a written eco policy of the sort that you would expect if the holiday you booked is claiming to be ‘eco’.
Don’t accept the word at face value, make sure it is backed up by a written environmental policy and clear examples of what measures are being taken to earn its eco title. Tribes Travel, the owner of this policy, has won several responsible travel awards in the past few years.
Does a green holiday mean hard work?
Gone are the days when eco meant you’d spend a week roughing it at a campsite, or learning to lay hedges. In many ways, the laziest way to be an eco traveller is to choose accommodation that ticks green boxes. Book a cottage with solar panels and compost bins through leading online tour operator Responsible Travel and it’s all done for you.
Go by train if you can
Check to see if it's feasible on seat61.com. And visit this page to find how travel by train compares to plane travel in terms of CO2.
What preparation can you do before you go?
The Travel Foundation, a charity that supports sustainable tourism, offers an Insiders Guide, giving practical tips on how to make a difference when you travel. To download the pdf version, click here.
For more info on how to be a well-behaved green traveller, visit the Green Passport website, a project launched by United Nations Environment Program, which includes a quiz to tell you what kind of traveller you really are.
How bad is flying?
If you’re still in a muddle about exactly what damage you're doing by hopping around the world on a plane, you’re not alone. Some people argue that planes are responsible for a fraction of global carbon dioxide emissions; others point out that those figures are rising significantly. The Science Museum’s latest exhibition ‘Does Flying Cost the Earth?’ attempts to get to the bottom of this, with its interactive displays that give you the facts without being preachy. If you can’t get there, its website has much of the info.
What are the figures?
I also recommend this article, which first appeared in The Times last year, written by Camilla Cavendish. It puts the frequently quoted tiny figures of global emissions that come from flying in perspective.
What can I do when I get there?
According to Tourism Concern, one of the important things to think about is whether your money is going to filter into the local economy or be drained by foreign-owned multinational companies. Try to stay in locally owned hotels; eat in local restaurants and insist on a local tour guide. For other tips to avoid guilt trips, see here.
Should I offset when I return?
If you can’t decide whether to give money to a carbon offset company such as ClimateCare, I suggest that you read this statement from several green charities, including Friends of the Earth, which assesses the value of the offsetting concept.
Nominate your holiday
If you’ve stayed somewhere fabulously green, don’t forget to tell us all about it. Nominate it for a Times Green Spaces award. Here are the details.
In the words of Kathleen Wyatt, Times travel editor: "We want to shout about spaces that stop us in our tracks, spaces that demand our attention and have earned our love….they might be as varied as a farmhouse in Ireland, a lakeside reserve in France or the unsung efforts of a hotelier on some distant island."
 Last weekend, I spent that scorching Saturday - when most sensible people were lounging in the sunshine - at the Barbican’s Eco Aware event, in London. Mind you, I can’t complain. I was there to promote my book, How Green Are My Wellies. It's not officially out until 16th June, but if you can’t wait to reserve a copy, you can pre-order here.
Right, where was I, before I started my self-publicity? Oh yes, last weekend’s Eco Aware event. Of all the stalls pushing biodegradable crockery and organic vegetables, the one that stole the show was offering punters the chance to make up their own Morsbag, a material alternative to a plastic bag. You could choose your fabric, mostly scraps from old duvets, curtains or old clothes, and then be shown how - with a little sewing machine guidance - you could turn it into a bag. The results are far prettier than they sound - as you can see from the picture above.
The Morsbag concept – named after its founder Claire Morsman - is about using leftover fabric to make something useful and green. Morsman set up a group, mostly friends, that met weekly on her barge in Hanwell, in West London, to run up dozens of bags. Then they gave them out for free outside supermarkets. It's a bit like other forms of green guerrilla activism, such as guerilla gardening.
To make your own bag, visit the Morsbag website. There’s a PDF guide here to help you and even an animated demonstration. Even better, set up what Morsman calls a ‘pod’. A group of people, or sewing group, that meets to make Morsbags for their community. Or check here to see if there's already one in your area.
