I welcome the news that Aberdeenshire Council are adopting an innovative approach to increasing recycling efforts through reverse vending machines at bus stations. Passengers gain points for every can and bottle they recycle. As the Park and Ride location they are using attracts 100,000+ users a year this could help reduce a significant number of bottles and cans from landfill. It is much easier to take your can and bottle on a trip you are making anyway than having to go out of your way to the recycling centre.

For every 50 green points (1 item = 1 point) that a passenger accumulates they receive a 20p bus travel voucher, and 100 points earns them a 50p travel discount. It maybe does not sound a lot but to be honest the amount you receive is not the determining factor, it is still a small incentive.  It is more about increasing accessibility.

Hopefully it will prove successful with “new recyclers” appearing and consequently the system is rolled out in other areas.

Sorry folks there have been no updates for a few days as I really have been snowed under with work and other activities and had limited time to get near the computer - probably not a bad thing!!!  Although withdrawl symptomns have got too much and I am back.

Planning a little micro-enviro activity for tonight/this weekend - I am going to try (with the assistance of my wife!) to make some Christmas crackers with the numerous toilet rolls I have saved up along with the other recycled material I have saved.  The only question now is what to put inside them.  Do I find some very poor jokes, do I put in little quotes, environmental messages, or simply nothing?  I might settle for a combination of the first three. 

I suppose I also have to come up with a cunning plan for the ‘bang’ element.  Mmmmm, plenty to ponder!

Following on from my post on the Christmas tree a few days ago I now turn my attention to the Christmas card - we received our first one through the door today.

I have a little misgivings about the Christmas card ‘issue’.  It is obviously an area of great consumption (and consequently waste) with literally millions, if not billions!, of cards sent and delivered every Christmas with a significant percentage ending up in landfill.  On the up side there is the fact that you are often sending cards to loved ones at what some people see as a special time of year, to let them know you are thinking of them. 

What really does annoy me is when people send Christmas cards to people they do not really know that well just because they feel they should, or because they have received one from them.  Now we will no doubt be receiving cards from people that we will not be “returning the favour” to and to a large extent I will not worry too much if they think any less of me for not doing so.  When I see them I will wish them a Happy Xmas surely this is enough?  Do I really need a card as well to say this?

For those of you that do receive cards please, please do not throw them in the bin in January.  But look to recycle them.  Where I live there are local recycling schemes and I am sure there will be ones near you to.  If you are in the UK you can also use the Woodland Trust Scheme

I would just like to draw your attention to two new articles I have uploaded to the site on glass production and the benefits of recycling:

Glass Production

Glass products have been with us through a great deal of our known history and have always been an energy intensive product to create. While the basic materials of glass are fairly common they still require some energy expenditure to collect. The basic ingredients are fine silica sand or pulverized sandstone rock with a bit of calcium, oxide and lime. Depending on the quality of the finished product it can also contain an alkali of soda or potash which is used to lower the melting point and conserve at least a small bit of the energy required to melt these substances together [...]

Benefits of Glass Recycling:

Just in one month, nearly every single American throws out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper!  Every single one of these jars are 100% recyclable!  Just the energy saved from recycling one glass bottle alone can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours, not to mention it also causes about 20% less air pollution and over 50% less water pollution than when a company has to make a new bottle from raw materials [...]

Hi all,

On a cold, wet and dark Sunday afternoon I have yet again turned to the internet for a little inspiration and I have come some very interesting sites concerning low environmental impact households, with one in particular: Simon Dale’s house in Wales attracting my attention.

At the moment I am can only aspire to such a home, but I am very keen on building my knowledge in this area.  I am currently taking small steps at the moment to improve/reduce the environmental impact of my ‘conventional’ home but my goal is to live in a home (that also includes the way of living in the home) that has zero environmental impact, how this comes about is still open to debate.  I am not sure if it will exactly follow Simon Dale’s lead or whether it will be more a compromise between this and more conventional housing.