Human Heated Buildings

Recently I have been pondering the possibility of using human heat to warm up houses and offices. Don’t start picturing people running around in circles and breathing more to heat up the room. I’m talking about the natural heat that humans produce. This idea is best explained by looking at Stockholm railway station. The thousands of commuters that pass through its high ceiling-ed halls, rushing for trains and working up a sweat elbowing other suits and tourists out the way, generate quite a high temperature. This air gets sucked out the station and whizzed next door through insulated tubes where it is used to boil up some water. This hot H20 gets pumped around the neighbouring offices via the radiators. Bam, human heated buildings. The system reduces the office energy bills by a rather sizeable 25%.

Fantastic, so what next? We need places that produce enough heat to make it worthwhile.  PING!  Energy saving lightbulb flicks on over head. The gym. The hottest, sweatiest room that we ever go in (if of course we actually go). The heat produced in gyms surely could get sucked out and, in Stockholm style, be redirected and turned into central heating for somewhere considerably cooler.

In Redditch this week plans have been announced for transferring the substantial heat, up to 800 degrees C, from the crematorium toheat the swimming pool next door. Currently the incinerators breath this heat into the air, losing forever the energy and all its heating possibilities.

Sounds like a perfect solution doesn’t it? People doing what they’re constantly being told to do; saving energy, reducing their carbon footprint, making a difference. But wait a minute, there is that one little rule that I’ve overlooked. You must save energy, reduce your carbon footprint and make a difference but, the decree I forgot, it must not be ‘eerie’. Many locals are not happy with using the heat from the crematorium to warm up the pool, labelling it ‘sick’ and deeming it insensitive.  Whilst not wanting to further upset those who have lost a loved one, I truly hope that this idea from a forward thinking borough gets granted full approval and congratulated on its green credentials rather than becoming just another hot air plan for carbon-saving that just billows away into nothingness.

Its All About The E-Bikes

You want to swap your carbon-producing commute to a greener option, really you do, but the thought of all that cycling makes you want to sit down and have a little rest. If old fashioned push bikes aren’t for you then maybe the new e-bikes are.

Volkswagen have designed a new electric scooter, the Bik.e, that fits snugly into the spare tyre space in your boot, recharging as your drive. Then when four wheels can go no further out comes the compact two wheeler. Great for short distances but not for a long commute as once the bike’s out of juice its back to walking as the Bik.e has no pedals.

  

In Spain, Fiat is offering a replacement electric bike instead of the standard courtesy car when your vehicle is being fixed to encourage greener traveling and sustainable mobility.  If the trial goes well Fiat will be offering electric bikes to its customers all over Europe; the perfect chance for e-bikes to ride into the spotlight and steal the transport show.

At the University of Graz in Austria a new e-bike chargingsystem has been built and what’s more, it’s free. Complete with lockers, the campus charging system enables the green-minded students to safely recharge their bikes whilst attending lectures. This sort of green planning helps encourage people to take the more environmentally friendly option and its set to take Austria by storm with similar energy stations set to be installed at work offices, hotels, shopping centres and petrol stations.

And for those BMX types out there, how about this new design, a saddle-less bike that charges as you ride. The Hydromagnificence on Two Wheels had a super-light tubular frame it leaves a bit of weight allowance to be taken up by the camera installed to film your journey and show to your friends.

If cycling doesn't push your buttons then how about this compromise, the Biona. A battery powered city motorbike minus most of the metal and plastic components (and the conventional motorbike style). Made mainly of wood, with batteries small enough to fit into your pocket and an LED lighting system this bike could well be the future of urban travel. 

So no need to break a sweat, just ditch the car and climb onto an e-bike.

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/it_s_all_about_the_e_bikes 

Taiwan's Rubbish

Taiwan is a small island and as such has no space for dumps and piles of rubbish. With most inhabitants living in apartment buildings and flats, communal bins, if they are even available, fill up fast. For many years Taiwan was known for its bags of rubbish rotting on pavements with rats swarming around, happily living off the waste of the Taiwanese.

Until five years ago when along came the musical rubbish truck with some rules on rubbish and recycling. Every evening a rubbish truck will pass along the city streets playing its easily recognisable tune, calling all inhabitants out of their homes with their blue bags of rubbish. Except it isn’t all just rubbish. Blue bags contain waste that is only fit for the dump. Plastics, metals and papers are deposited into the correct receptacles and food waste is separated into a third vessel. Certain days call for certain recyclables. And what if you bring plastics on paper day? Expect a mini lecture on the importance of recycling but your plastics will still be accepted.