 Plenty of people have spoken out against plastic bags, but few have sung about it. Until now. Here the children at Godwin Primary School, in East London, make their point, musically, inspired by We Are What We Do's Change the World for a Fiver book.
To celebrate Marks & Spencers new policy of charging for plastic bags, they have been asked to perform in an M&S store. Click here to listen.
 At last, it’s arrived. A little later than normal, after a rainy few months, but for the next six to eight weeks, the shops will be full of British asparagus.
Eat it any earlier than this and the chances are it will either have been flown in from Peru or have been grown in energy-gobbling heated polytunnels. Whether or not this bothers you, remember that asparagus grown in the cool British climate has a unique flavour that is well worth waiting for.
The question is: now that it’s here, what are we going to do with it? Boiled for five minutes and wiped in butter is a much loved method, but it is by no means the only one. Here are some ideas – please feel free to add your own.
Grilled, as a topping for toasted sourdough bread. First, spread a generous layer of cream cheese or goat’s cheese on the toasted bread, then the cooked asparagus, followed by a drizzle of olive oil. This was inspired by a Lindsey Bareham recipe
In a risotto with other green seasonal vegetables such as broad beans, peas and spinach. Purists might prefer this recipe for simple asparagus risotto
For a twist on the traditional route, make up a lemony buttery sauce. Melt a lump of butter with the juice and grated zest of a lemon. Add some chopped chives or other herbs if you wish, and serve in a little jug with steamed asparagus spears. This recipe includes a dash of Tabasco
Anyone growing their own veg may well have some radishes and maybe even some broad beans ready to harvest by now. Here’s a recipe that combines them with asparagus in a seasonal salad.
For a deeper flavour, smear your spears with olive oil, season and roast in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Top with thin slices of parmesan while they’re still hot to make up a winning starter.
For a controversial twist to a traditional vegetable, here is a Heather Mills’ recipe for a vegan-tastic asparagus and pasta dish
Asparagus is also a tasty addition to a BBQ. Brush with olive oil and put on the grill for a couple of minutes each side. Here’s a recipe for barbecued spears with rocket, goats cheese and a lemony dressing.
Is there any time of day when asparagus isn’t welcome? Not according to this Ready Steady Cook chef who recommends that you enjoy an asparagus breakfast, topped with a fried egg. See here for recipe.
For an easy, wholesome lunch, try this miso soup recipe from Times chef Jill Dupleix.
The perfect place for the tough ends (which many people like to chop off) is in a stock or soup. Try this cream of asparagus soup.
Cooking tip: to steam, simply stand a tied up bunch of asparagus in three inches of boiling water, cover and cook for 3 to 6 minutes. For more tips, go to the British Asparagus website
 1/ It’s an aphrodisiac. During Roman times, when it grew in Mediterranean regions, it was considered the perfect ingredient to give your sex life a boost.
2/ You don’t need a garden. A window box, or even something smaller, like the plastic packaging container that you get strawberries in, will do. Throw some stones or old wine corks in the bottom and add some compost.
3/ It doesn’t need much attention. You sprinkle seeds on wet compost, then sprinkle some more compost over the top. Water again, and you’re off. Once well established you can abandon it for weeks on end and it will manage fine. For more detailed instructions, see this guide in Gardener’s World.
4/ You don’t need to worry about soil type. Rocket grows well in most soils, so you can avoid all the effort of pH testing kits and working out whether you’re dealing with a clay or sandy patch.
5/ It grows like a weed. And it self seeds so if you plant it in your garden, you’ll find patches of it cropping up all over the place.
6/ You won’t be bound by a rigorous watering schedule. Only when the seedlings first appear, you should water every day or so, unless it rains. Later on, rocket won't need excessive watering; it is used to Mediterranean climes. Although in the height of summer, watering helps to stop it running to seed (this is when seed or flower heads form, so the plant no longer concentrates on producing leaves - it has reached the end of its growing life)
7/ It’s good for you. Especially if you minimize the time between picking it and eating it, which is easy if it’s growing metres from your kitchen. Fresh rocket leaves contain iron and vitamin C.
