As the economy gradually recovers from the past year’s big slump, changes are expected in consumer behavior: according to a recent survey, in 2010 UK and American shoppers are to pay much more attention to transparency and ethical responsibility in their food and beverage purchases.

A survey by market research organization Mintel reveals that, despite a widespread growing confidence and adaptation to overcome the previous restraints, consumers will be adapting to the new economy, moving away from excessive spending toward moderation and higher attention to ethical sourcing and sustainability. (more…)

Hosting any dinner party can be a daunting task, not to mind say the big Christmas Dinner, so to help you relieve some of the stress, GreenMe have put together a guide that will help you make your party eco-friendlytable.

• He′s making a list, he′s checking it twice! Given the festive season we′re in, making a list is very good advice indeed.  Making a list of the food you will need for your Christmas dinner is an absolute must if you are to avoid copious waste.  More often than not, we tend to over buy for this day, by a mile!! Keep an eye out for how many you are having for dinner, and how many will still be around for leftovers!!
• Avoid paper napkins, they are a real waste and only add to an already enormous landfill that the holiday period creates. Use cloth napkins and make sure you wait for a full laundry load before you wash them!

(more…)

It never fails to amaze me that no matter how good my intentions, I still spend the last 4 weekends in the lead up to Christmas on the batter.  Whether it′s work related, partner related or family and friend related there always seem to be a plethora of dinners, parties or shindigs to attend. (more…)

Guide to Wall Insulation

Up to half of the heat loss from a house occurs through the walls. This can be reduced by two-thirds by insulating the walls.

Most houses built before about 1980 have no wall insulation. Many (though not all) houses built during the 1980s have some wall insulation. Houses built since the 1991 Building Regulations came into effect are required to have wall insulation.

Insulation may be placed on the outside, in the cavity or on the inside of a wall, without altering the overall insulation properties.

When considering wall insulation, first you should find out whether your house has cavity walls or solid walls. A  building contractor, BER Assessor or architect will be able to tell you if you have cavity walls in your new or older house.

Cavity wall insulation

The walls of many houses consist of two ‘leaves’ of brick or concrete block with a cavity or space between them to resist rain penetration.

In older houses insulation can be injected into this cavity through holes drilled through the outer leaf, by means of a blowing or pumping machine.

Since the work is done from outside, it cause minimum disturbances inside. The drilled holes, which are typically about 25mm (1 inch) in diameter and spaced a metre or so apart, are then filled to match the wall appearance as closely as possible. The job typically takes less than a day.

In relation to the pumping of your walls with a bonded bead system you would noticeably improve the overall thermal properties of your house and in turn reduce your energy bills for the winter months.

Suitability of Cavity Insulation

It is important before deciding to insulate existing cavity walls that you check their suitability for cavity insulation. This assessment will take account of the degree of exposure of the house to wind-driven rain and the construction details and condition of the walls. Any ventilation openings in the wall will also be checked to ensure that these will not be blocked by the insulation.

There are a number of issues you should be aware when filling your wall’s cavity:

If there were any frost or structural damage to any of the house’s external walls pumping of beads into the cavity would not be advised.

The width of the cavity between your external wall leaf and the installed aero-board should be at least 50mm.
 

If there is any problem with dampness in the internal leaf it would not be recommended to add the beads to the cavity as they would only increase the path for water to travel into the wall.

If the wall suffers from rain penetration at times, this problem must be remedied first.

In some cases, the walls may be found to be unsuitable for cavity insulation or may require some remedial work beforehand.

Savings

The cost of cavity wall insulation depends on a number of factors, including the width of the cavity, but it is typically in the region of €5 to €7 per square metre. For a typical semi-detached house, this gives a total cost of about €550-€700. With annual fuel savings of €200 to €320, the payback period will be in the region of 4 to 7 years.

You may be able to negotiate a lower price if you can persuade some of your neighbours to have their walls insulated at the same time.

Eco-Living, Eco-Loving!  Would you like to live without a mortgage or an electricity bill? Last weekend’s Eco-Living Festival in Drumnsa, Co. Leitrim showed you how.  The event was hosted and organized by Permaculture Ireland; permaculture, according to Wikipedia, “is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies…The intent is that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals can design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society’s reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution.”  And the hosts of the event are living proof that the principles work – even in boggy “bad” Leitrim land.

