Greennettle flies

Judging by my last few posts you'd think my name ought to be Greennettle, not Bluenettle, as the environment seems to be my only inspiration at the moment. That's no bad thing.

But Greennettle looks silly because it has an annoying double n in the middle and it's plainly dull because nettles really are green. Whoever heard of a blue nettle? Exactly. I'm unique.

Maybe tomorrow I might think of a different theme. Today I'm going to tell you how to feel better about flying (did you know one flight to somewhere not that far away is the equivilant per passenger, pollution wise, of driving a Mini around the world ninety-ish times? I forget the details but it was on the front page of The Independent not that long ago) by "neutralising" your carbon emissions.

Climate Care will calculate your carbon dioxide emissions (not just from flying, but that's where my guilt lies) and let you buy offsets which will go to fund sustainable energy projects to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the same amount. There are other companies that offer similar things, but I liked Climate Care the best. You don't get a fancy paper certificate like some companies offer (nice email tho), but that's nothing to fret over. And it's all so simple.

If you don't know too much about this type of thing and think it's probably expensive - it's not (although Climate Care have a minimum purchase of £5). I don't think it will be long before all airlines are offering offsets as a part of their ticket prices. Although I'm sure they'll get an "administrative fee" in there as well, as always.

Green wars

No sooner have supermarket giant Tesco announced that all of us loyal and environmentally friendly customers are going to be getting clubcard points for reusing bags (prompting inner cries of We're not just doing it for the points, we always bring our own bags! from Bluenettle. Besides, what am I going to do with three clubcard points?), arch rivals Sainsbury's announce they're going to start using compostable packaging for their fruit and veg instead of plastic. Now, there's nothing more annoying than finding there's no loose tomatoes and having to take home a bunch of unecessary packing too, but at least now I can feed the packet to the worms.

Except I hate Sainsbury's. I'm the exact opposite of a Sainsbury's Snob. So I dearly hope Tesco will follow suit soon, as they surely will. This could be the new supermarket "war" - not petrol, not baked beans, but being nice to the environment.

The baked beans war was exciting though, wasn't it? You arrived at the supermarket each week holding your breath to see how cheap the beans were. 1p! 1p for a tin of beans! The best bargain of all time. Some small teenie weenie chain that I completely forget the name of actually started paying their customers 1p to take a tin of beans away. With limitations, of course, which was a shame.

Back to the point, it's a good state of affairs to be in when people are so concerned about taking care of the world that supermarket chains are using environmentally friendly ideas to woo customers. Or at least to keep the ones they've got.

Got worms?

So, you recycle your paper, tins and glass, maybe plastic if your local council are so inclined. You give your old clothes to Oxfam, or perhaps you take them to one of those big metal bins that say DO NOT ENTER on the giant flap, and wonder who is was that did. You probably send off your used printer cartridges for recycling, maybe your old mobile phones too (check out Envirophone, who will not only recycle your phone but pay you for the privilege... unless it's really crap like my old Sony J5, in which case they'll still take it, but you'll get nowt. Either way, come to think of it, you're probably better off selling on ebay, which is a kind of recycling when you think about it). Basically, you're doing your bit and you feel pretty good about it.

Still, there's probably one type of waste that you stick in the trash without even thinking about it: food. No matter how much you try not to be wasteful, sometimes your eyes are bigger than your belly and you end up with half a plate full of stir fry/omlette/stale chocolate cake that no one is ever going to eat. And even the best cooks leave behind skins and peelings and horrible hard bits on a daily basis. How can you get rid of this without filling up landfills and incinerators? One word: worms (unless you have a greedy dog. If you do, read on anyway).

I know, I know, you haven't got room for a wormery, you haven't got a garden. What if I told you you can keep a wormery indoors? Really, I didn't know either. Still not sure you've got space? Small kitchen? My thoughts exactly, before I did a bit of research and discovered Original Organics' Junior Wormery. Now I have worms worming away under my kitchen sink!

Here's how it came together:

1. I surfed the net and bought the wormery online from Original Organics website. Because we were going to be away for a few days after its arrival, I chose to get the worms later by voucher (included in the price), but they'll send with as well.

2. My boyfriend stayed at home to take delivery, and as promised it arrived the very next day.

3. I sent off the voucher when we were ready and waited for those worms.

4. I was worried the worms wouldn't fit through our post box, but they just came in a fairly small, ordinary envelope (and a plastic pouch inside that). I wonder if the postman knew what he was carrying???

5. We set up the wormery as per the instructions (everything you need is included), and finally added the worms.

6. Wahey, wormery!

You have to slowly build up the amount of food you add, and after just a few weeks they really start getting through it. The Junior Wormery is only designed to cope with the waste of one person, but it does pretty well with the two of us. The worms are happy with just about anything that used to be alive, although meat is not a great idea, and too much citrus can make for an unhealthy wormery. But it's not just for food - any organic waste can go in: garden waste, paper etc (how much obviously depends on the size of your wormery - our small one manages the odd kitchen towel, some bonsai clipping and the occasional handful of dead leaves). There's very little maintanance involved, but you do have to sprinkle a handful of a special lime mix (also included) every few weeks to keep the pH in the right range.

So, what do you get out of it, except knowing you're wasting less? Well, the best bit for most people is that after about two months you'll be able to get "worm juice" from the tap. This is very rich fertilizer (and boy does it smell like fertilizer!) that can be diluted and used on your plants. The other thing you get after about eight to twelve months is a bin full of compost. (Do you get all of that from a greedy dog? Maybe in a slightly less useful form...) As we haven't got a garden I'm not sure what we'll we're going to do with the compost yet, but we'll cross that bridge blah de blah.

I really think a wormery under the sink is a fantastic idea, and I'm only sorry I didn't know it was possible earlier. I really feel a whole lot greener. One question though: do you think our landlord would class worms as pets?

Twenty years of washing

Yesterday, my Ecoballs went for their first spin. Pun indended. Well, initially not indended but quickly realised, giggled at and deliberately kept, which is pretty close to being intended. Am I straying from the point?

I have to say, they did their job. Stick three weird round balls in the machine with your washing, and hey presto your clothes come out clean. They don't have that artificial outdoorsy flowery smell that detergent gives you, but who cares, really? Tomorrow I may try them on something tougher, just to test their mettle.

I also did some maths and realised that at one wash per week these things are going to last me twenty years. Twenty years. I'm going to be in my forties before I have to buy new ones. Think about that next time you're lugging home a box of powder.

Ecoballs

No, this isn't a post about saying bollocks to green issues, because I wouldn't do that. Nor is it a post about environmentally friendly testicles, as amusing as that might turn out to be. This is a post about every one of us contributing in our own small way to make the world a better place.

Yesterday, I discovered Ecoballs. These are nifty little things that you stick in the washing machine instead of using nasty detergents. Of course, it's easy to think that one person changing their habits will make little difference to the earth, so why bother? But imagine the difference if all of us made this one little gesture; change has to start somewhere. Did I mention they'll also save you money? So, really no excuse then. Mine will be on order soon and I'll keep you posted.

Mahatma Ghandi famously said you must be the change you wish to see in the world. Well, I'm always a bit slow to get off my backside and do stuff, but this will be a start. Who knows where I'll end up. I always did fancy a composting bin.