8/ You don’t have to be limited to salads. You can cook it, treating it the same as spinach.
9/ It’s hardy and keeps on growing all winter. Especially wild rocket, which is tougher than salad rocket. Mine is taking over a patch in my front garden, where I sowed some seeds, over a year ago.
10/ Slugs and snails don’t seem to like it. Not as much as other salad crops anyway. To anyone who has witnessed the destruction of tender seedlings or suffered the loss of their favourite plant, this is a big attraction.
11/ It doesn’t need space. It’s not fussy about being crowded in a bed like asparagus, or likely to take up too much room like courgette plants.
12/ Bagged rocket from the supermarket is a rip-off. Say you bought a £2 bag of rocket once a week from May until September, that would cost you £46. One packet of organic rocket seeds costs £1.49.
13/ You can make your own pesto. Either in a food blender, or do what I do and bash up some pine kernals, then add garlic, salt and roughly chopped rocket and grind it in a large pestle and mortar, or in a mixing bowl with a rolling pin. Add olive oil and lots of grated parmesan. It’ll keep for a few weeks, sealed in a jam jar in the fridge. For a more accurate recipe, see here.
14/ It makes you feel green fingered. Sticking with something that is easy to grow does wonders for your gardening self-esteem. A thriving bed of greens promises of success with future venture.
15/ It’ll impress friends. When you come in from the garden with a handful of freshly plucked leaves, they will gasp at your green and earthy ways, even if you only have enough to sprinkle on top of a salad made mainly from supermarket iceberg. With its peppery flavour, a little goes a long way.
16/ You can sow almost anytime. From early spring to late autumn, with the exception perhaps of the height of summer when it might run to seed
17/ It goes brilliantly with salami. Or, if you're posh about your pig products, prosciutto.
18/ It grows quickly. None of this wait-two-years-before-you-eat-it-palava that you have with rhubarb and raspberry canes.
19/ Seeds are easy to find in garden centres. Unlike obscure varieties of rainbow chard, most garden centres, however small, will stock a packet or two of rocket seeds.
20/ The more you eat the more it seems to grow. This is because most types of rocket are ‘cut and come again’
21/ If your rocket is attacked by a pest, the leaves won’t be inedible. The holes you might see in the leaves are caused by a tiny pest called the flea beetle, so called because it leaps like a flea when disturbed. There is no problem with eating the leaves, although you may wish to wash them first to remove any traces of flea.
22/ If you still want to cheat... you can order in young plants from Rocket Gardens, see here.
 Today Sarah Vine writes about the peculiar pleasures of the new Lakeland catalogue, with its insulated butter dishes and Thermos snack jars.
It is, she says, the promises of order that fascinates the working mum, “the fantasy of perfection.”
I must admit to have been oddly compelled by it myself. The other night, I took it to bed - the magazine, that is. A guilty pleasure that prompted considerable mocking from my boyfriend. I doubt he would have been any more scornful if it was a bundle of porn on my bedside table. Anyway, as I browsed and yawned, there were moments when I convinced myself that here were some genuinely eco-friendly solutions. Tupperware boxes of every imaginable size and easy-seal freezer bags to make leftovers easy.
In the morning, I saw sense. You don’t need to buy special Tupperware boxes; they accumulate on their own. Friends leave them behind and takeaway containers become them, as do yoghurt pots and deli pots and a host of plastic packaging that you get for free from the shops. It’s the same story with freezer bags. The ones you use for fruit and veg in the supermarket do the job just as well. I’d rather use what I already have in my home than bring more stuff into the equation. It's not just cheaper and greener to be inventive, it's more fun. It's satisfying.