  

  

The blue rubbish bags are all part of the scheme. These bags have to be paid for to discourage creating too much garbage. This idea is fairer than suggestions of a flat rate charge for too much rubbish as proposed in other countries such as Britain. The more junk you create the more money you pay. I am unsure of the sustainability of these plastic sacks however. Do they biodegrade? Could another material be more environmental?

Another incentive created by these (possibly questionable) blue bags is to separate your waste from your recyclables. The less non-reusable and non-compostable waste the less money spent on blue bags.

So onto the kitchen waste. This all gets slopped into a container on the truck and 75% gets sold to pig farmers with the remaining sum used as fertiliser. The pig farmers pick out the dangerous fish bones and other inedibles, boil it all up and feed it to their pigs.

It might sound like a lot of dirty work sorting out your waste into these three piles but most people already sort out rubbish from recycling and a growing number of people have compost bins. In a hot country such a Taiwan, this daily sort helps to keep down the abundance of cockroaches and rats that infest their overflowing bins. The evening collection also serves as a sociable community pastime where everyone congregates on the streets and catches up with friends and neighbours.

Image from: Cracking The Egg

 But it isn’t just enforced at home, restaurants and workplaces are also required to separate out their trash. Including McDonalds.

 

Of course, it has its flaws. People who are not around when the rubbish trucks melodically pass by miss out and therefore need to find another way to rid themselves of their rubbish. Public bins are often stuffed with blue bags of litter leading to the reduced amount of dustbins on the street. Others sneak their junk to work to avoid it piling up at home. But what plan isn’t without blemishes?

One of the key successes of this ‘trash doesn’t touch the ground’ scheme is that the relatively small area of Taiwan means that the sale of city approved rubbish bags can exist.  Government issue bin bags here in Britain would be ignored in favour of the cheapest or the newly celebrity endorsed bin bag. This idea would need a few changes to survive in Britain but I believe it could have an impact. We don’t need daily refuse collection – and the budget wouldn’t allow it, all houses and apartment buildings have sufficient sized collection bins and we have a recycling bin system in place. The problem being that most people ignore or abuse it. It still surprises me when I open our recycling bin and see teabags, clingfilm and, more bizarrely but only the once, bubblewrap.  But with so many different types of plastic in production for packaging food, shampoo and whatever the bubblewrap was previously protecting, it’s no wonder that people get confused, or more likely frustrated, and just dump anything in there. The collection of kitchen waste would dramatically reduce the contents of Britain’s bin bags with it being a well known fact that we throw away a considerable portion of the food we buy.

The system in Taiwan means that the Taiwanese produce the least amount of un-reusable waste per person than any other developed country. It has helped clean up their streets and more importantly taught the country about recycling with every resident responsible for every bottle, every fish bone and every plastic bag they use.

Computer Cities

American Artist Franco Recchia has created mini 3D landscapes of cities by recycling old computers that would otherwise be thrown away and come to rest in land fill sites never to used again. Some pieces are recreations of well known American cities – Manhattan, Boston, Central Park.

(Image: Franco Recchia)

His media is a mixture of metals odds and ends such as heat sinks, RAMs, disk controllers, electronic connectors, chipsets, microprocessors and TV tuners, anything that you can pull out of a computer basically. For most of us, an old broken computer is lost to the world with no hope of us being able to tinker about and fix, let alone reuse. But by salvaging the insides of computers Franco brings them back from the brink of the rubbish dump in the form of a metallic city and gives them a new, and beautiful, lease of life.

 (Image: Franco Recchia)

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/computer_cities 

Waste Not One Drop

Here's a lovely idea that's perfect for the weather we're having at the moment in London. The Cavity Flowerpot is an umbrella stand that catches the waste rain water dripping off your brolly and rather than leaving it in a big puddle by the door, collects it and reuses it to water the roots of a plant, handily embedded inside.

(Spotted on Yanko Design)

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/waste_not_one_drop

Wooden You Like One Of These?