Sian demonstrates mulching

Sian Cowman demonstrated the virtues (and taste!) of permaculture food: growing your own in a non-dig garden. Non-dig is great because it doesn’t disturb the crucial earthworms underneath and also, unlike in conventional farming, the precious topsoil doesn’t dry out and blow away.  Digging also releases CO2, and requires a lot of energy, human, animal, or machine.  In contrast, permaculture is all about mulch: take a 6-foot patch, and in September simply cut the grass and weeds in the area that you plan to plant, leave the cuttings in place, cover this with wet cardboard, cover that with straw and leave it sit until spring, when planting is easy and the soil is rich, and plants and herbs just love it.  There are far too many good ideas to mention here, but you can get more info at permacultureireland – it’s both the newest and the oldest way of living on the earth.

Permaculture shelter is embodied in Peter Cowman’s amazing is home: a 25 metre squared “econospace,” built by himself and friends for only €7,000, where he and his family live on their own wind-generated electricity.  No mortgage, no car, no connection to the grid: this family walk the green walk all the way to their outdoor bathtub, where they build a fire underneath and bathe under the stars! Check out Peter’s website for more information about courses and shelter-building.  Without a mortgage and a food bill, how would your life change?

The signs of change are everywhere: not just in the economy, but also in the enormous wave of new ventures that are using cutting-edge technology, sustainable objectives and social consciousness to create a new paradigm of private enterprise for the common good.  Umair Haque, the Harvard economist, eloquently describes the collapse of the “Zombieconomy” and what he calls Capitalism 1.0 evolving into Capitalism 2.0, or constructive capitalism.  He also talks about old business models that produced good incomes and bad outcomes giving way to an “institutional revolution,” coming up from the grass-roots of society and changing the world as we know it.

In fact, once you start looking, the amount of organisations and companies trying to do the right thing for people, nature and the planet is simply overwhelming and far more than I could ever fit into one blog post.  So I’ve divided them into three categories: digital, physical and consumable.

Today I’m listing my top 10 in the digital category: ways in which with simply a click you can change the world for the better. (with thanks to Mashable)

Digital Actions for good:

1. Change your iGoogle theme to help the hungry

2. Every time you use Windows Live™ Messenger or Windows Live Hotmail®, our free webmail service, they’ll share a portion of their advertising revenue with the cause you choose from among their partner social cause organizations

3. Teach your Granny to Text: The big book of small actions to change the world is out now.  Written by children, for children, it’s a technicolour ‘how to’ for doing things.  And changing things. How can you change the world?  We Are What We Do is a new kind of movement inspiring people to change the world one small action at a time.  Their philosophy is simple: small actions x lots of people = big change.  They have the 130 small things that you can do to change really big things. Pick an action, track it here, and see how it all adds up.

4. Seventy-one ways to give without opening your wallet: mostly tweeted ideas, very brief and some very good

5.  Good is – the magazine.  Subscribe and 100% of the fee supports a social action project

6. Changing the Present -  Like Bothar but even more gift ideas: roof tiles, tutoring for deaf children, books, tetanus injections, and more.

7. The Case Foundation – another giving website, but this has suggestions of things you can do as well as donations or gifts that benefit those in need.

8. World Concern – More giving again, but they also do HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa, water wells, orphans, education and help prevent child trafficking.

9. Good.ly For all you eco-bloggers, a url shortener that donates to charity for every address you shorten.  Most Irish charities aren’t signed up yet, but using it creates the potential demand so try it out.

10. Blackle is a black version of Google that consumes less wattage. Apparently, it takes 74 watts to power a white screen, but only 59 watts for a dark screen. The site aims to “save energy, one search at a time.” You can also follow it on Twitter for more simple energy-saving ideas.

Next time, I’ll list my favourite sites for consumable actions for good – or, to put it another way – Shopping!!!  And please let me know of your favourites too so we can spread the word…

What’s a green building?  One covered in solar panels and bristling with turbines?  One that proclaims its greenness by looking different?  One that costs 15% more than a ‘conventional’ building?

For British architect Howard Liddell, the answer is none of the above.

At a one-day symposium on sustainability in TCD recently, Liddell outlined his ideal green building: it looks conventional, costs no more to build, but is so well insulated and airtight that there is almost no need for heating, and certainly no need for what he calls “eco-bling”.

The main problem, as he sees it, is that technologies are an expensive add-on with a long payback time.  The sensible and cost-effective route to a green and eco-building is effective insulation.

