Goodbye to 2008

This year is all but over now and it is time to look optimistically forward to 2009. Listening to the news there are a thousand reasons not to expect happier times ahead, but that's just the news.
I have a garden filled with little birds, the sky is clear blue and one of my dear friends is getting married tomorrow. I'm going to put on some music, drink a toast to those who are no longer with us, those who are and we have still to meet.
Look forward to another wonderful year.
Love & Peace
Sally
xxxx

WORLD AIDS DAY

Spare some time to think about how you can positively help.

Not everyone can make speeches, visit hospitals or donate large sums to charity but in December most of us do a spot of shopping.

Why not help by targeting your spending.

It may be that you buy a project red T shirt at Gap or a pair of
special edition Converse. Have fun holding a Tea Party to help South African grandmothers care for vulnerable orphans and send the money raised to Grandmothers United (http://africansolutions.org. If you have a baby girl or need to buy one a present look at this lovely
website http://justjo.co.za where you can buy exquisite little smocked dresses with profits going to care for the South African Aids Orphans. Use your buying power to help raise money and awareness of how this dreadful disease has affected millions all over the world, but most especially in Africa where children need so much help.

We can help in so many ways & we can't all be Bono
(wheww... that's a relief)

love & peace
x
Sally

Is it almost December and is Christmas really coming?

Working from home its quite easy to lose track of the date - the week - dare I say ...even the month? It has suddenly dawned on me that it is almost December. Time is flying by and despite
the dire financial news I suddenly have a sense of excitement that soon it will be Christmas.
In a way I think all this financial gloom has been quite helpful in making lavish spending seem somehow inappropriate and rather vulgar. Excellent news as this fits right in with my budget! So Christmas can now down-scale and receiving any home knitted, baked or stitched item will not produce the usual rolling of eyes from the urban cool people - at last these offerings will have real value. Of course not everyone has time to produce these themselves but don't worry because shops now have lots of lovely "Church Bazaar" standard stitchery that you can pass off as your own. If you do have time to make someone a gift then do it - the pleasure is doubled, you get the enjoyment of spending money on materials and time on the making and they get something from you that took time, thought and effort. And if it looks a bit wonky then you all get a laugh as well!
Warm glows all round.

love & peace
x
Sally

A Great Day for the Planet

Today is a day for celebrating President Obama's BIG WIN and the changes he is going to bring to the world.
I'll be sewing with a smile on my face.
love & peace
Sally
x

SO PROUD TO BE CALLED AN ECO HERO

On cloud nine today having picked up a copy of the Saturday Telegraph magazine where my lovely husband Stewart and I feature as this week's ECO HEROES on page 77. It is specially wonderful when you work from home without the usual daily feedback from colleagues who remind you of where you are and what you're aiming to achieve. So today as I sit in my room surrounded by untidy piles of recycled fabric that await transformation into very desirable shopping bags I will be basking in the warm glow of recognition.
Thanks everyone
love & peace
Sally
x

Reality check

This photograph was taken last week of the coast near Mumbai (formally Bombay) in India. Looking up and down the coast in both directions this is the way it was. The trees and bushes draped in shreds of plastic bags washed up by high tides and floods and left there to blow in the wind. The reason I find this so shocking is that I was beginning to think about the plastic bag message as something that had got through to people - I was feeling positive.
This is such a horrible sight and there must be so many others like it. Our plastic waste is shipped to the East, their waste is thrown into the rivers, the rivers flow into the seas, the tides carry it around the world. And all that plastic will never go away.
No amount of words can carry the anti-plastic bag message more forcefully than this image.
love & peace
Sally
x

MONEY RAISING TEA PARTIES

Last weekend I read an article about African Solutions to African Problems, a charity that goes
right to the people who need the help and gives it to them ASAP - as soon as possible. It is often hard to know whether you are really helping when problems are far away and so many agencies are involved, but this is different. One of the main aims of this organization is to help the grandmothers in South Africa who have survived to care for their Aids-orphaned grandchildren. Please do have a look at their website http://www.africansolutions.org then arrange to have a Tea Party to raise money for Grandmothers United. I am proud to be a Grandma myself and am getting together with friends to hold a Fabulous Tea Party next month. It will be such fun with bunting, table cloths, pretty china cups and saucers, raffles, cup cakes and cucumber sandwiches. So if you are a Grandma please get involved and if not then tell your Gran and offer her your help on the day.
Love & Peace
Sally
x

