365 ways to help you save the planet

If you are looking to take some steps towards living in a more green and sustainable way let me help you with enough ideas to fill a year!  Based on my series of Weekly Green Tips I have now combined all the weekly tips I gave into one post giving you a new idea for every day of the year .... 365 ways to help you save the planet.  I appreciate you may already do some or others are either irrelevant to you or maybe impossible to tackle right now - but hopefully there are plenty here you can action.  And imagine what a difference we could make to the world if we all took up these tips.

To make it easier for you to find them I have linked to all of them below in 7 main groups.  And of you are wondering why there are not 52 I did a few super blogs of 14 and even 21 tips to cover when I had time away from blogging! Oh and the last one had a list of nine as try as I may I couldn't lose 2!!

Weekly Green Tips #48 - 9 Green rules to live by

Week 48 - 9 Green Rules

A year ago I started my Weekly Green Tips Series.  A blog post a week containing 7 green tips to give you a year of green tips (with a couple of "Super weeks" containing 21 tips).  This post gives you the final 7 tips, a summary of the underlying the messages that have been there throughout this series.  We all know the 3 Rs - Reduce, Re-use, Recycle but I would like to take this further and give you the 10 Rs.  The 10 green rules to live by.

Weekly Green Tips #47 - Greening Your Lawn

Week 47 - How to have a Green Lawn

Having a lawn is much greener (literally and environmentally) than a hard-surfaced garden but is is still not without sustainability problems.  There is the power to mow it and many lawn owners throw all sorts of chemicals on their lawns.  As ever though, there are plenty of simple steps you can take to have the greenest green lawn.

Weekly Green Tips #46 - Eco-Easter Ideas

Week 46 - 7 Eco-Easter Ideas

Like any time of celebration Easter can come with a lot of extra unnecessary packaging and unnecessary waste so why not buck the trend this year and go for an Eco-Easter.  It's easier than you think and both your pocket and your teeth will thank you!

Weekly Green Tips #45 - Buying Sustainable Tropical Products

Week 45 - How to buy Sustainable Tropical Products

A theme that regular readers of my Weekly Green Tips series will recognise is that it is good for the environment to buy products that are produced locally.  They support the local community and have few transport miles associated with them.  So get your fruit and veg from the local farmers' market or farm shop whenever you can.  BUT, what if your local area cannot produce the things you want?  What about products grown in tropical regions.  Should you simply not buy them?  In fact the answer is you SHOULD buy them, but pick and choose which ones.

Weekly Green Tips #44 - Why Cook from Scratch (Part 2)

Week 44 - 7 Green Reasons to Cook from Scratch (Part 2)

As promised here are 7 more green reasons you should be cooking from scratch and not buying ready meals or takeaways.  The first 7 reasons can be found here.

Weekly Green Tips #43 - Why Cook from Scratch (Part 1)

Week 43 - 7 Green Reasons to Cook from Scratch (Part 1)

When I started to write this blog post I thought I might struggle to get to 7 reasons why cooking from scratch is good for the environment ... turns out I came up with far more reasons so once you've read these 7 reasons to head to Reasons to Cook from Scratch (Part 2).

Weekly Green Tips #42 - Green Holiday Ideas

Week 42 - 7 Eco Holiday Ideas

Last week I wrote about the reasons to avoid all inclusive holidays.  Today I offer you 7 alternatives that are all much more eco-friendly, varying from a traditional self catering holiday to a working holiday learning new countryside skills.  What will your next holiday be and will it be great for the environment?

Weekly Green Tips #41 - Reasons to Avoid All Inclusive Holidays

Week 41 - 7 Reasons to avoid All Inclusive Holidays

Now I know everyone has a different idea of their perfect holiday from staying in a cosy cottage to backpacking around Tibet and for some an all inclusive resort ticks a lot of their good holiday boxes.  However there are some good environmental reasons to not book all inclusive.

Weekly Green Tips #40 - Foods to Forage for

Week 40 - My 7 Favourite Foraged Foods

I love foraging.  It takes me back to my childhood rushing off to pick blackberries after school (and before Mum could tell me to do my homework) and also massively appeals to my frugal and natural sides.  But what are my 7 favourite foods to forage for?

Weekly Green Tips #39 - Home-made plant labels

Week 39 - Home-made plant labels

In the midst of winter gardening can be the last thought on many people's minds - the soil is either frozen or waterlogged and you may well be much happier hiding inside buying seeds.  If you are me that will be lots of seeds which means I will need lots of plant labels when I start sowing them.  It is all too easy to pop out and buy a pack of plastic labels when in fact there are plenty of other things you can write on to create a label.  Here are 7 of my favourites:

Weekly Green Tips #38 - Keeping Old Clothes out of Landfill

Week 38 - Keeping old clothes out of landfill

Many people add decluttering to their New Year Resolutions which may well include thinning down the contents of the wardrobe ... or maybe with all that weight loss you've achieved some clothes are too big now!  What-ever your reason for getting rid of clothes though, there are far better things you can do with them besides chucking them in the bin where they end up in landfill.

