1000 Flowers for the Planet - #488 Change the Goal to 'Better'

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #488 Change the Goal to 'Better'

I want to introduce you to Annie Leonard, founder of The Story of Stuff [www.storyofstuff.org]. She’s one amazing lady. And her project, the Story of Stuff Project, explains everything in easy to understand language, so that we can learn about what we’re doing to the planet by our consumerism. The message I’d like you to take on board today is about changing the goal from MORE to BETTER – watch Annie’s video at www.storyofstuff.org and be inspired.

We’re all far to consumed by the idea that we should have more – more goods, more money, more food, more electronics, more record profits. Everything these days is supersized. But none of this is making us happy. We need to change the goal to BETTER – to have better healthcare, better education, better communities, better products, better food, and a much better environment in which to live. Please go to The Story of Stuff website and watch the video, wander around the site and see how YOU can make it BETTER.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #487 Use Live Mouse Traps

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #487 Use Live Mouse Traps

If you have a mouse in your house, and you need to be rid of the little critter, then choose to use a live mouse trap, catch it and release it back into the wild. When you use poison to kill the mouse it has the knock on effect of poisoning other animals. For example, owls are eating poisoned mice and subsequently dying too, because the poison is strong enough to kill both animals. Dog and cat owners beware, they may also die if they eat a poisoned rat or mouse. Hawks and eagles are also at risk. Any animal that eats mice is at risk, so think about the full effects of your actions when dealing with poisons and where these toxic chemicals will end up.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #486 Use Recycled Toilet Paper

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #486 Use Recycled Toilet Paper

In Australia we flush about 6 million trees down the toilet every year by using toilet paper made from virgin materials. We can prevent this from happening if we switch to using recycled toilet paper. This will keep trees in the ground, where they provide habitat for so many creatures: wombats, bilbies, birds, insects, possums, lizards, echidnas – the list goes on and on. Recycled toilet paper is made from waste products such as office paper and old textbooks. It’s easy to switch, you’ll get a product just as soft as any other and you’ll be supporting your local wildlife. Our zoos have asked us to do this [http://www.zoo.org.au/get-involved/act-for-wildlife/wipe-for-wildlife] so let’s get cracking and do the right thing.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #485 Take a Cooking Class

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #485 Take a Cooking Class

Despite all the cooking shows on television – and there are whole channels devoted to food – many of us are quite useless in the kitchen. The old ways of relying solely on self, cooking every meal, preparing every school lunch and ensuring the whole family sat and ate breakfast seem to have gone out the window. There was a time when the average family rarely bought a take-away meal and only went to restaurants for special occasions. Now we all race around with our self-importance, grab snacks on the run, skip meals and use our busy schedule as the excuse for buying take-away meals.

Often the problem is more to do with a lack of ability to cook. Maybe it’s time to take some cooking lessons and get familiar with the basics. This will allow you to produce easy, healthy meals for your family, with much more confidence. Knowledge is powerful, so learning the basic skills for cooking will increase your confidence in the kitchen. You will be able to write a better menu plan and shopping list, save lots of money by cooking at home, save time because buying takeaway actually isn’t a time saver, and you’ll do the planet a whole lot of good. Home cooked meals reduce packaging and food waste, meaning less going to landfill. It is a better use of resources, saves water and energy in the production of food, and gives you the power to look after your own health and that of your family. You never know – cooking classes may be the beginning of a whole new passion.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #484 Understand Earth Hour

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #484 Understand Earth Hour

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Here’s another great Aussie invention – Earth Hour. Begun in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is celebrated on the last Saturday in March (that’s 28^th March 2015 – tomorrow) and was designed to enlighten people about global issues such as how global warming affects food production [https://earthhour.org.au/home/]. By turning your lights off for one hour between 8:30 and 9:30 pm, you can show the world that you are thinking about your actions and how they affect the planet. Join people in 7000 cities around the world in a united effort to make a difference. Tell all your friends, host a dinner party and make it an event, go to a formally organised event in your area or just cuddle up at home with your partner and talk in the dark for an hour [or whatever else you may choose to do ;) ]. It’s not about saving electricity for an hour and measuring how many tonnes of carbon emissions we have reduced in that timeframe. It’s about symbolising the fact that we all have the power to make a difference by the action we take, big and small, such as me doing this 1000 Flowers for the Planet art project to bring ideas to everyone on how they can make those differences. It’s not one act, but the combination of many acts put together, that will make a better world.