NO MORE BLOGGERS BLOCK

I have been suffering from bloggers block but someone has rattled my cage enough to get me out of it. I have been avidly reading all comments, interviews, opinions and (if only) gossip about Sarah Palin and am convinced she is more dangerous than all the conflicts in the world put together. My heart sinks and right now I'm hoping someone, somewhere will dig up some dirt that will stick because so far she seems to be turning all the negatives into saintly positives. Pardon me - concealing your pregnancy, being so fiercely ambitious that you fly across the continent to deliver a speech while leaking amniotic fluid, then having the baby induced and delivered a month early and returning to work within 3 days - when did these actions become laudable? Now she brandishes her Downs Syndrome infant and pregnant teenage daughter like must-have accessories. I'd imagine that in the US you criticize her at your peril. Well, she's scaring me and if elected she would be one side-step away from what the Americans describe as Leader of the Free World.
Please America - don't put her in a position to make any decisions about our planet.
Well - I've got that off my chest for now and will share some news about my other obsession - the pollution that is plastic! Courtesy of the Saturday Telegraph's Q.I. I can share that only 5% of the six billion tons of plastic manufactured each year is recycled - and even more shockingly most of the plastic that has EVER been made is still around. It is not biodegradable so it doesn't go away it gets buried, blown away or thrown into the sea where there is a soupy island
of it the size of North America floating in the North Pacific. It's too big to comprehend but the
very serious small message we have to take to heart is to make a huge effort to avoid adding to the problem. Small changes make a big difference so carry a bag or a basket everywhere and buy fruit and veg loose and local.

love & peace
Sally
x

Money too tight to mention?

Well, let's try not mentioning it so much. I am feeling mildly hysterical about the overload of statistics about the economy that I am digesting at the moment. Yes, times are hard, bread and milk ARE more expensive than they used to be but I wonder if I really need to worry about the lower than expected profits of the Royal Bank of Scotland and all the other world banks? Too much financial information seems to be aimed at inducing financial panic - and its working. I was musing the other day about the credit crunch (the expression has now entered the dictionary) and whether shrinking household budget would mean a return to buying cheap deals rather than making ethical and environmental choices at the supermarket. I am not the only one giving this some thought as I have just read an article in today's Guardian that addresses the issue. It's really worth reading. There has been a fall in the rise ( if you get my drift) of people choosing to buy organic if you look at supermarket sales alone and Wholefoods/Fresh & Wild have discovered that there may not be the demand they were expecting at the luxury end of the organic market - well perhaps Waitrose and M&S already have that covered.
I wonder whether the huge rise in the number of people growing their own vegetables may be having an effect. Here's a nice statistic - the demand for vegetable seeds outstripped the demand for flower seeds this year! We have re-discovered our love of growing food and buying local, getting veg boxes, knitting, swapping, charity shopping and farmers' marketing and there are only so many hours in the day. Maybe that's why the organic shopper numbers are leveling off a bit - perhaps we simply don't have the time to waft about selecting from all that stuff anymore - too much choice is really exhausting.

My tip on how to avoid depression brought on by the credit crunch is to listen to music instead of the news - something uplifting.

love & peace
Sally
x

All these cotton bags

In the past year or two this country has been flooded of cotton tote bags and we all think its a good thing - right? Not sure....I'm starting to worry that the cheap cotton tote bag is becoming a bit of an environmental hazard in its own right.
IF the cotton is Organic and Fair Trade then it truly is wonderful that people are using them instead of plastic bags.
Unfortunately a very large proportion of cotton tote bags are not ethically or environmentally produced. Cotton is responsible for major pollution and chemical contamination in the Third World and tote bags are a huge growth industry in India and China. At Carry-a-Bag I receive emails almost every day from the Far East offering to make and ship bags for me at an ridiculously low cost - even with economies of scale the prices are way too low. Perhaps its time to take a closer look at the labels and make sure that the cheap cotton totes we carry tick all the right ethical and environmental boxes.
I heard a report the other day suggesting that we are fooling ourselves about our diminishing carbon footprint. We have outsourced our manufacturing to the Far East and we should therefore be including their escalating carbon emissions in our sums.
That rings true.