Weekly Green Tips #37 - Plants to feed the birds

Week 36 - Bird attracting plants

With large areas of the countryside put over to agriculture with the associated loss of natural habitats and use of pesticides to kill off insects, our gardens are now more important than ever as reserves for wild birds.  Growing plants that feed the birds can really help maintain and build populations.

Weekly Green Tips #36 - Reducing your heating bills

Week 36 - Reducing heating bills

Whether you get your heat from gas, oil or electricity, reducing your heating bills is great for the environment.  Gas and oil are both fossil fuels and by burning them,CO₂, a major greenhouse, gas is produced.  Only about 25% of the UK's electricity comes from renewable resources with over 50% from burning gas and oil and over 20% from nuclear.  Nuclear may not produce greenhouse gases but it comes with potentially devastating problems should a meltdown occur and the environmental damage from mining the uranium needed to produce nuclear power is huge.  In most cases, therefore, using your heating less and at a lower temperature will be good for the environment.

Weekly Green Tips #35 - Avoiding palm oil

Week 35 - How to avoid palm oil in food

Palm oil is something you won't find on the supermarket oils aisle but once you start looking at ingredients lists in foods you'll see it is is so many products.  Palm oil is grown in tropical regions on land that has been cleared of rain forest to then grow the palm plantations.  The forests are home to thousands of animal and plant species, the most notable in Asia being the Orang-outang whose population numbers are now plummeting.  Clearance of the rain forests also contributes to climate change through increased CO₂ levels and many palm oil workers are paid incredibly low wages and work in hazardous conditions without adequate protection.  

This is a subject I will be returning to over the coming months.  If you now feel you want to reduce or stop eating products containing palm oil here are 7 ways to go about that.

Weekly Green Tips #34 - 7 Foods in season at Christmas

Week 34 - Christmas Food with Seasonal Ingredients

Christmas is a great time for sharing some lovely food with family and friends ... and there is plenty of seasonal  produce to choose from.  Here are my top 7 seasonal Christmas foods and some great recipe ideas.  Foods in season relate to the UK and northern France.

Weekly Green Tips #33 - 7 Tips to Reduce Christmas Waste

Week 33 - Tips to Reduce Christmas Waste

Christmas is a time for giving and receiving but the downside of this is it is also a time of huge waste.  Unilever estimated that in 2014 the equivalent of 4.2 million Christmas dinners were chucked away i.e. around 263,000 turkeys and over 7 million mince pies.  Each year some 1.12 billion cards are sent in the UK with no way of knowing how many end up in landfill.  There is more ....each Christmas the UK public throws away:

> 226,800 miles of wrapping paper
> 125,000 tons of plastic wrapping
> 10 million items of turkey packaging.
> 25 million Christmas pudding packets

And this is just the UK - multiply these figures up across the world and we are looking at an unimaginable amount of waste.  So what can we do to reduce the amount of waste each Christmas generates?  Here are my top 7 tips to reduce Christmas waste.

Weekly Green Tips #32 - 7 Green Christmas Present Ideas

Week 32 -7 Green Christmas Present Ideas

With the festive season fast approaching and many people being far more organised than me when it comes to present shopping I thought a post in my Weekly Green Tips series about the types of presents you can give whilst helping the environment would be a timely idea.  Rather than listing specific green items I am, instead, suggesting how you can switch your whole buying ethos to one that moves away from the huge excesses that currently seem the festive norm.  Can we work together to make this a Christmas where you still give generously but not excessively?

Weekly Green Tips #31 - 7 ways to tempt you outside in winter

Week 31 - Tempting you outside in winter

As the seasons move forwards it can be harder to get outside once winter arrives along with its often miserable weather and short daylight hours.  However it is well known that getting outside has many positive benefits such as reducing stress and combating illness, creating a positive outlook on life and helping us to think clearly.  And all these have advantages for our environment.  Not being ill means we are not pulling on medical resources, having  a positive outlook on life and good thought processing capabilities helps us to make the right decisions which will help the environment.

But what if you are not an outdoor person.  How can you be temped to step outside when your urge is to hide under the duvet and watch the latest box set on TV?  Here are some ideas that might help.

Weekly Green Tips #28 to #30 - 21 ways to cook efficiently

Week 28 to 30 - Cooking Efficiently 

Apologies for the lack of Weekly Green Tips over the last 2 weeks but I have been away on holiday.  So to catch up here is a triple bonus post with 21 ways you can cook more efficiently and thus reduce how much energy (gas/electricity) you use when preparing meals.  I hope you enjoy them as much as the food you prepare. 

Image from Pixabay