Designers are always coming up with hot new ideas that pull at your consumer strings and when your eyes love that new product, your Green reflexes don’t always kick in in time to check its environmental credentials. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating buying new things but if you do have to buy something new, make sure it’s something eco-friendly like these designs:

Koostik have created a wooden iPhone speaker dock. Ok, that sounds fine, nothing too exciting. Did I mention it doesn’t use electricity? That’s right, these gorgeous speakers work on the acoustics from your iPhone (and 4th generation iPod Touch) and resonate the sound so it’s up to 4 times louder using no wires and no electricity. They are all hand crafted by Jim, the designer and woodworker responsible for this fantastically green idea.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to be on time (and be an eco-fashionista) then WeWOOD’s beautifully crafted wooden watches are just for you. Made from wood that would otherwise go to waste, these watches come in four different colours, based on the type of the wood. Not only do they look amazing and are completely free from artificial and toxic materials but for every watch sold WeWOOD promise to plant a tree to help save Mother Nature, one watch at a time.

This one is for the little ones. Tegu is a new take on an old toy that is educational, defies gravity (they've got hidden magnets inside) and made from eco-friendly hardwoods. Although aimed for the young ones, these can be great fun for all ages.

Ever thought about growing your own stool? You’ll need to have a bit of patience but it’ll definitely be worth the wait. Either make your own or assemble the flat-pack guide, plant your saplings and in five years you’ll have your very own, home-grown, sturdy stool.

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/wooden_you_like

Cardboard House

Artist David Stark decided to take the huge amount of cardboard waste produced from the opening of a friend’s retail store and design it into something fantastic.

A collection of cardboard furniture and home accessories was fashioned from the disused packaging ranging from a 10ft lamp to laser cut clocks. Old catalogues were shredded and reused and recreated into a comfy looking armchair and large topiary plant.

My personal favourites are the simple but stylish vases (yes, they wouldn’t be particularly practical I admit) and the huge and very realistic cacti – minus the sharp bits.

Next time you’re feeling creative, have a rummage through your recycling bin (be careful of the opened tins) and see what you can make.


For more cardboard creativity visit: David Stark Sketchbook.


Ps- At Green Thing we've got a particular fondness for creativity from cardboard, particularly for a purpose. Have a look at our Future Tents project, another example of using cardboard to create something sustainable and fantastic.

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/cardboard_house

Have Yourself an All-Consuming Christmas

December 22nd 2010

When it comes to Christmas, everyone has their own traditions. You might unwrap your presents after lunch or you might open them before 7.30am, you might send recycled Christmas cards or you might send e-Christmas greetings, you might buy low energy or LED lights for your Christmas tree (something this family in America should have done) or you might decorate yours with old, painted light bulbs and homemade chocolate Rudolfs. My dad’s friend and his brother send each other the same two Christmas cards back and forth each year with the wrong name scribbled out and the right name written over it.

Whatever you normally do, it’s easy to make small changes - which usually turns out to be enhancements, employing clever tricks and saavy thinking to master the art form of using everything up and wasting nothing.

Recycled and upcycled gifts are getting better and cooler with each year that passes. Homemade presents are perfect for those with a small purse this Christmas. But if you’re not arty and craft-y and can’t think of anyone who wants an egg box covered in dried pasta then the web is crammed with sites great, green gadgets, fantastic, environmentally-friendly fashion and cool, carbon neutral Christmas presents such as Ethical Community, Nigel's Eco-store and Upxchange, to name a few.

Green Thing has rescued and united Britain’s lost gloves into perfect pairs for only £5 and Saved your unloved t-shirts from being forgotten about under the bed into a green fashion statement for £20.

Do you go for a real tree or a fake tree? How about a cardboard tree? How about any one of these 5 amazingly green trees? With some simple recycling and paper folding skills you can make some beautiful decorations. CD’s, sweet wrappers, homemade sweets and chocolate treats and Christmas cards from previous Christmas’s all make fantastic tree decorations.

Ah, now for the wrapping paper. Depending on your level of excitement you either carefully unwrap your presents and reuse the paper for next year (My Gran’s Tip: iron the paper to look just like new) or if you’re just too eager to see what’s inside and you rip it open. Small shreds of paper are perfect for composting and recycling (and bigger bits can be saved for next year’s smaller presents, ironed of course). You might even have wrapped your presents the Japanese way using Furoshiki (wrapping with cloth that gets reused every year).