Few of Lakeland's plastic wares are genuinely vital to the running of a home. What I've noticed is that it offers solutions to problems we didn’t even realize we had. Take its mini icepacks for example. Remember, says the catalogue: "Packed lunches in an office drawer...can become a health risk." Since when has your cheese and pickle sarnie being warmed to room temperature bothered you? What about the mini salt and pepper mills for picnics. Good idea, until you realize that up until now, you’ve been perfectly happy with a tiny silver foil wrap containing a grind of each. Then there’s the ice crusher for "sunny day smoothies". Convenient, yes, but a good bash up between a rolling pin and a tea-towel containing ice works just as well.
And there’s something else. Make domestic life problem-free and doesn’t it ruin the fun? With hands-free wine glass holders and little coloured clips for each glass, so no one knocks any wine over and everyone knows whose glass is whose, picnics might become a little dull.
 When I posted about my disappointment with Alastair Darling’s plans for a plastic bag tax, all sorts of responses came in arguing that this was an excuse to introduce a tax; that plastic bags should be celebrated for their lightweight durability and that they are a necessary part of modern life. I’m afraid I don’t agree.
It’s easy to recycle them
That’s rubbish. Rarely collected by local authority kerbside collections (tell me if yours does, I’d love to know what it does with them), your best chance is to find a supermarket with a recycling bank for bags. But this is far from ideal. The UK lacks its own developed plastic recycling facilities so, like most of Europe, sends the majority of its plastics to China to be recycled over there, an arrangement which lead to a BBC Real Story scandal two years ago. It uncovered our plastic being piled into Chinese landfill rather than being recycled. The problem with the plastic used in bags is that it is low quality: cheap to make from new, but tricky and energy intensive to recycle. Look at most plastic items and you’ll see a triangle containing a number; the higher that number the harder the product is to recycle. PET, numbered one, is the best sort for recycling. Decent carrier bags are numbered four. The more lightweight variety can be as high as seven. For more info on these codes, see here.
They only take up a tiny proportion of landfill
Taking up landfill space has never been one of the main accusations levelled at plastic bags. That they are made from a non-renewable resource, yes. That each of us in the UK uses an average of 290 of them every year, definitely. Not to mention the impact they are having on the natural world - see here. But taking up landfill space is only a small concern. In fact, it is worrying itself that only an estimated third of the bags we use end up in landfill when we are getting through so many - 145 billion last time I looked here. Where are they if they’re not in landfill? As they can’t all be in your special plastic bag holder. Many seem to find their way to the sea. There has been debate recently about the extent to which plastic bags cause marine deaths. The plastic industry points out that many of the numbers quoted are based on estimates with little scientific support. What has clearly emerged from this debate is that plastic bags are only one kind of plastic that threatens animals, and probably not the worst. Damage done by solid lumps of plastic is even more serious. Reports suggest that many birds can die because they ingest enough small lumps of plastic that their stomachs are filled with nothing else and they starve to death.
They don’t take long to breakdown
The fact is that no one knows precisely how long a plastic bag takes to disappear without digging one up every decade to see how it’s getting on. Few scientists have given a figure of less than 100 years; most estimate between 200 and 1,000 years, depending on whether the bag finds itself buried in a light and air deprived landfill site or up a tree, where sunlight will help to break it down. A few weeks ago, the Association of Plastic Manufacturers at the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, claimed that:
"They decompose within one and a half to two years because of ultraviolet
sunlight." I would love to know where that figure came from.
They require less energy to manufacture than paper bags
In part this is true, but paper bags are not the only alternative to plastic bags, and while they require more energy, they also come from a renewable resource. Paper bags made from fibres from sustainably managed forests, or even better, recycled paper are environmentally superior to an oil based product. It takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags, according to Worldwatch Institute. In short, paper may consume more resources to produce, but it is more recyclable than plastic, breaks down more easily and does not come from oil, a resource that we should be decreasing our reliance upon.