love & peace
Sally
.

lovely latitude

L A T I T U D E

I've just got back from Suffolk where we've been partying in the fields and woods with our family and friends at the very lovely Latitude Festival. There was a bit of everything and something for everyone and the site was ...
SO CLEAN. In fact the cleanest and greenest festival site I have ever been to.
We were encouraged to sort our litter and helpful stewards made sure that we put our plastics, paper, cans and food in the correct bins.
One of the biggest contributors to the lack of waste was paying a deposit of two pounds for a returnable pint cup with your first drink.
There was the opportunity to reclaim your money when you gave it back - a shrewd move because not only was there none of the usual mess but most people choose to take their Latitude cups home as souvenirs.
The £2 on return meant that any that were left around were soon picked up by smart kids who kept their eyes peeled for the chance of getting some free money ....ching! ching! Just like the good old days.
Helpfulness abounded and the campsite stewards offered help with taking tents down and packing them up so removing the temptation to walk away and buy another next time (not me of course!)
So what did we do?
In the Literature tent you could lie about on big comfy cushions while authors read you their stories; the Comedy tent had so many stars and was a bit of a crush - it could have been twice the size because everyone wants to laugh. There were plays, ballets, games, processions, poetry and food that was tempting and delicious. Waitress service to tables in the arena!!!!

AND there was music ....and best girl and best male in my selection are the sublime Beth Orton and masterful Nick Cave who stormed the main stage with his Grindermen. Best new band - The Midnight Juggernauts WHO ARE FABULOUS and my future big star has to be the extremely handsome and talented Johnny Flynn. Most wonderful random thing - Flamenco on a platform floating on the lake. Most awesome - the holographic lazer images hanging over the water - I still don't understand how they can do that.
Would I recommend you go next year ? Hell no! (well maybe just one or two of you but really there are mosquitos; the loo's are not very nice and you wouldn't like it at all.)
love & peace
Sally

FEWER PLASTIC BAGS IN CIRCULATION

The winds of change have been blowing around the South of England catching fewer plastic bags to deposit in trees! I went to a boot fair on Sunday and two stallholders apologised for not being able to offer me a bag because "there are not so many around thesedays". The charity shops are saying the same - those who are less corporate have always relied on donations of bags and it seems that the very same community-spirited people that used to keep them supplied with plastic bags are now taking their re-usable bags to the shops so the chain of supply has broken down. If you have an under-sink stash of plastic bags donate hem to a charity shop to save them having to divert their much-needed income into buying in bags.
I have been checking out the checkouts in Sainsbury's and Morrissons this week in a random and hardly scientific way and noticed that Sainsbury's customers were using far more free plastic bags than those at Morrissons. The strange thing is that Sainsbury's is out of town and a car is required whereas Morrissons is in the centre of town and has lots of walking customers. So, my analysis of the situation is that a lot of people who deliberately get into a car and drive to a shop can't remember to take their own bags whereas people who walk in off the street can. Top marks to the walking bag carriers and must try harder to the forgetful car drivers.
love & peace
Sally