Unfortunately, eco-bling is flavour of the month, and Liddell was particularly critical of new building regulations in some British local authorities that now require a minimum 10% of on-site renewable technologies — expensive and ineffective wind turbines on top of buildings, when they should be on remote, windy sites.

In an inspiring presentation, Liddell,  principal architect with the British-based Gaia Group, argued that we need to make insulation sexy. “Eco-minimalism, not eco-bling.”

Effective insulation alone, he said, could halve the energy demand, and significantly reduce fuel poverty.

The main challenge, in Ireland as in Britain, will be to retro-fit a high standard of insulation to existing buildings. What’s more, each building will need an individual solution.

And you can’t just fill cavity walls with foam, he argues: those walls were designed to breathe so, if you block them up, you simply create a moisture problem on the inside.

Likewise, it is not enough to seal every crack with gunge.  For a start, the gunge will crack, so you won’t get an airtight seal. And again, you have to worry about moisture buffering.

Other issues that he identified are: effective testing of a building’s air tightness; and indoor air quality in an airtight building (especially moisture content, and off-gassing from materials and furniture), making choice of materials essential.

To be truly ‘green’, he recommended using sheep’s wool insulation, as he felt there were issues with the chemicals used to treat insulation made from recycled newspaper.

In a wide ranging and fascinating talk, Liddell also recommended: mass-timber construction (not just beautiful to work with, but also good for sequestering carbon dioxide); ‘nail-free building’ (securing well designed, well fitting pieces with just a few screws), which doesn’t damage the wood and makes repairs and alterations, and recycling much easier; and low-flush toilets that use less than 2 litres of water — already achieved on aircraft toilets.

If Liddell is right, and every building leaves a customised solution, then on the plus side this would be a major job creation project architects, and the insulation and construction industries.

For more on Howard Liddell’s eco-minimalist architecture, check out his new book here.

Mary Mulvihill’s new guide to easy, sustainable living is Drive Like a Woman, Shop Like a Man (2009).  Click here to suggest a tip, and be in with a chance to win a copy of the book.

(c) Mary Mulvihill 2009  http://marymulvihill.net/

I came accross the following year planner on the Roscommon Coco site.  It’s a great little reminder for what you need to be doing for your compost at certain times through out the year.

SPRING:
•    Empty the compost bin
•    Spread finished compost on the lawn or garden
•    Keep any fallen leaves or woody material to add to the compost bin over the summer

SUMMER:
•    Cover kitchen waste with leaves, peat moss or soil
•    Poke or stir the compost regularly

AUTUMN:
•    Harvest the finished compost
•    Empty the compost bin
•    Set some leaves aside to add over the winter
•    Start a separate collection for leaf and yard waste

WINTER:
•    Keep using the compost bin regularly
•    Add leaves after each addition of kitchen scraps

Problem:    Rotten odour is a sign that the heap is too wet or contains excessive green material.
Solution:    Turn to mix in air and add more dry browns such as leaves or straw.  If this does not work may want to relocate pile to a well-drained site.

Problem:    Composting process is too slow.
Solution:    This could be that the moisture content is not right.When building your compost heap, remember to water every 6 – 12 inches. It should resemble a wrung out sponge. Also water when turning pile.

Problem:    Amonian odour is a sign that there is excess moisture and nitrogen in the pile.
Solution:    Turn compost pile and add dry brown material such as sawdust, straw or woodchip.

Problem:    Your compost bin is attracting pests or rodents
Solution:    Make sure you bury your food scraps within the compost heap. Remove any meat scraps or fatty food scraps from the pile.

Problem:    Compost heap is damp and warn in centre only
Solution:    The pile is too small, you need to increase the compost heap in dimension (3×3x3 ft is the minimum). It may also be that during the winter your compost may need insulating – in this case an excellent low-tech approach would be to simply stack up straw bales around the outside of your bin.  Another less bulky anser is to create a carboard outer wall around your composter bin. Some second hand home insulation would also be perfect.

Problem:    I have excessive maggots are the larvae on the compost heap.
Solution:    Many of these are beneficial. If you want to minimize egg-laying by flies, keep fresh kitchen trimmings buried.

Problem:    My composter is invaded by ants.
Solution:    This is a sign that the material is far to dry.  Add water and cover the heap with straw, grass cuttings. A cloth can help to retain the moisture

Never composted before? Well don’t worry you’re in good company.