They are durable and reusable
True, it has been claimed by the plastic industry that a bag can be used 15 times to carry shopping before it falls apart. This is the theory, but how many of us do this? They have become a one-use disposable item because we know the shop will hand out more for free, next time we go. The ten billion bags handed out to British shoppers are used for an average of 12 minutes before they are discarded. A material bag that you paid for is more likely to accompany you to the shops countless times. In the wake of I’m Not a Plastic Bag fever, scores of bags have followed, made from every imaginable material – from jute, hemp and bamboo to corn starch, string, recycled paper and even banana leaves.
Yes, there is an energy cost in the production of these, but the idea is that this is negated if you use them enough times. And of course, the habit of using something time and time again - whether this is a bag, a cloth in the kitchen or an item of clothing - is simply good environmental practice.
 1/ The daddy of reuse websites is Freecycle, a free version of eBay where you can pass on unwanted items and giggle at the curious possessions of others. In the past year, I’ve managed to rid myself of a broken Hoover, a load of old flowerpots, some fairy lights and a dozen heavy patio slabs that were taking up a corner of the garden. Easy. I hardly had to move from the sofa. The best thing is the collector comes to you, so you can sit tight and wait for your unwanted gear to be carried out.
2/ As a personal favourite, I reckon the ‘put it on the pavement’ method also deserves a mention. It works like this. You leave unwanted belongings outside your house with a sign saying “Please take me”. Obviously if no one does, you have to haul them inside and think again, but I’m always surprised what goes.
3/ Gumtree is a huge online noticeboard which started in Australia and now has sites in more than 40 cities across the UK and Ireland - find your nearest here. With a section devoted to free stuff, you can advertise your unwanted clutter.
4/ Another Freecycle wannabe, VSkips is free and works by offering each member a virtual skip to put their unwanted belongings into. Once uploaded other members can search skips in their area. Find your local group here.
5/ It still counts as free-giving, but with swap shops, you get something back. SwapZ is a good place to start with its 75, 000 members and 50,000 listings.
6/ Another thriving swap shops is iswap - particularly popular for consumer electronics, video games and mobile phones. There was even a Blackberry going when I looked this morning. Members place an advert for the item that they want to exchange and then wait for other members to suggest what they would swap for it.
7/ Here is another swap shop, which has been going since 2006. It operates a point system, where you swap for points rather than an actual item, then you use your points to get your mits on whatever item you’d like. Although it's free to sign up and swap, you can also buy extra points.
8/ For anyone who lives in North East London or Essex, it’s worth trying Give or Take, which will advertise unwanted items and try to find them future uses. It grew out of the successful Forest Recycling Project.
9/ To donate furniture to people in need, visit the Furniture Reuse Network and contact your local branch here. If you’ve got stuff it wants, it’ll collect from your door.
10/ A music, film and games exchange website, called Swap And Play, allows you to pass on stuff you’re bored of, while getting fresh material from people in your area.
 Yes, that’s the good humoured, tolerant brand of self sufficiency promoted by Andy and Dave Hamilton on their website and now in their book.
I spent an afternoon with the twins at their home in Bristol last week and learnt about the most brutal slug-slaying method known to man and why everyone can make a few lifestyle tweaks to become more self sufficientish. The interview will be in Body&Soul this Saturday. In the meantime, here are the boys with their top tips on becoming self-sufficientish (clicking here should take you to a video), and below are some benefits of their lifestyle you might not have thought about.
1/ Being self-sufficientish is generous spirited. There isn’t enough land in Britain for everyone to become properly, pig-in-the-yard self-sufficient, a la John Seymour, the father of self sufficiency. So, adopting a few measures, such as growing your greens or making your own dandelion cough syrup, is a more sustainable way of letting a greater number of people have a go.
2/ You’ll save a lot of money, at a time when rising fuel and food prices are causes for concern. Andy reveals that his total earnings a few years ago were £5,000. On this, he lived and ate very well. Thanks in part to his commitment to Freecycle, skip-diving (never passing a skip without having a poke around), growing his own food, mending things rather than chucking them, cycling and walking rather than driving and buying clothes in charity shops.