Your compost bin is likely to get a lot of usage on Christmas day with all the vegetable peelings from Christmas dinner. Not to mention the paper hats, napkins and crackers (including cracker joke but not plastic keyring of Santa). If you’re unsure of what can be composted then take a peak at Recycle Now for handy hints.

Christmas dinner is the biggest waste provider of Christmas. Controlling portion sizes can be tricky enough normally but when it comes to cooking the biggest dinner of the year for all the family, it can be pretty difficult. Luckily the clever people at Love Food Hate Waste have come up with a handy Christmas portion calculator. Simply select the food you want and how many you are cooking for and hey presto, the portion sizes pop up on screen. But let’s presume that as well as having leftovers for the obliquity turkey (or Tofurkey) sandwiches on Boxing Day, you end up with more uneaten food than you had hoped. The Love Food Hate Waste folks have more helpful suggestions – leftover food recipes. And if that wasn’t making your life easy enough, you can pick what foods you have leftover and it will produce a recipe to suit your personal food needs!


So this year, have a very, merry, all-consuming Christmas!

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/have_yourself_an_all_consuming_christmas

House Bling

December 21st 2010

Don’t you just hate it when you want to decorate the outside of your house at Christmas but you (delete as appropriate):



a) Don’t want to pay for more decorations


b) Haven’t got a ladder


c) Don’t want to increase your electricity bill


d) Don’t want your house to stick out like a sore thumb


e) Know that 10 hours a day of Christmas lights generates enough carbon dioxide to fill 5 party balloons every day


f) Can’t be bothered to leave the warmth of the house


Well fret no more, Shelter has provided the answer. Simply click over to House Bling, pop your postcode in and festive up your house front, you can even make it look more December 2010 by painting snow on. No hassle, no cold and best of all - no energy required!


Once your masterpiece is finished you can send it to your friends and family, you can also donate to Shelter who are helping to keep Britain's homeless warm and safe this Christmas.

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/house_bling

How to be a Humankind Superhero

December 20th 2010

This is a Book review of "How To Be A Humankind Superhero" by Harold Forbes.

I’m one of those people that finds it difficult to concentrate on a book unless it’s a story and has a very clear beginning and end so the idea of reading a book on climate change, which obviously has no ending (yet!) was a little frightening. I also find lists of facts and statistics as easy to read as ancient Greek, backwards, upside down and on the ceiling. But, hurrah! How To Be A Humankind Superhero was easy to read and I whizzed through it.


It is written very clearly and with lots of relevant and suitable explanations when the science gets a bit too complicated. But it isn’t just science. It touches on philosophy, sociology, history and, funnily enough, ancient Greece. To talk you through what you can do to become a Humankind Superhero, Harold Forbes relates what we need to do with Hercules Labours (if you don’t know your ancient Greek, Hercules got set a variety of labours to prove his strength, courage, skill and determination).


Rather than focus on what will happen in the future if we don’t do anything, the book gives details about what each individual and community can do to lower carbon emissions and ultimately stop global warming. These ranged from the easily do-able to the superhero tasks that require a bit more Herculean determination, giving practical advice and people to contact. Talking about everything from recycling and using your home to create energy to who are the worst world offenders and how to thwart them (seriously though, his solutions are simple and well-though through, not just a few radical ideas thrown into mix).


It's all too easy to self-righteous when discussing climate change but this book has missed both these dangers. I definitely feel more knowledgeable about the risks, the history, the plans and the arguments behind climate change and, pretty importantly, I know what I can do to play my part in correcting it. It has great advice for home improvements and plenty of tips on speaking to your local authorities and MPs. And it is packed full with astounding and scary facts. If you are like me and are easily put off by non-fiction and worried about reading a book that lectures you then put your fears aside and give this a read! I guarantee you’ll feel more passionate and positive about what you can achieve.


http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/how_to_be_a_humankind_superhero

Comedy Vs Climate Change

December 10th 2010

Comedy and climate change. Not two things you usually hear together in a sentence but in a pub in Islington on Wednesday that’s exactly what happened.


