Honeybees, mining bees, bumblebees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths all need our help. Grow these pollen and nectar-rich herbs: Try these flowering pot plants: but forget about verbena, pelargoniums and fuchsias as far as the insects are concerned.
Tag: ecotips
Organic and Cheap?
Organic food is produced without agrochemicals but generally costs more. Perversely, some marketing for organic food leads us to believe it’s only for the wealthy, presumably because the marketing is based on its high cost or because they believe it must taste better, and usually it doesn’t. It’s just better for nature, the farms and…
Green Get-aways
Some tips for travelling
Good Coffee
80% of coffee is grown by smallholder farmers, a population of 125 million spreading from Brazil to Vietnam. The farmers are sadly but typically the ones to see the least profit from their coffee – “large holder” farmers often stop producing when the coffee price on the international commodity markets drops too low, and smallholders…
Peat-free Compost
By the end of 2024, peat-based compost won’t be sold to the public in the UK anymore, thanks to new regulations. While this is brilliant for peat bogs and reduces all the associated CO2 emissions that the peat harvesting used to cause, it means everyone is trying out new brands of peat-free compost. Succeeding or…
Chocolate
Recently chocolate has been getting a lot of bad press because climate analysts have started to flag up the enormous and damaging land use changes that cocoa agriculture causes. 70% of the CO2 in chocolate comes from the cocoa. The rest would be from the milk, transport, factories and so on. Before you feel bad…
Heat Pump Resources
This is one for people who are seriously considering getting a heat pump. Because of the amount of misinformation out there and the newness of the industry, you’ll need the best advice. Here’s where to find some: Heat Pump Federation advice for homeowners Retrofit Works – protecting the environment & your investment Heat Geek offer…
Don’t throw out those smelly trainers
Save money, energy, resources and CO2 instead of buying a new pair by making those training shoes last longer. Here are some rules for rejuvenating them: This information was culled from Which?
Fridges and Freezers
Refrigerators and freezers can run inefficiently and ineffectively if you forget a couple of key points. The less kilowatt-hours you use, the less climate-killing CO2 gets into the atmosphere. By the way, fridges and freezers are basically heat pumps. Don’t believe the misinformation out there about heat pumps being ineffective. The only problem is the…
Heat Pumps
For anyone lucky enough to be in the position of choosing their next central heating system, there is really only one reason not to go with a heat pump assuming you have the money up-front – it’s difficult to find an installation engineer who will really provide top advice and do an excellent job. As…