Fabulous Glastonbury 2008

This year I arrived on Wednesday in the evening sunshine. Wristbands were issued along with a set of potato starch tent pegs which were an integral part of the Leave No Trace themed festival. Wish I could say they were brilliant but 50% of them snapped off because the ground was pretty firm - so we all went back to the metal ones - the wind was blowing and we needed to anchor the tent. The festival started off sunny and it was heaven to wander around on Thursday with no pressure to stick to a timetable of seeing bands - how hilarious that the bands are sometimes the last thing on your mind at Glastonbury. When the music started so did the rain and our hearts sank. Actually it was not too bad - just enough mud to warrant the wearing of those cool new WaterAid wellies but not enough to make you stay under cover. The Leave No Trace message really seemed to have hit home as the site stayed pretty clean throughout. All cups, cutlery, 'glasses' and plates were biodegradable and 'plastic' bags were made from corn starch. People were making an effort but the festival organisers had made it easy for them by providing plenty of bins to separate the rubbish which must have cut down on sorting later on. If only the rest of life was as ethical and organised as this wonderful event.
The music? My top three were Candy Statton - fabulous disco and soul diva; Raconteurs - (Jack White you are amazing!) and Leonard Cohen whose performance will stay with me forever. Jayzee, as he modestly proclaimed was F***ing Awesome, but next time I'd prefer not to have to wave my hands in the air and shout "HO" quite so much - glad I was there though because the film that opened the set was very funny and quite brilliant.
Bag-wise the Guardian teamed up with Yeo Valley to give away the freebies with the papers and this alone saves on so much rubbish that used to blow around with nobody taking any responsibility for it. This year people had taken on board the concept that the rubbish was our joint responsibility and that made all the difference.
LOVE & PEACE
Sally

People ARE carrying bags!

Credit where its due, I went to Morrison's supermarket yesterday and was pleased to see huge banner outside the store saying "TODAY don't forget your reusable shopping bag" or words very much to that effect. They're having a bit of a green push and thought provoking notices have appeared all round the store asking the customers to carry bags and reduce their carbon footprint. I particularly liked the way they had resisted adding major branding to the banner - okay it was stuck to their store so no mistaking who had put it there but it looked like a genuine attempt to pass on the simple message.
A quick scan of people at the checkout revealed that 50% had brought along their own bags and that is an astoundingly good turn-out.
love & peace
Sally

AN ADVERTISING ATROCITY

Sometimes when an apparently good thing is being promoted I wonder whether I am the only one yelling abuse at the television set.
I currently have a big problem with Ariel. Their latest campaign Advert opens with a scene in Africa where impoverished children are seen scooping water from a muddy puddle...This is their only choice we are told...but wait...we then see that with the addition of some marvelous magic potion the same water becomes clean clear and perfectly safe to drink. So the children will now have a better chance of survival. The good people at Ariel then tell us that if we buy their product with the special tokens or whatever they will make this happen.
I say IF YOU CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN THEN DO IT ! It is morally indefensible not to and are we seriously being asked to buy washing powder to save lives?
It made me think of Annie Lennox 's recent question which went along these lines - "If Cocoa Cola can be delivered to every corner shop in the world - why is it so difficult to deliver life-saving retro-viral drugs to the patients who need them?"
So here's the thing, you people marketing Ariel - if I had heard you provided children with clean drinking water simply because it was right and possible.... then I might buy your washing powder to show my appreciation. But using these children's hardship to persuade me to do so is just plain wrong.

SUMMER

Having just returned from a week's holiday in Ibiza I have been thinking about recycling in other countries - I have only really had to deal with the separation of rubbish into plastic, glass and cardboard in Italy, France and Spain and am pleased to discover that there is no great mystery. The language and terrain might be different but we are all using recognizable recycling areas with easily identifiable graphic symbols to assist us in putting the right bits in the right bin. I read somewhere that holidays are a time for relaxing rather than stressing about green issues and that perhaps it is enough to simply turn off your hot water and save energy while you're away from home. I agree that everything should be switched off and unplugged at home but strongly believe that separating and recycling the rubbish must be done wherever we go. If you usually use your own shopping bags at home then you will want them with you on holiday too. Wherever you go this summer try not to leave a trace.
Love& Peace
Sally