Have fun when the lights are out tomorrow.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #483 Write a Shopping List

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #483 Write a Shopping List

100 Days ago I suggested Flower #382 Avoid Food Waste. A very simple way to do this is by writing a shopping list. Follow Flower #327 Create a Menu Plan, write down everything you plan to prepare and cook for the week or fortnight ahead, which will give you a complete guideline for writing your shopping list. Check cupboards for what products need replacing, check that you have all the ingredients for making what’s on your menu and make a note of items that are low and could be topped up if they’re on special at the supermarket. Then follow Flower #326 Shop Once a Week, particularly for fresh fruit and vegetables, or once a fortnight is even better for less perishable items, and in this way you should save time, money and more importantly – food. Because you have planned in advance for everything you need, you will create less waste. This has a knock-on effect of less waste going to landfill, less expense for councils to pick it up and take it there, better use of resources including all the water that’s gone into growing food, transportation costs are reduced, less carbon emissions are produced and overall, it’s so much better for the planet. Amazing results from one little shopping list, don’t you think?

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #482 Get "Real" about "Reuse"

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #482 Get "Real" about "Reuse"

It’s all very well to come up with a plethora of ideas for recycling items into something ‘useful’ but maybe it’s time to get ‘real’ about what’s happening here. The Internet is full of fantastic ideas for turning rubbish into useful items around the house e.g. use the lid of your empty laundry liquid container as a scoop for pet food; staple old egg cartons to your walls to soundproof the room; break up old CDs, DVDs crockery etc and make mosaics; use an old coffee tin to store crayons or colour pencils; DVD spindles can be used as bagel holders for your lunch. But let’s think about this. Do you only go through one bottle of laundry liquid per year? How many cat food scoops do you need? How many pencil containers do you need? Are you even interested in creating mosaics and how many little tables or fancy mirror frames can your house handle? How many bagel holders do you need and don’t you already have a proper container to take your lunch to work in? And do you really want to staple egg cartons to your wall? Come on! Really?

The point is, whilst these ideas might be creative, are they practical? These types of solutions only deal with one piece of rubbish, not the multiples we generate every week, month and year. We don’t all limit ourselves to one tin of coffee a year, so what do we do with all the other coffee tins we’ve generated. Of course, it all ends up either in the recycling bin, or more likely in landfill. So let’s not kid ourselves that we’re doing something particularly wonderful by the planet when we recycle one coffee tin, or one DVD spindle, or one plastic lid. These are only temporary solutions. We need to get real.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #481 Avoid Single-Use Products

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #481 Avoid Single-Use Products

Single use products are an incredibly wasteful use of earth’s valuable resources. Flower #64 already suggested Avoid Single Use Plastic. In trying to put together a list of single use products that were NOT made of plastic, I struck a difficulty. Most single use products are made from plastic. But here’s a short list I was able to compile: paper napkins; foil baking trays; paper coffee filters; wet wipes; wooden stirring sticks; paper plates; tissues; batteries; vacuum cleaner bags; chopsticks. You’ll notice most of these are made from wood/paper. Perhaps you can think of more and let me know in the comments section.

If we are to reduce our waste and the amount we send to landfill, we need to stop using single-use products. Become conscious of them as you use them and think of a different way to go about that task. Replace paper napkins with cloth ones, disposable chopsticks with a beautiful pair of permanent use chopsticks, or use a plunger instead of coffee filters. There’s always a different way to do things, so make this one of your daily challenges and make a big difference to the planet.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #480 Observe World Meteorological Day

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #480 Observe World Meteorological Day

Today is World Meteorological Day, and to explain it to you, here is a quote from the World Meteorological Organization’s website [http://www.wmo.int/worldmetday/]:

“Since 1961, World Meteorological Day has commemorated the coming into force on 23 March 1950 of the Convention establishing the World Meteorological Organization and the essential contribution that National Meteorological and Hydrological Services make to the safety and well-being of society. Each year, the celebrations focus on a theme of topical interest.

The theme for this year, “Climate knowledge for climate action,” provides an opportunity to take stock of the climate knowledge built in the last decades as an essential base to support the path towards more ambitious action to address climate change and climate variability.”

So it is up to us as individuals to ensure we gather information about climate change and take action to ensure a better future.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #479 Observe World Water Day

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #479 Observe World Water Day

Today is World Water Day. It is a day to recognise that water is vital to survival on this planet. Water is not only available for the use of humans, but for everything – animals, fish, insects, plants, ecosystems. Water provides life for all living things. Water is the basis of all ecosystems. Water has the power to keep us clean and prevent the spread of disease through our communities. Water has the power to create energy, which we use without thinking about, every day. These are the positive aspects of water.

