Donate junk to your local school..

Those things that can't be recycled yet - yoghurt pots and the like, drop them off at your local nursery or reception class for junk modelling. Good quality toys and books? Offer them to the schools as well...
Or how about just offering to volunteer.. honestly, the more help we have the better.. and you may even find you love it and want to do it on a permanent basis!

Love Daisy x
Posted by daisy green - 06.05.2008 Action: Send us an action

Joining the green cause.

I finally found a cause that moves me and fills me with energy, a cause I fell I can do a lot for.

The past weeks have been inspiring for me, I´ve found that the green movement is much bigger than I thought and that there are lots of people who already embraced change.

I´d like you to visit my blog, that way you´ll know what I´m about and what I want to help accomplish.

Let´s green the market, lets green the world.

Best Wishes,
Daniel Aguilar
www.letsgrowgreen.com

Posted by letsgrowgreen - 05.05.2008 Action: Choose your friends wisely

Ditch the car...just for a day

It isn't always easy with two small children but we have no car and don't want one. This doesn't mean we are stuck at home all the time, it just takes a little more planning to go somewhere that's all. How about taking yourself off for the day on the train? Piling yourself and the kids onto a train on a local line to see what's further up or down it? With petrol prices rising and motorways a hell on earth, isn't it time to ditch the car...for a day or two, at least?
Posted by buggymenace - 30.04.2008 Action: Take public transport when you can

[=

smiling makes others happy, and when people are happy, the world
s better [=

i smile lots.
Posted by tiahn :) - 30.04.2008 Action: Smile and smile back

decline the bags...

I thought that it had only happened to me!!! I had to be very calm with a lady in a major department store who told me I may be searched because I didn't want a bag .... even though I had the receipt. But then if it has been part of your customer service training to offer a bag, and place the goods in them (and you have been doing this happily for years) then you simply may not understand why someone would decline your kind offer. I now just explain that I don't do bags. It is getting better. And if you smile while you are saying it... well better still.
Posted by daisy green - 29.04.2008 Action: Decline plastic bags wherever possible.

Spread the word...

Little steps. Everyone can take them and the benefits ripple out into the world. I love this site and am new to it.
Recently, after becoming sick of my own inaction, I started my own blog. A normal person taking her own small steps to make change.

I would love to hear from people taking their own steps.... contribute at daisygreenorg.blogspot.com

love Daisy x
Posted by daisy green - 29.04.2008 Action: Spread the word

I've watched less!

2 weeks ago I stopped watching tv just for the sake of it. I also stopped surfing the net, putting on my stereo all the time, playing play station and reading!!! I am now integrating them all back in sensibly and slowly. I've realised I don't need the music on as I miss the birds singing. My husband and I have had some lovely evenings just chatting in candlelight. We play board games with our boys. I actualyy get up and do jobs as I don't feel so tired. It's amasing!!!
Posted by Sarah - 28.04.2008 Action: Try watching less TV

Plants a treat...

Have you ever been in the circumstance of having your friends birthday but they won't tell you what they want?

"So what do you want for your birthday this year?"
"Oh nothing... Seriously don't get me ANYTHING"

In my opinion if they say that they deserve to get nothing.
But what if instead you bought them something useful?
Like a plant?
It lives, it breathes, it needs looking after.
They'll love it!
Posted by Amii - 27.04.2008 Action: Plant a tree

I am pretty good at ditching the TV in the day (mainly cause I have so much coursework to do) But in the evenings I am lost. I don't know what else to do except to sit down with the family and watch some stupid programme about moving houses or Antiques Roadshow. I often have little thoughts and wander off to go and flick through soem book or laugh at some photos but soon get my mum poking her head round the door to ask why I'm ignoring everyone by wnadering off to do these things. So i invite her in to laugh at the pictures with me but she gets bored and goes back to the god damn television. Give me strength....
Posted by Amii - 27.04.2008 Action: Try watching less TV

Feeling Good!

Today, I went to London with my uncle and my cousins. I felt really good about myself because I refused plastic bags in mearly every shop I bought something from... then I bought an Marks & Spencer Twiggy reusable bag to put all my shopping in! On top of that, it was a fairly traded bag! I just feel really good as I try to reuse alot of things! Go London! for deciding to charge for plastic bags! The weather wasn't very good today but I had fun... I went on the London Eye!
Posted by KhushLoveHariboPop - 24.04.2008 Action: Buy fairly traded products

Check out recycling websites like freecycle.com. There's chapters all over the US and you can post on the local message boards what you need and if someone has it, you arrange a time and date to pick it up. For free!
Posted by allyàlamontagne - 23.04.2008

life

life sometimes really stinks but most of the time its ko if u have good friends around ul be sure 2 have a good time!!