A dedicated greenie, KP, decided to set up a comedy night to raise awareness for climate change with proceeds going to Emission Impossible – a film documenting efforts to start a public conversation on the legal and financial implications of climate change for energy-related investments. Yes, it does sound a bit long winded doesn’t it? But that’s where the comedy kicked in. Luckily she already knew some (award-winning) stand-up’s as there aren’t many that are well known for being verbally environmental. The four comedians - Luke Toulson, Mike Wozniak, Sara Pascoe, Tania Edwardshad - had especially written some new, green-related material (very) loosely around some climate change facts that KP had given them.


The comedians were great, plenty of funny green material and lots of laughs. The compere Luke Toulson was fantastic and managed to keep the fun atmosphere going even after the grumpy landlord came up shouting about which greenie was responsible for pulling down some trees in the Amazon to block up his toilet. Clearly he thought he should have been the funny one on stage. Sara Pascoe introduced us to Bri the Polar Bear (Sara Pascoe in a white woolly hat), Tania Edwards openly admitted her indifference to climate change and then made everyone laugh about other stuff. Then came the headliner, Mike Wozniak, with the most fantastic moustache you’ve seen (and it’s not even Movember anymore!) Mike, with reference to his pregnant wife, filled us in on how to have a 'green birth' (burying the placenta in your garden apparently) and the science of fingers.


The whole night was taped and is set to be put online as soon as KP manages to get the tape back from the pub – grumpy landlord strikes again! If you’re keen on climate change and love comedy then check out the website, it is absolutely worth a watch. And keep an eye out for another comedy night coming soon.

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/comedy_versus_climate_change

Bringing Back the 90's

December 7th 2010 

Everyone has an understanding as to how to recycle. You put your plastics in that bin and they get made into cosy fleeces and garden chairs. Your paper gets put in that bin and goes off to become new paper or maybe even Kranthout, the Dutch paper-wood. Your old 90’s phone goes into that bin and gets a make-over into a cool new phone. Wait, what?


French company Lëkki have decided to go back to basics and refurbish those old 90’s mobiles back to working order. Perfect for those people who just want a phone to be a phone, the ‘new’ Motorola StarTAC’s are brightly coloured and complete with a retro, retractable antenna and not an app in sight. You can also make your own phone by choosing the colours you'd like.

But this isn’t just about another retro product being bought back to make money. Nor is it a (100%) anti-app and lets-go-back-to-the-good-old-days movement. This phone has a big idea behind it. A big green idea. It's all about sustainable product development. The lifespan of a mobile is around 18 months but it takes around 6-7 years to balance out the carbon emissions produced through making one. So to extend the lifespan of the handset, Lëkki are recycling and revamping these vintage phones, showing us that brand spanking new doesn’t mean better, especially when it comes to the environment. Being green has never been so easy to do and still stay looking cool.

If you’re interested in recycling old but not useless objects then check out Saved, Green Thing’s way of prolonging the life of neglected t-shirts and making the unfashionable fashionable again.


(Spotted on For Love Not Money)
http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/bringing_back_the_90_s_phone

The Visable Shower Tank

December 2nd 2010

Everybody loves new gadgets and there are tons of green gizmos that tell you how much energy you’re using and how long you’ve been in the shower compared to yesterday. But how much notice do we take of all these blinking screens and colour changing thingybobs, especially on a cold Monday morning in winter? What would be great is something bold and obvious, something unmissable... insert the Visible Shower Tank!

No matter how bleary eyed and almost asleep you are, a massive tank of water (stylishly) plonked into your bathroom is going to make you rather aware of how much water you’re using.


Designed to stop people turning the shower on to warm up and then leaving it to waste up to a massive 6L of water, it has a temperature system and the constant reminder of how much water you are letting gurgle away down the plug.

Showers aren’t the only place that water is overused, the system also has a tank for the sink and toilet flushing. If you add to this your Stop The Water Whilst Using Me showergel and pop on a Short Sharp Showercast, well, it will be a good morning.


(Spotted on Treehugger)
http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/the_visible_shower_tank

Calling All Unreasonable People

December 1st 2010

So you have this AMAZING idea, it’s fantastic, it’s perfect, it’s going to revolutionise the green movement...but where to begin? This year the Unreasonable Institute are looking for people like you with big new ideas about the environment. 25 entrepreneurs will take part in this six week fellowship complete with mentoring and development to get your idea off the ground. You‘ll have meetings with big businesses, possible partners and investors.