Then there are the destructive ways in which humans use water. Manufacturing uses large amounts of water, which provides us with all the stuff we want, but pollutes water in the process. Water creates inequality – ‘women’ spend millions of hours every day, carrying water. Water can create conflict. More and more water is required to produce food as the world’s population explodes. Water is easily polluted, and carries that pollution far beyond the source of pollution, and this, in consequence, affects every living thing.

Spend today thinking about how well you use the most valuable resource this world has to offer us. We cannot live without it. Let’s make our use of it sustainable well into the future.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #478 Observe Harmony Day

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #478 Observe Harmony Day

Today is Harmony Day, which began in Australia in 1999, and is celebrated by people coming together and participating in local activities. The continuing message of Harmony Day is 'Everyone Belongs'. It is about community participation, inclusiveness, celebrating diversity, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone. Australia is a country of huge multi-ethnic diversity, so Harmony Day is a great way to get together and learn more about each other’s culture. The sentiments of Harmony Day should not stay within Australia, but be encouraged all around the world. If we did that, we might get along a lot better, and that would make a fantastic world.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #477 Observe World Frog Day

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #477 Observe World Frog Day

Today is World Frog Day.

Frogs are a good indicator of the health of an environment.  A lack of frogs in the ecosystem is a huge warning sign that things are not well and may need urgent attention. Sadly, frog populations are dwindling around the world, with a massive 200 species lost to us sine 1980. This is a serious matter. They are affected by habitat loss, infectious disease, invasive species, climate change and pollution of water systems (which is something we humans do very well). All of these reasons are created by the human population.

Frogs eat mosquitoes, which is useful to us in helping prevent the spread of diseases such as malaria. They are a food source for other animals, such as monkeys, snakes, dragonflies, birds, beetles, fish and more. If you take frogs out of the food chain, you affect the whole chain, so we could expect other species to dwindle into extinction if we don’t sweat the small stuff. Tadpoles keep water systems clean by eating algae, and this water is often a source of drinking water for humans, so something we do want to be clean. But frogs have permeable skin, which easily absorbs toxic chemicals, so because we are very good at putting chemicals into our environment, frogs are seriously affected. World Frog Day is 20 March 2015, presenting us all with an opportunity to consider our actions and how we affect the entire food chain of the planet, and how we are going to make things better. Starting with frogs might be a good first step.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #476 Use Recycled Paper Pens

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #476 Use Recycled Paper Pens

Recently I wrote about the problem created by pens and how they end up in landfill because they are seldom recycled (Flower #460 Recycle Writing Pens). I’ve encouraged people to use a metal fountain pen (Flower #77) or even a mechanical pencil (Flower #78) because they will last a long time. But recently I stumbled across a fantastic idea – a paper pencil. See it at: http://www.buyecogreen.com.au/writing--stationery-c107/pens---recycled-paper-c107113 

This is good news. Not only is the body of the pen made from recycled paper, it also means that the body can be recycled again, or at worst it can be composted where it will return to nature. If you’ve ever walked into a major stationery chain store and walked down the pen aisle you’ll have noticed how many pens are being sold. These will all end up in landfill unless we change our habits. Creating a recycled paper pen is a good start, because whilst we still need to resolve the inner working of the pen, this pen is reducing our impact on the planet. There are many other pens out there claiming to be eco-friendly, but they come with plastic tips and ends, which defeats the purpose. Buy a pen without plastic or you defeat the purpose.  

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #475 Buy Fair Trade Easter Eggs

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #475 Buy Fair Trade Easter Eggs

Easter will soon be celebrated by the Christian world, presenting many people with the opportunity to think about fellow human beings in other countries, specifically children who are trapped in slavery on cocoa farms to produce a product most Westerners gobble down without a second thought. Easter eggs are consumed in great quantities, creating a demand that has produced a trade that functions on human misery, all for the sake of bringing cheap chocolate to your supermarket shelves. Make this year a time for sending a strong message to suppliers that we will not support growers who use child labour or slave labour of any kind, that we demand proper working conditions for our fellow man and that we want to buy Fair Trade chocolate this Easter. Help stop the trafficking of children into West African cocoa plantations.  For Aussies, Fair Trade chocolate is available at The Trading Circles in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, at Oxfam stores or maybe your local supermarket. If you cannot find Fair Trade chocolate in your area, then your Easter Action can be to ask for it at your local supermarket. Spread the word and encourage your family and friends to buy only Fair Trade chocolate.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #474 Remove Your Bin