3/ Your brain works better away from a desk. Andy and Dave’s idea of a work meeting is to head to the woods and pick some wild garlic. “It helps you to think, much better than speaking over the phone,” they say. I quite agree, sometimes I have to move to think. I’ll sit at my desk and stagnate for hours, then trot off to make a cup of tea, and bingo, I’ve got it.
4/ It’s an affordable way of eating delicious, organic vegetables. That is, if you’re not keen on coughing up a fiver for a bag of carrots and a cabbage at a farmers market. This is was why Dave started growing vegetables as a student. He persuaded his landlord to let him cultivate the garden. (And yes, they are delicious: Dave gave me a bagful of purple sprouting broccoli from his allotment. For the past few evenings, I’ve been steaming it – both florets and stalks – and eating it with a wedge of butter and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. It is truly a gourmet vegetable and I'm planning to plant some myself this weekend.)
5/ You don’t have to move to the countryside. Dave and Andy say the self sufficientish lifestyle is well suited to towns. There’s great urban foraging potential (here’s a thread about foraging in parks); more desirable stuff in skips; good public transport and you can still go to the cinema and find pubs full of different kinds of people.
6/ You end up absurdly healthy. Just take a look at Dave’s budget food section. Yes, it’s cheap. Yes, the recipes are simple to make. Ok, so it is a bit studenty. But just imagine how healthy you’d be on a diet of dahl, broth and cous cous.
7/ It promotes a happy lifestyle. “Just spending ten minutes in the garden or making your own soup for supper will make you feel better than half an hour in front of an X-box,” says Andy, and I believe him.
8/ You’ll be at the forefront of a trend. You might think that your moth eaten cardigans and second hand clothes are an embarrassment to your children/husband/friends but actually – and you can tell them this – they are part of a new fashion trend called chic-eco (pronounced chico). Or so says Dave and Andy (but it could be a Bristol thing).
9/ It doesn’t matter if you’re not perfect. Don’t think that there’s no point trying to be green because you’ve blown it by owning a car or flying on holiday. Everyone has weak points. Andy feels bad about taking taxis and he confesses to eating meat, which has a heavy carbon footprint. Dave still smokes, even after writing this handy guide to quitting, and he feels especially bad about it because tobacco is a heavily sprayed crop with a bad record for exploiting workers.
10/ You can wow your friends with nettle haggis dinner parties. It tastes nicer than it sounds, apparently.
 Never before have so many multinational confectionary retailers harked on about cardboard content, plastic packaging and recycling potential. It’s good news I suppose, but I’m not fully on board.
Yes, it’s a step in the right direction that Mars is reducing the amount of plastic in its Easter eggs and is committed to using recycled cardboard - a measure that it estimates will save 12,000 trees - but it has only reduced the thickness of its plastic inserts by 10 per cent. Let's not get too excited. Looking at the press release and the company’s new eco logo, see bottom of post, you would think it had found a way of avoiding the use of plastic altogether.
Then there’s Cadbury’s unboxed eco-egg, a foil-wrapped hollowed out egg. But has anyone seen one? Please tell me you have, because all I can find is the usual rows of plastic and cardboard encased eggs, each one marketing a different chocolate bar.*
Meanwhile Sainsbury’s promises that all its “boxed Easter eggs have reusable, recyclable or home compostable packaging.” I’m wondering how to reuse the plastic insert, or is it supposed to be recyclable? And surely that depends on your council - some accept only PET plastic bottles. I'm also wondering if I'm being a party pooper, about as welcome as a fox at a gathering of Easter bunnies...
I still think that buying little eggs, such as these Fairtrade ones from Divine or these from Green&Blacks, is best. Then you can have all sorts of fun filling china egg cups with them or hunting down alternative ways of packaging them. An empty egg box is perfect or an old yoghurt pot or olive pot, decorated with ribbon or wrapping paper.