Some of the Unreasonable ventures and projects from last year include a carbon neutral agricultural waste converter creating clean burning fuel in Kenya and toilet paper made from 100% recycled materials with 50% of the profits going towards building toilets in developing countries.


So if you want to start up that project you’ve been working on and change the world with your incredible ideas then apply now and this time next year your ideas could be changing the world!

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/calling_all_unreasonble_people

Second Hand Gadgets

November 17th 2010

You want to buy that amazing touch screen, super gadget-y, does everything except washes your face in the morning phone that ALL your friends have but that big price tag just doesn't even come close to the number on your bank balance and you're conscience is telling you to stick with what you've got. Well if you live in Sweden, Denmark or Norway (or can understand the language) fret no more. Recycling doesn't just mean wearing your older brothers hand-me-downs and sticking wrapping paper onto ice cream tubs to make desk tidys. Siba, the electronics chain, have added a secondhand section to their website selling hundreds of gadgets and electronics at cheaper prices. With no listing fees you can sell your old camera and use the money to buy another second hand one or save for a rainy day. So before you empty your purse buying that new laptop, see if you can find it pre-owned and post-big retail price.

Ps- If you like to know more about Electronics Recycing check out this post, "Designed for the Dump".


(Spotted on Springwise)
http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/second_hand_gadgets

B Line

November 15th 2010

B-Line are a fantastic urban delivery company in Portland, America using electric-assisted tricycles with a trailer attached to move around goods in an eco-friendly way. Rather than using cumbersome, fume belching lorries and vans to transport fresh food and other goods around congested, busy cities, this nimble cargo trike is the perfect alternative.


In just under a year they have cycled 16,000 miles and reduced their CO2 emissions by 37,000 pounds. For in-city deliveries these nippy little tricycles couldn't be better, you can even advertise on the sides of the trailer. B-Line works with local businesses, provides green-collar jobs and helps communities become increasing environmentally friendly. I cant wait for similar businesses to spring up in the UK.

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/b_line

King of the Road

November 11th 2010

Welcome to the new generation of car games. Forget I Spy and the Numberplate Game, this game reduces the amount of cars on the road and could crown you King of the Road. How's that for a title?

Ridekicks is a new website that links to your favourite social network sites (like Facebook, Twitter and more) to encourage car sharing. You upload your upcoming journeys and advertise for car-friends on the same route; either as a passenger or for a passenger. Every mile shared is a point earned. You can even charge your passengers through the site (with a 5% fee to Ridekicks).


Get sharing, make new friends and become your city's Hometown Hero. Maybe one day you might become Captain Planet - and all because you let someone else drive.

(Spotted on TriplePundit)
http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/king_of_the_road

Cycle Super Highway

November 10th 2010

Hate the early morning squash into the tube? Clinging to the rail with your face jammed into that sweaty man's armpit? All the while your trusty old bike is propped up at home housing the last of September's spiders. It's ok, I'm guilty too. The roads are terrifying with cars whizzing past and grazing your elbow and I get lost in this city more than I've ever been lost anywhere (with the exception of Amsterdam).


But these excuses no longer hold any weight. Say hello to the Cycle Super Highway. A specific bike path to be extended around the City next to, but for the most part separate from, the road with extra matching signs to stop directionally challenged cyclists like me ending up miles from home.


To differentiate from the tradition cycle paths, some are raised to pavement level - the curb being a handy barrier between spokes and those too-fast, too-close drivers. And in case you think it might be missed, it is painted a bright blue, Barclays blue in fact. Not content with just providing Londoners with bikes to cycle around on, they are making sure people use the bikes on these safer, quicker cycle highways. Two paths are already up and cycling from Merton and Barking into the City with 10 more planned to be completed by 2015.


With more bike parking, cutting congestion, reducing car use, taking the pressure off public transport AND encouraging more people to get cycling and get fit, what isn't to love? So (sorry, I cant help myself, I'm gonna say it) On Yer Bike!

(Spotted on Springwise)
http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/cycle_super_highway

Blog catch up plus excuses

I have been writing blogs for a fantastic climate change charity I volunteer for called Do The Green Thing. I started writing for them in November, around the same time I stopped blogging on here. But to prove that I didn't in fact just give up and hide under a recycling bin, I am now going to add my previous Green Thing blogs and continue to put them up after they've been published on their (infinitely higher read) blog.
Get ready for an influx of green opinion.