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #474 Remove Your Bin

This idea is another challenge for you to try. It won’t hurt, but it will make you think. Remove your rubbish/trash bin from your kitchen and put it somewhere it can’t be used. This will force you to do two things. Firstly you will discover what you actually throw away because you’ll be standing there with it in your hand wondering what to do with it, and that will lead to the second task, which is to rethink how you deal with that waste. Imagine life without the garbage collectors – it would be quite dreadful if they didn’t show up every week to remove our rubbish. By removing your own bin and forcing yourself to think about your waste, you will discover a great deal about your family and your habits. You may find most of your waste is food and this may help you realise you’re serving portions that are too big or not planning meals very well. You may find most of your waste is foil wrappers from chip packets and lots of junk food. For my family it was foil coffee bag wrappers so we changed our habits and use a plunger instead. Imagine being able to live “zero waste” – there are people who manage this, and even if you can’t reduce your waste to zero, you’ll be making a huge contribution to the health of the planet by keeping stuff out of landfill. This could be a fun family experiment to help you achieve an important goal.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #473 Recycle Video Tapes

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #473 Recycle Video Tapes

Some of us still have a lot of old video tapes hanging around in storage, unsure what to do with them. If you have family films recorded on VHS tape then the first thing you should consider doing is having the film copied to digital format so you can access it with modern computer technology. Then you are free to send all your videos off for recycling. All of the component parts are able to be recycled: the plastics are broken down and sorted according to their grade, to be used in the making of things like garden furniture and bins; any metal parts, like springs, are easily melted down and used to manufacture new items; and the tape, which is magnetic and therefore a little harder to recycle, can be broken down into small pieces and used with other products to make insulation. Some recyclers of videos do not make the effort to recycle the tape, so be sure to find a recycler who will. Do a search on the Internet to find someone near you such as www.businessrecycling.com.au for Aussies or http://www.ems-europe.co.uk/ for the Brits and Europeans.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #472 Recycle Your Bicycle

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #472 Recycle Your Bicycle

When you finally realise that your old bicycle has been sitting in the shed for over a decade without having been used once, it’s time to acknowledge that you are probably never going to hop back onto that particular saddle. Time to give it a new home. This may mean one of those Internet searches to find something local, but you’ll find there are people out there doing good things with old bicycles. Some have set up places where people can go to learn bike maintenance to keep them on the road, or refurbish old ones for new owners, particularly disadvantaged children. There are programs that collect bicycles to send to Africa – it can make a huge difference to the life of a person who has to otherwise walk long distances to fetch water, for example. Some bikes are just good for spare parts, so keep it all out of landfill, reuse those valuable resources, find the right place for your old treadly to go, and make it happen.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #471 Recycle CDs and DVDs

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #471 Recycle CDs and DVDs

We all seem to end up with so many CDs and DVDs these days, and sometimes there comes a day when you need to move things along. Instead of putting these items into landfill, think of ways to recycle them. The obvious first option is to recycle perfectly good DVDs and CDs that are still in working order by donating them to a charity shop, where someone else can purchase them and enjoy them. There are also businesses that sell second-hand media who will buy your old CDs and DVDs. For more crafty ideas, search the Internet and you will find quite a lot of suggestions, like cutting them up into small pieces to create mosaics. If you have data CDs that really need to be properly destroyed and turned into something else entirely, a simple Internet search will find you a business nearby who takes old CDs and DVDs for recycling. So if you can’t be bothered reinventing a use for all your discs, give them to someone to enjoy or destroy. Whatever way you choose, ensure they stay out of landfill.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #470 Recycle Writing Pens

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #470 Recycle Writing Pens

How many pens do you have in your household? If you’re like me, you have dozens of them. I don’t recall ever having to purchase a pen – they just seem to appear – so I use one at a time in an endeavour to actually use all the ink in that pen before throwing it away and moving on to the next pen. And there’s the rub – “throwing it away”. A greater majority of pens are made from plastic, hence they are made from non-renewable resources, including fossil fuels. When they’re thrown into landfill they will stay there for 1,000 years. This is a senseless use of valuable and finite resources. Plastic can be recycled, but in Australia, if you put a plastic pen into your recycling bin it will still end up in landfill. Here, yet again, the UK is a leader in that it recycles pens – they are turned into hard plastic items such as bins and garden furniture. UK readers can find out more at: [www.terracycle.co.uk]. In the USA there is an artist who has glued 10,000 used pens to his car, the Mercedes Pens, as a way of highlighting the problem of pens going to landfill. Check him out at [www.penguyart.com] and then see what you can do to reduce the problem of pens going into landfill.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #469 Recycle Paint Cans