GOVERNMENT POLICY ON PLASTIC BAGS

On this morning's radio news bulletin an environmental expert criticised the government's focus on the plastic bag issue being dealt with by voluntary initiatives through retailers. The publicity surrounding one retailer's charge and another's free bags is just that - publicity generated by their PR machines. His complaint was that plastic bags were a very small part of our waste problem and as they are so visual they are an easy concept for the public to latch onto and feel they were doing something useful by carrying a bag of their own.
They are! they are! they are!
Just because there are other, bigger waste issues people should not be made to feel their efforts are not valuable or valued.
I believe that people come to a state of environmental awareness by many different routes and whatever the starting point is it is just that - their starting point. The plastic bag issue does not stand alone and once you take the step of remembering to take your bag to the shops you will feel a part of the environmental movement and become aware of other ways that you can support our planet's regeneration instead of contributing to its degeneration.
If a girl loves a Stella McCartney dress she may read an article about Stella's attitude and take something positive away, same with a Katherine Hamnett Tshirt - it may start as a fashion statement but it will also be a talking point and the issues that arise will be thought provoking.
I recommend reading the latest issue of Marie Claire magazine - its chocka with eco-fashion and really intelligent comment on the all things organic, Fairtrade, sustainable and ethical in fashion. And it is full of fun and fabulous clothes, bags and shoes.

love&peace
Sally
x

Warmer weather warnings

The sun is shining at last and we are all feeling the benefit. These are days of picnics and spontaneous get-togethers. This is when you have to be on your guard and REMEMBER to
to carry a bag! A sudden desire for cold drinks and a bag of fruit to take to the beach can
strike at any moment and even the most diligent of bag carriers can be caught in the moment.
Put your shopping bag in your car or your handbag or your pocket RIGHT NOW so you can shop without plastic bags anytime. And when the fun is over, if you're driving bring the bottles and cans home where you can be sure they will be properly recycled. These are such small things to do and if you make them automatic it won't feel like hard work.
Enjoy being outside.
love & peace
Sally

ZIMBABWE

It is a sobering thought that it is a luxury to have time and energy to worry about environmental issues like stopping the proliferation of plastic bags. Should we buy bottled water or drink filtered tap water? Compost or anaerobically digest our food waste? Take the car or ride a bike?
Our range of choices may be confusing but at least we have them.
Zimbabwe is in meltdown and people are terrified that they will not eat, drink or live another day.
Please everyone TRY in any way possible - MP, Media, UN, Aarvaz whatever you can think of to get action against Mugabe's regime started.
love peace
Sally

SHOPPING BAGS

I think I might be getting a tad obsessed with this issue but yesterday a spokesperson from Sainsbury's featured on the BBC Breakfast Business programme. He was there to announce some plastic bag news and to accuse the government of jumping on the plastic bag bandwagon to win votes. He had lots of good points and made them for five minutes in front of a full screen rendering of the Sainsbury's logo on one of their bags. Let's see what would that exposure cost on the commercial TV channels? I have smoke coming out of my ears about this.

The government may well be seizing an opportunity to gain the green vote by banning bags or taxing bags but at least they are not exploiting the issue as a marketing exercise. Its not that I'm hugely impressed by the way the government has dealt with the plastic bag issue, in a late-responsive rather than a trail-blazing way but I actually think that the government does have a genuine interest in decreasing the use of plastic bags. They have a landfill crisis to deal with, our carbon footprints to consider, emissions targets, the Kyoto Protocol etc. Sainsbury's just have to sell us stuff and the more their name appears in front of our eyes the more they will sell.
They gave away "free" jute bags recently. Sweet little house printed in one corner along with the web site address of their Home Insurance division. That is a gift alright - a gift to them because you are walking down the street doing their advertising for them. I would believe that they cared about the environment if they cut down on packaging in their stores across the board not on a few eye-catching offers and if they gave their customers bags that didn't turn them into walking billboards. And in the interest of fairness I have to say that M&S and Tesco's are just as likely to come up with something to steal Sainsbury's thunder.
I print CARRYABAG on all my bags because its my company name and I chose it because it is what I want you all to remember to do.
So do it. For yourself, those you love, the countryside and the planet.
Then once we have the place cleaned up we can sort out some other issues.
love and peace
Sally
x

