• If you are lighting a bonfire, firstly check to see that no animals have made a home inside the pile of bonfire materials such as hedgehogs.
• Try to use as much dry wood and paper and as little wet leaves and green plants as possible. Wet materials cause the fire to burn less efficiently and produce smoke. Heavy smoke produced by damp bonfires will pollute the air and can be a hazard to health and the environment. Always be careful the fire does not go out of control.
• Never burn materials such as plastic, paint, rubber, aerosols or other similar household rubbish. Toxic fumes can be released posing a serious health hazard and can also poison the ground afterwards.
• The following days, plough the resulting bonfire ash into the ground to help increase the quality of your garden soil.
• Don’t leave a fire unattended and never site it close to hedges, sheds, trees or buildings.

Remember, always follow the fireworks code, and stay safe. Pets and animals can become very scared by loud bangs. Give any of your pets a place to hide indoors to minimise noise and don’t use loud fireworks.

Photo by Scott Lidell

Christmas time can be a very wasteful time of year. So how can you try to be a little more eco-friendly without spoiling all the fun this festive season?

1. Buy local food produce for your Christmas dinner

This year try to buy as much of your Christmas dinner ingredients from local farms. If you can purchase a locally bred turkey, locally grown Brussel sprouts and potatoes you’ll be making a big step towards being more eco-friendly this Christmas. And you might find the food tastes better as locally produced food has a lower carbon footprint because it isn’t shipped in from abroad.

2. Go organic this Christmas

Imagine how delicious an organic Christmas dinner would be. Organic food is grown without the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides that harm the environment. The soil is healthier and the local wildlife benefits from a pesticide free environment. Organic food is healthier because organically grown crops absorb natural nutrients from the organic soil. So this Christmas see if you can go organic for a great tasting, healthier Christmas dinner.

3. Buy eco-friendly gifts for your friends and family

An eco-friendly Christmas gift is a great present. Eco-friendly gifts tend to be interesting and quirky, which is great at Christmas when people want a nice surprise to unwrap. But not only that’ eco-friendly gifts remind your friends about the importance of sustainable living.

4. Go for a walk down to your local pub

This Christmas leave the car at home, wrap up warmly and take a stroll with your family to the local pub for a Christmas drink. A walk after a hefty Christmas dinner is a good way to relieve that bloated feeling.

5. Recycle your wrapping paper

The temptation at Christmas, after opening the presents, can be to just chuck all the ripped up paper in the bin. This Christmas make an effort to remove the adhesive tape and recycle the used wrapping paper. It’s easier than you think and if everyone did it, it could make a big difference.

6. Got a lot of leftovers? Compost them

You’ll probably have a lot of leftover food that can’t be eaten at Christmas time. Did you know that most of it can be composted and used in the garden? With a discreet and self contained kitchen composter you don’t need to leave the kitchen to compost the leftovers you scrape off your dinner plates. It can be kept in the kitchen ready to access with ease.

Will you make an effort to be more eco-friendly this Christmas? Please let us know in the comments.

Once again employees at The Consortium have outdone themselves with whacky and fun ways of getting into work without using a car. This year the winners of our World Car Free Day competition were Phillipa and Nick, who came in to work in a trolley!!! It’s all above board though as it was one of own trolleys, not one pilfered from the local supermarket. Congratulations to Nick and Phillipa for helping reduce our impact on the environment, promoting a good cause and having a lot of fun along the way.

What can you do to spread sustainability awareness at your school or office? Why not try and come up some ideas for your classroom, year or even the whole school to help make your school and students or your business more environmentally friendly.

Until next time, be green!

We’ve had some whacky and inventive ways of getting to work today, making World Car Free Day a fun day for employees at The Consortium. We’ll post up some photo’s later this week.

Did you drive to work today or did you make an effort to go car free? Let us know by leaving a comment.

So, we want to encourage you to recycle and reuse as much as you can. At school, buy recycled or sustainable products such as BE books and Tru-Green envelopes, re-use unwanted print-outs as sketch or note paper and then recycle them, Buy equipment in bulk to reduce packaging and deliveries, and set up a recycling scheme for all those lunch time bottles and cans.  We welcome any more ideas you might have to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Wildlife Watch is a great website for kids and grown ups to learn about how to reduce wastage and rubbish by playing games and checking out some great eco facts. Take a look today!