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #469 Recycle Paint Cans

For those wonderful recyclers in the UK, you can completely recycle your paint cans – Dulux Decorator Centres will take your old, empty paint cans and fully recycle them. First, any remaining paint is recycled in one of two ways: water based paint is turned into compost and solvent based waste is used to generate electricity. The tin itself is then recycled, with plastics being made into garden furniture and the metals turned into things like coat hangers and tools. This is fantastic, 100% recycling. The sad part of this story is that I could not find any such recycling programme in Australia. Maybe the Aussies need to write to the paint companies and insists on a recycling program – you’d think a joint effort was achievable. If anyone knows of a programme I’ve overlooked, please let me know via ‘comments’. Otherwise, let’s put pressure on the industry to make recycling happen – it can be done.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #468 Recycle Your Bras

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #468 Recycle Your Bras

The good news is that bras can be recycled. The bad news for Australians is that we don’t seem to recycle them in this country. If anyone can tell me of an Aussie bra recycling program I’d be glad to know it.

Meanwhile, in USA they have drop-off points for recycling bras, but the best place for action seems to be Great Britain, where they have several options. If your bra is still wearable it can be dropped off at a charity shop, given to a breast cancer campaign, dropped off at a homeless shelter, or donated to a bra appeal that sends underwear to Africa where it is gratefully received. Finally, if your bra is completely worn out it can be sent to a textile bank – these exist in the UK and are places that sort and recycle every piece of textiles from coats to underwear and everything in between, to recycle in some way. Recycling as much as possible means we get the best use from the valuable resources that have been used to manufacture these items, and prevents landfill.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #467 Recycle Your Wedding Dress

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #467 Recycle Your Wedding Dress

Wedding dresses usually have a lot of emotional attachment placed on them, causing them to be placed in boxes on top of wardrobes or hung at the back of the closet for decades, only to be brought out once in a while for a nostalgic look and some reminiscing. They are, however, able to provide more pleasure and be more useful if you recycle them. Wedding gowns can be given to a charity shop where they will make some money for a good cause. The gown can be restyled and worn by a new bride. The fabric in the gown could be repurposed as a christening gown for baby, or dyed and made into a new evening dress to wear to someone else’s wedding. You could sell your wedding dress to someone else who will be glad of a beautiful gown at a more affordable price. And here’s a fun idea – donate your gown to the local theatre group where it can be used as a costume in their plays. You have the choice – let the gown rot and discolour in the cupboard over several decades and be worthless to anyone, or let it back into the world of happy days and useful existence. It will be a better use of the resources that made it in the first place.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #466 Join a Food Co-Op

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #466 Join a Food Co-Op

Food co-ops have been around for a long time. They have developed because people in the city have desired to ensure they get their food from locally grown sources, thereby supporting farmers in their own country. This way the farmer can get a better price for his produce and the consumer can enjoy financial savings by purchasing at a cheaper price. The planet benefits because the co-ops activity reduces the amount of packaging used and there are far less food miles involved, saving energy and fuel. An added benefit to the co-op is the creation of a close-knit community as people get to know each other through cooperation in organising and distributing foods. Often the food is organic, which gives health benefits to both the consumers and the earth by keeping chemicals out of our systems. So there are several benefits to both humans and the planet if you can organise yourself well enough to join a co-op. Check one out in your area.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #465 Observe International Women's Day

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #465 Observe International Women's Day

Today is International Women’s Day [http://www.internationalwomensday.com]. It’s about celebrating the achievements of women around the world, past, present and future.  We need to build a world wherein women have true equality, financial independence, and are in roles of leadership, both in government and business. Men have the power to promote the causes of women through programs like “He for She”, promoted by the courageous and inspiring Emma Watson [www.heforshe.org]. Women have the power to inspire each other by supporting their fellow females in endeavours to create better equality and positions of leadership everywhere. Women have a lot to offer. Let’s pay attention to how our women are treated, inspired, encouraged, nurtured and celebrated – and together build a better world.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #464 Repel Snails with Petroleum Gel

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #464 Repel Snails with Petroleum Gel