Clean up the Beach

Our beaches are more polluted with plastic now than ever before. The thing about a beach is that its the edge and gets plastic blown down to it from the land and also brought in on the tide. Even if we were blameless and we are not we would still have the problem. Trust me, I live in seaside town where I see people walking away from their own litter on the beach and ignoring everyone else's. So even if we all cut down on our individual use of plastic and made use of the bins provided the tide would still come in twice a day carrying everything that floats and stays behind on the tide-line when the sea retreats. Other country's rubbish, other side of the world's rubbish, ocean liner's rubbish, probably rubbish from the sky as well - all bobbing about in the sea. It's time for us all to pick up the trash - never mind whether its your own or not - it affects us all and maybe, just maybe someone who watches us picking it up will think twice about dropping it next time. It may take a while but the more we see this as our responsibility the cleaner the beaches will be.

Let's give it a try - for all our sakes.

love & peace

Sally

More Plastic Bag "News"

Sainsbury's managed to get onto Radio 2's Saturday 1pm news bulletin today by announcing that they would be asking their customers to re-use their plastic bags. Is this really news or a way of plugging their brand? Do people really not understand that it would be a good idea to re-use their bags?
Am I the only one thinking that they are using the plastic bag issue to exploit the media and gain fabulous free advertising. I remember, going back some years, Sainsbury's gave 2p back for each bag we brought and re-used. This was a good thing and they provided a money box so you could give this money to a local charity. Maybe they still do this. My point is they didn't exactly make the BBC news with it.
The idea is always REMEMBER to carry a bag - its that easy.
Happy Easter

love, peace and chocolate
xx

Carry-A-bag everyone!

I am overwhelmed to see that everywhere I look there is a story about the awful plastic bag - newspapers are running campaigns, the prime minister is muttering about them,
LK today is running the story and quite frankly I think it is FABULOUS.
A slightly worrying trend emerged in the Sunday papers - the confessional cool cartoons and columns telling of swapping cupboards full of plastic bags for cupboards full of guiltily bought bags for life, the only difference being the expense and thus more money in the supermarket coffers. Hmmmmm!
I guess the supermarkets are having a bit of a chuckle about this - they already charge us for the 'free' bags in with the price of the food and now having taken the guilt on board we are buying their bags for life. Its not surprising that they've gone for this as they can charge us again - and more openly as this is seen as a positive thing. If we do remember to re-use them they get a longer-lasting, better quality walking advertisement on the street and if we don't then we keep on buying more to fill the cupboard under the sink.
Win Win Win.
You have to love you bag to remember to carry it with you - so find or make shopping bags that work for you, spend a bit more, make your own statement and it will be easy to remember to carry a bag.
x
love and peace
Sally

HEADLINE GRABBING BAG BAN

Pinch me! Yesterday I woke up to breakfast TVs coverage of M&S's decision to charge for bags - fantastic publicity opportunity - I must admit the spokesperson for the company being grilled by Kirsty later on on Newsnight was squirmingly uncomfy when asked to deliver anything beyond a sound bite. Get it right guys - you want us to get the good news, find someone charismatic to deliver it.
Our very closest supermarket is the unusual and surprising Lidl where they have always charged for plastic bags. They don't have hand baskets, so people without bags grab any cardboard box they find to load small shopping and I have noticed that people who buy a lot of stuff fill a trolley then refill it at the checkout and take it to the car to unload without using a single plastic bag. It's probably because they're so European that nobody thinks to question why their bags cost money. It's never been headline news.
Whatever - its a good thing that big stores have found a way of making themselves look
good and green.
Today shock horror every daily paper apart from the Mail headlined with Prince Harry fighting the Taliban. The Mail chose BROWN: WE WILL BAN PLASTIC BAGS and reading online I discover that this and M&S's 5p-on-a-bag charge is all in support of the Mail's BANISH THE BAG campaign launched YESTERDAY! How effective and speedy was that?
Well if it saves one more turtle, keeps another bag out of a tree and makes one more person remember to carry-a-bag then I'm 100% behind it!
love and peace
Sally
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Fairtrade Fortnight