If that sounds too much like hard work, go for a Booja Booja chocolate egg (a collection of them is shown in the picture above). It’s shell is a thing of beauty as well as being reusable. It is a handpainted gift box made by artists in Kashmir. The chocolate inside is organic, vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free, so it’s good for you too. Sort of.
* UPDATE: I take it back. I've found them. Very sweet looking too, but still outnumbered by the normal eggs in my local Waitrose.
 With politicians, it’s never easy, is it? They never come out with it, pure and simple. There are always clauses, exceptions, and promises to reassess in a few months. With plastic bags, what I wanted was direct action, right now. For too long we have pussy-footed around our plastic bag problem. We should be joining Ireland - where there has been a charge on plastic bags since 2002.
For here is a rare thing: a green policy that the majority of people agree with. Unlike the rise in the price of fuel or taxing gas guzzlers, a charge on plastic bags is universally supported and anticipated. So, while I salute our Chancellor for promising at least something, his pledge to charge retailers from the start of next year is disappointing. I can’t help feeling that he could have been bolder.
Because, you see, there’s a sub-clause. What many people will choose to ignore is the bit after Darling’s promise. That the charge will begin next year only if the Government “has not seen sufficient progress on a voluntary basis to cut the amount of single-use carrier bags.” So it is dependent on another Government decision, another load of paper work, more talking about it, rather than doing it.
I’ve read enough press releases from supermarkets broadcasting news of their latest plastic bag initiative to make me glaze over whenever I see one. They talk plans to change things in the future; they conduct trials in a handful of stores, but not one of them has taken the difficult route and announced a charge.
That Darling’s budget has a light green hue, I will not deny. I’m impressed by his measures to combat gas-guzzlers and his £26 million commitment to the Green Homes Service to advise consumers on how to reduce domestic carbon emissions, waste and water consumption. This is why in my Body&Soul column this week, he is up for the weekly eco-angel award - unlike Boris Johnson who is a strong contender for eco-sinner, given his opposition to the £25 congestion charge for cars in high CO2 emission bands. But I regret his caution on plastic bags. Had he been bolder, it would have won him cosiderable support. Not least from the eco worriers of this world.
A bit like with cooking, reading how to do something crafty can be off-putting as it’s difficult to imagine yourself doing it. But as this video shows, it’s easy if you watch someone else doing it. Which is why this is a jolly useful guide to darning a sock that should encourage all of us to stop binning our socks just because our big toe peeps out and whip out the darning mushroom instead. The video, made by ethical textile retailer Green Fibres, has already been viewed over 5,000 times. Good to know that granny chic is alive and well.
For me, darning a sock is fun because it’s an excuse to sit on the sofa and watch bad TV, plus you get to feel virtuous and fifties house wife - or husband - ish, and I'd never consider doing it without making myself a hot chocolate first, for sustenance.
According to Green Fibres: “Most socks are made from conventional cotton, which is the world's most polluting crop, and that nearly a quarter of all insecticides – mainly damaging organo-phosphates – produced globally each year are poured and sprayed over cotton plants. The damage to the environment and to poor cotton farmers around the world is massive. A World Health Organisation report estimates that up to 40,000 farmers die from pesticide poisoning each year.”
You will need:
A darning mushroom (you can buy one here or you could improvise with a plastic bottle or a lightbulb – this’ll make sense when you watch the video)
Some darning thread
A large needle
A sock with a hole in it
Eco-cheat: still not ready to take up needle and thread? You can buy organic socks, certified by the Soil Association from Green Fibres and Natural Collection
 Call me a sandal-wearing hippie, I don’t care. You can even call me a Guardian reader and I won’t take offence. The fact is that homemade muesli rocks. And I’m super fussy about breakfast cereals. Too much sugar in some; others are strangely salty, and I don’t like large lumps of fruit that go soggy in the milk.
