Enter the competition

We’re giving away three eco-friendly quoits sets to whoever sends in the most interesting ‘eco-tips’ — providing they live in the UK. So head over to Pea Green Things now and send in your best tip. That’s right, you too could be just like this idealic family, pictured. You’ve got until the 12th of July so best hurry up.

We’ll email winners and announce the winning eco-tips right here on Go Green. We’re after interesting tips and things that make us laugh. Bear in mind I’m on the panel of judges so best make the tips good.

Surely there must be something wrong, but we can’t think of a thing. Don’t think the quality will suffer either! The sheets are 80gsm, and require less bleaching than conventional paper too. They look and feel just like “normal” paper, but with the knowledge that the environmental impact is  much lower. And, from the folks at The Consortium think it’s such a great idea that they’re selling them at exactly the same price as the standard exercise books.  We even think that soon they will replace them completely!

For a press release go here. Your kids may be writing on the same material as you put in your tea, but we don’t recommend this as a sugar substitute.  Remember this stuff usually gets thrown away! And if you’re a teacher, switching to BE books is easy.  We’re sure you’ll find the books so sweet you’ll never turn back.  (groan!)

psst- did you know we have a Twitter account? go here!

If you have some free space in your school grounds or garden, why not create a wild corner for insects, plantlife and amphibians to live? Butterflies, dragonflies, frogs and other creatures will be fascinating for children to watch in a safe environment and a wild corner can be very beneficial to the local environment too.

Reserve a sunny space in a quiet and undisturbed area so to allow plants to grow naturally undisturbed. Plant campion and rosebay willowherb plants to attract moths and insects, which birds can feed on. Soon you will have a wild corner, and when it has become established you may see stinging nettles and brambles appear. Butterflies and moths lay their eggs on stinging nettles and bramble bushes. Birds also feed on blackberries made by the brambles. See which other plants you can identify and which animals live on them.

Depending on where you live, the plants and animals living in your wild corner will be different. Always allow nature to take its course, and see which wildlife you can recognise, while helping to improve the environment in your school or garden. For more information on making a wild corner in your garden, see this BBC link.

This is possibly the most challenging part of my life. I can’t seem to ever remember to use the reusable shopping bags I buy. So I racked my brains. I ate some pasta, I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and I completed a degree in microbiology. After a busy week I finally came up with a solution.

So I opened up Photoshop, drew a picture and saved as jpeg. You can now download this wonderful free door handle reminder tool. Print it out, cut it out, stick it to a piece of card for enhanced durability and hang it on your front door handle. Now you’ll never forget your reusable bags again.

Download the ‘Do not forget your bags’ sign

Got a better idea?

Let us know in the comments.

Our warehouse and distribution team have recently come up with a simple, innovative and highly effective method for dramatically reducing packaging materials. The result? We’ve managed to reduce the number of plastic bags used in our packaging by an astonishing 3.5 million per year.

This is going to help reduce landfill inputs hugely, helping to reduce our businesses overall impact on the environment.

Plastic bags have become an issue that has gained a lot of attention in the media recently. Supermarkets are trying to crack down on plastic bag usage by charging for bags and encouraging re-use of plastic bags with incentives.

So how did we do it?

Our newly appointed logistics manager, Darren Liffen, came into the business with fresh ideas and an environmentally minded outlook. He saw our packaging and realized it could be possible to simply remove a large amount of air-filled plastic bags from the boxes. After testing proved that the plastic bags were in fact not essential in every box, the bags were removed from most of our out-going boxes.

The simple innovation has proven to be a massive success, not only helping reduce the number of plastic bags in circulation, but also saving us money.

Every year The Consortium despatches millions of pieces of equipment to schools, care homes and early years settings all over the country. But the amount of waste our deliveries created conflicted with our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint, so Darren came up with his simple, yet effective solution.

“In the past when someone ordered items, like dusters or rubber gloves, we’d pack it up and despatch it in our standard way which included using plastic void fill to secure the product within the box,” he said.

“If there was space within the box, we’d just pad it out with void-fill, which is basically clear plastic bags full of air.”

“However it was apparent to me that a large percentage of our product range was entirely unlikely to get damaged during transit even if we consciously stopped using void fill for those particular products”

“Also we were aware that our customers do not like to have the problem of disposing of waste generated by excessive packaging materials, so a selective approach to usage seemed a sensible approach.”

Darren has reported that the scheme had been warmly embraced by the company and its many customers.

How can this help you?

Taking a fresh look at the processes you take for granted as the norm, can help you uncover simple innovations that can have a dramatic positive impact. What do you do everyday that impacts on the environment? Could you make a minor change to that process, which would help reduce its impact on the environment?

Don’t be afraid to innovate. Remember to test your new ideas carefully to make sure there are no adverse effects. Don’t be afraid of failure. Even small changes can make big differences.

Maybe you could make a big difference by making a brave move, like Darren did.

Had any bright ideas recently?

Let us know in the comments.