It would be a wonderful thing if we all chose Fairtrade all the time and this specially designated fortnight gives us the opportunity to try because the shelves are stocked and the giant plastic banana's are pointing us in the right direction. The Co-op is the small, local supermarket with the biggest commitment to Fairtrade, so if you've not been there then I suggest you give it a try. Shopping locally often means that you're left out of the statistics when it comes to monitoring the effectiveness of campaigns like Fairtrade Fortnight and making sure that your local Co-op sells out of Fairtrade produce is a way of being counted.
So.... it's my duty to go and buy bananas,mangoes,coffee, chocolate and wine!
Happy ethical shopping.
(I'm not being sponsored by the Co-op by the way)

TRYing to feel generous

Observer Food Mag is coming out this Sunday and flagged up by email today. Nigel Slater - who I really do love - is tackling the plastic bag issue. Nigel carries a bag...he also sings the praises of Anya Hindmarch for her planet saving five pound bag. Well, I am trying not to be bitchy here but last week I saw someone coming out of Lidl carrying their shopping in one of Anya's bags and it struck me that it was the first time I'd actually seen one being used to actually carry shopping. When the bag was launched I was pretty thrilled that the issue had become such a hot topic so I signed up for the Anya Hindmarch email newsletter. I now get updates on her latest bags and guess what - they each cost about a month's rent and the environment only gets a mention when she gets another f***ing award for I'm Not a Plastic Bag.
Meanwhile back in the real word...There is an elderly lady in a corner shop in Hove who sews shopping bags out of odd bits of fabric and sells them to her customers for a pound - I think she should get an award.
love
Sally
PSSST! Remember to carry-a-bag

CHINA BANS PLASTIC BAGS

The Chinese have decided to ban the manufacture of ultra thin plastic bags as of June 1st 08
and the law will also forbid shopkeepers from handing out free plastic bags. They say that the environment is a factor but the main reason is the huge amount of petrol needed to make plastic bags. They are suggesting that people get used to carrying cloth shopping bags or use a basket.
Wow! At the moment three BILLION plastic bags are given out everyday in China
so this really is something to celebrate.
It's impossible to make an argument in favour of using those polluting plastic bags because all any shopper has to do is REMEMBER to take a bag to the shops - that's all it takes.
How hard can it be?
love and peace
Sally
x

www.carry-a-bag.com

Here's the schoolteacher I mentioned

BIT LATE ....BUT WELCOME TO 2008

Its always best to approach the New Year in a positive way. The world is not such a bad place
and if we all do the right thing ...? I began the New Year by watching the You Tube film made by a US schoolteacher explaining why we need to take global warming very seriously and do our best to stop it getting worse, even if that means making some tough choices instead of taking the easy way out. The hard thing is that we have been so encouraged be consumers - and now they want us to give away our toys. We expect comfort, warmth and more than enough to eat and hot water from the tap. So now that we finally have installed a power shower can it be true that its wrong to use it? Tell the guy with the gadgets on stand-by that sea levels are rising and he must remember to switch off at the plug. The truth is that the only way to stop everything being left on standby is to build new stuff that can't do stand-by (with all the environmental problems that goes with manufacturing new appliances and disposing of the bad ones they replace.) You can now buy plugs with remotes that switch off all you media at the touch of a button but they are not cheap and their effect is invisible so hard to sell to anyone who isn't already a green thinker.
Here's a good idea for any environmental philanthropist out there looking for a way to do their bit: Supply "no-more-standby plugs" free to all the households in the country. If it was something everyone had like a gas meter then nobody would mind using them. Let's have huge mainstream support for initiatives like the installation of rainwater tanks to flush all the loos in the land. In 2008 let's ask for more help to do the right thing.
In December we were being urged not to overspend on our credit cards because there was going to be a crisis of debt - then in January we are told to expect a recession because we didn't buy enough and now the shops are in trouble. Jees Louise ! Does that mean I should have maxed out the card or not?
Perhaps if each of us turns off the news and tries our best to persuade a few more people to give the planet some thought then it could be a Happy New Year. Except for the people who bring us the news who need us to watch them or they lose their jobs! Nothing is that simple.