Having discussed this at length in the office, it is clear that everyone has a different muesli criteria, as well as a different way of saying the word. The best option is undoubtedly to make your own. This way you can save money - the most expensive packet of muesli I can find is Rude Health’s Ultimate Muesli (£5.95 for 500g) - and guarantee that your morning bowl is just the way you like it.
Instructions:
1/ First you need to invest in a container. An air-tight dispenser like this one from Lakeland or this one from John Lewis is perfect for the job.
2/ Some people like to toast their oats first. This involves spreading them out on a baking tray and grilling them until you can smell something delicious. Or you could roast them in the oven for 20 minutes.* It sounds like a faff, but it’s worth it. They become firmer so you end up with a less soggy final product. *You could easily toast your oats in a cooling oven to save turning it on especially for this purpose.
3/ Larger oats make better muesli. I like these jumbo organic oats because they taste delicious.
4/ Consider spicing up your dry mix. As well as plain rolled oats, you could add barley flakes, oatmeal or oatbran to your dry mix.
5/ The mixing process. Once you’ve got your oats in a large mixing bowl, add chopped fruit, nuts, seeds and anything else you fancy eating for breakfast. Mix thoroughly. Proportions depend on taste. I use roughly three cups of oats to one cup of mixed nuts, seeds and fruits.
6/ Here are some content ideas: raisins, chopped apricots, chopped dates, dried banana, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, chopped walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, flaked almonds, desiccated coconut and cashews. Variety is crucial.
7/ If you prefer to follow an exact recipe. I like this one from Anthony Worrall Thompson, although you wouldn’t necessarily have to soak the mixture in apple juice as he suggests.
8/ Cheat with the seeds. To avoid a complex process of mixing, which invariably ends up with hemp seeds scattered over the kitchen floor, I buy a ready mixed packet like this one from Holland & Barrett.
9/ No need to add sugar - especially if you’ve used some dried fruit. And by not adding it, you have the perfect excuse to drizzle maple syrup, honey or a sprinkle of brown sugar on your bowl.
10/ Pour it into your air-tight container and wait until breakfast. As well as eating with milk, you could soak it in apple juice the night before and add a dollop of yoghurt at the last minute.
As if further evidence were needed of the benefits of making your own, Canada’s Heart and Stroke Foundation has included a homemade muesli recipe as part of its health information.
 Here's another cheeky t-shirt from organic clothing label Tonic. Whatever you might think about Bruce Forsyth, you can’t deny that his 80th year (celebrated on 22nd Feb) deserves commemoration. If we can do this in ethical fashion, all the better.
This isn’t Tonic’s only take on cultural icons. There's Eastender’s Dot Cotton here and don't overlook The Hoff.
Since my family is always moaning about the disadvantages of scoffing too much chocolate over Easter, I'm planning to buck the trend and offer each of them an Easter t-shirt.
Here are a few more trendy and ethical t-shirts.
Among others in its latest catalogue, check out Howies' Tap Water is Cool slogan t-shirt. Find it here
Magic Bean is new to the eco t-shirt scene, but I love it's More Trees Less Bush t-shirt, made from bamboo, the sustainable material of the moment.
And how could I ignore the doyenne of slogan t-shirts? Click here to see Katherine Hamnett's range of t-shirts for men. And here for women's - not forgetting her vest dresses with uncompromising messages such as Clean Up or Die.
I’m away on holiday this week, so sorry if blog postings dry up a little, but here is an inspiring video with a great soundtrack. Thank you Musings from a Stonehead for the link
Anna Shepard writes the Eco-Worrier
column in Body & Soul. Do you have a green dilemma? E-mail it to Anna Shepard, or use the 'comments' link at the end of the posts (left). Please tell us what you think of the Q&As and send your own advice and eco-solutions. We'd love to hear from you.
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For me, it used to be kettle on, tea for two, then back to bed for another cheeky five minutes. My slumbering other half might have stirred by this point and be reaching out for his mug, blinking like a sleepy mole. 
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