Here’s a good idea to keep your seedlings, plants and even veggies safe from snails. Rub petroleum gel around the top edge of your plant pots (actually – I’m wondering why you couldn’t rub it around the pot a few inches from the bottom – it should work just as well). The other suggestion is to rub the petroleum gel under the lip of the pot to prevent accidentally getting the gel on your clothes if you rub past the pot. Good idea! Slugs and snails don’t like the gel and should therefore be repelled enough to go find an easier food source. This makes growing vegetables in pots a particularly good idea (remember to water them often). It’s a kinder way of dealing with the snails, too, who are themselves a food source for other animals.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #463 Unplug Your Printer

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #463 Unplug Your Printer

This can actually be a fun exercise to do. The suggestion is that you unplug your printer in your home office. The challenge will work even better if you also remove the paper to the opposite end of the house. The idea is that every time you need to print something you will be forced to think twice, because you will have to get up and go to fetch the paper from the other end of the house and plug in the printer before you can use it. Most of us are lazy by nature, and having to take all these extra steps before printing out a page will often result in not printing at all. Our laziness can provide us with the opportunity to think of an alternative action that prevents the use of paper. It may be that we email a file to someone, save the file to the hard drive, transfer the file to a memory stick or simply choose not to print at all. This little trick will alter the way you think about what you print and how much you print. It will save paper and ink, therefore valuable resources such as trees, reduce the amount of chemicals and plastics you use, as well as a little bit of energy. It may seem like insignificant amounts because our private use seems so small, but when you multiply by millions it all adds up very quickly. At least give it a try for a couple of months and see how your thinking changes.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #462 Save the Albatross

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #462 Save the Albatross

Sadly, 17 out of 22 species of albatross are threatened with extinction around the world. Their biggest threat are the hooks on longlines – fishing vessel put out a line that is up to 100km long (yes, kilometres, not metres) and this line can have as many as 20,000 hooks on it. It makes it fairly easy for an albatross to get caught on one of those hooks. At the moment the albatross are being killed by human fishing practices at a rate much faster than that at which they can breed, so their numbers are reducing dramatically, and hence they are threatened with extinction. Birdlife International is an organisation joining in partnership with others who are working on solutions to the problems. More information is available at http://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/news/we-need-your-vote-save-albatross plus you can help by spreading the word, making donations to their cause, or joining a bird club. Birdlife International actually does a whole lot more than just looking after birds – check them out.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #461 Buy Veggie Boxes

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #461 Buy Veggie Boxes

For city people a very good way to get your veggies is by buying veggie boxes. There are several companies that provide the service of packing and delivering veggies to your door, in a box full of wonderful produce usually acquired direct from the farmer. Check out the services available in your area and find one that supports our farmers – they provide us with our life source, good quality food. Buying your veggies this way also reduces the amount of plastic you bring into your home and can save on food miles. The box is recycled when you swap it over for the new box full of veggies on the next delivery day. So many wins for the environment, and for you too.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #460 Get Clean With a Konjac Sponge

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #460 Get Clean With a Konjac Sponge

Konjac is a variety of potato native to Asia, which is used to make cleansing sponges for the beauty industry. It is non-toxic, completely free of impurities and pollutants, made from 100% natural vegetable fibre, environmentally sustainable, and is also cruelty free and certified vegan. Check out this amazing product at: http://www.konjacspongecompany.com/what-is-konjac where you can also see how to use the sponge to clean your skin. This fantastic little product contributes so much towards improving the way we do things: it is sustainable, environmentally friendly, keeps chemicals away from your delicate skin and out of our water systems, keeps plastics away from your delicate skin and out of our water systems, and is even gentle enough to use on baby’s skin. We should support sustainable products such as this one that produce a smaller footprint and have so many benefits for a better planet.  

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #459 Observe International Day of the Seal

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #459 Observe International Day of the Seal

March is when we celebrate International Day of the Seal. I’ve seen several different dates for this special day, depending on where you live. It’s about taking action to prevent the slaughter of baby seals, which was brought to your attention in Flower #386 Save the Harp Seals. There is a lot of information at www.harpseals.org to provide you with the knowledge you need to make a decision about where you stand on this matter. International Day of the Seal is a time to highlight the plight of baby seals being slaughtered in Canada for their beautiful white furs, but is this necessary? You can protest against the upcoming slaughter by joining in a rally. To find one near your locality go to: http://www.seashepherd.org/events/international-day-of-protest-against-the-canadian-seal-hunt-38.html