Posted by maiya - 22.04.2008 Action: Smile and smile back

One Water

You can now buy a product called 'one' bottled water which donates every last drop of its profits to funding 'play pumps' in Africa. As children play on the roundabout clen drinking water is pumped from a deep undergroup water well. What a fantastic idea!
Posted by Kim - 21.04.2008 Action: Give your change to charity

Action Additions To Add to the List

1. Don't use a dishwasher, do your dishes in 2 pluged sink fulls of hot or medium hot water (one for washing, one for rinsing) and don't over use the soap.

2. Use stainless steel wool to scrub out your pots instead of the soap pads, the stainless steel pads do a faster job and without the added pollution of soap.

3. Take a bath or shower in the dark (if you don't need to shave.

4. Use non-disposable shavers if you shave and recycle the blades.

5. Cook your meals from scratch to avoid processing and packaging pollution.

6. Use soapnuts to do your laundry.

7. If you don't have soapnuts, substitute half of you laundry soap with environmentally friendly borox to clean and disinfect you laundry with.

8. Avoid using your hair dryer when ever possible or atleast let the last bit of dampness evaporate from your hair on it's own (it's better for your hair that way anyway)

9. Don't pollute your water with shampoo and conditioner instead treat your hair with warm vinegar water and a few drops of lavendar or rosemary essential oils, this will de-tangle your hair beautifully

10. Or you can use non-coloring henna to treat your hair, ask for it at your local Indian Store, when you first treat you hair with henna it will appear really dry for the first day but when your hair relaxes from it, it will be softer and easier to comb out then it ever was. I have terribly dry hair and that's what it did for me.

11. Use vinegar for a cleaning agent of smooth surfaces and baking soda for surfaces that need scrubing, they're more environmentally friendly; you can also use them together for dual action like what's needed to clean out the oven or bathtub rings, just let it sit there for a few seconds (or minutes for the oven) and see what happens when you take the washcloth or scrubber to it again.

12. Use wet cotton terry wash washclothes to clean your babies diaper area instead of disposable wipes, then clean them out with a bit of hand soap and soak them in vinegar to sanitize them before putting them in the washer.

13. Don't use anykind of air fresheners except opening your widows and putting a few drops of pure essential oils (in what ever scent you prefer)in a glass or ceramic jar of boiling water.

14. Read 'The Humanure Handbook' by Joseph Jenkins, to find out how we can stop contiminating our water and start safely composting all your organic wastes including that invaluable stuff we keep flushing down the loo.

15. Stop eating so much meat and incourage others to do so, methane gas from livestock is a more potent green house gas than carbon dioxide and contributes to around 35% of the methane gas we cause with our lifestyle. So cutting down would be good for our weight and our world, I dare you!


Posted by Ayisha - 17.04.2008 Action: Send us an action

Don't dump it in the street.

Glancing out of the window one morning, I was astonished to find that a mattress had appeared leaning against the wall of the house opposite. Good heavens, how had that got there? I had only just passed on my way back from the nursery. These flytippers have cloaks of invisibility! Pushing aside a very uncharitable thought that the smartly dressed young people who share the house may have slipped it over the wall (no surely not), I then had to decide...how to report.
And here I must admit I fell for the anonymous charm of the wonderfully transactional Council website and used an eform. A day later, a lovely lady from the council phoned and assured me that the mattress would be spirited away by the Accord angels...which it presently was. On a roll now, I promptly reported the computer monitor that appeared, closely followed by the bookcase that was so thoughtfully left across the pavement one dark and rainy night.
Using my powers of detection, I surmise that perhaps a student had recently been doing a bit of spring cleaning and had to throw out that old Argos bookcase for the new Ikea Billy that holds so much more. What a good thing that the old busybody at the end will just ring up the council and save you the hassle of sorting out your own rubbish. In fact, you are doing me a good turn. I literally have nothing better to do, so it keeps me out of mischief.
Posted by buggymenace - 17.04.2008 Action: Report dumped rubbish to your council