There are a lot of people out there that are green in heart but not in head.  The idea of recycling your waste and composting seems like an excellent idea in theory. But exactly how you go about setting up a good composting system, quite often seems complicated and frequently is put on the long finger as life gets in the way.

In the following paragraphs GreenMe will attempt to make composting easy and rewarding.

Why Compost?

I recently read somewhere that by adding just one decent amount of compost to your garden’s soil, you are adding as much topsoil as it would take nature a century to accumulate! Now if that is not compelling enough reason to put a little elbow grease into your composting efforts, consider the following:

Compost

• helps protect plants from diseases and insect pests
• enhances a plants ability to hold water and air – essential for their health
• warms the soil up quicker in the spring, extending your growing season!
• releases nutrients into the soil on a need basis, as opposed to soluble chemical fertilizers

Getting Started

Starting your own composting pile need not be a complicated process.

Balancing ingredients – an ideal composting pile would include a balance of three parts Brown to one part Green.  Browns refer to dry materials, such as leaves, saw dust, bark mulches, dead plants,  pine needles and other wood products.  Greens refer to wetter materials like grass cuttings and food scraps.

But don’t get too bogged down by this, you can still pile all your organic material together without worrying at all about greens and browns, and it will mature into compost.

Easy Steps

1. Set you commercial or homemade composter on the ground in an easily accessible place. Ideally your compost bin should be placed in a reasonably sunny site on bare soil.  If you have to put your compost bin on concrete, tarmac or patio slabs ensure that a layer of paper and twigs or existing compost is placed on the bottom so the worms and other creatures can colonise.
2. Add ingredients. Ideally place 4 inches of coarse material including stems, sticks etc in the bottom of the composter.  As they become available, add kitchen waste, dead plants, grass clippings and chopped leaves to the bin. Add water as often as needed to keep the material moist but not soggy (like a wrung-out sponge).
3. Rotate.  It is advisable but again not an absolute must to turn the compost.  Turning does however speed up the decomposition process and in turn the end product!  I find a pitch fork ideal for this, although you can buy composting tumbler that makes the turning a doddle. We love Jora ‘The Little Pig’ from Ecoshop in Greystones.
4. Hey Presto! You will know when the compost is ready to use when you no longer recognise the original ingredients.  Make sure you keep your compost protected from the elements until you are ready to use – you don’t want the nutrients to wash away in the rain!

And now for the important bit. I am constantly debating with my French brother in law, what should and should not be allowed in the composter.  And so together we have come up with the following guide, which,  if followed should reward you with a cracking good compost!

Good Composting Ingredients:

GREENS

Egg shells
Feathers
Flowers
Fruit and fruit peels
Hair
Seaweed
Tea leaves
Vegetables & peelings
Dead plant material  (make sure they are dead and are not likely to seed or take root)
Vegetable kitchen scraps (it is important  to  bury these in your compost pile so as not to attract animals or rodents)
Herbicide-free fresh grass clippings
Manure from horses, cattle, goats, poultry and rabbits
Green Garden Debris
Aquarium water, algae, and plants (from freshwater fish tanks only)

Browns

Dead Leaves
Tea bags
Shredded hedge cuttings
Tough fibrous plants
Coffee Grounds – Nitrogen rich nectar of the gods for your compost heap!  I am willing to bet your local coffee shop would be willing to exchange used coffee grounds for some customer loyalty in these tough times!!
Scrunched up paper
Torn up cardboard (e.g. from cereal boxes, eggboxes, toiletroll centres etc.)
Newspaper torn into strips or hand-sized pieces – layering paper ensures it does not get too water logged
Pet and human hair  (small amounts as breaks down slowly)
Egg shells
Corn Cobs
Paper
Peat Moss
Pine needles – use sparingly as they decompose very slowly
Sawdust
Straw – I prefer straw over hay, as hay can reseed and then you’re in trouble!

Do NOT Add: (most important bit!)

Meat or fish scraps
Grease, oil, cooked food scraps
Very fatty, sugary or salty foods
Chips or sawdust from treated wood
Clippings from herbicide-treated lawns
Manure from omnivorous animals (species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source – dogs, cats, humans, etc.)
Barbeque or coal ashes

Result!

What could be more gratifying than recycling all that waste from our garden and household to enhance our lives and the world around us!  So what are you waiting for, start today and get piling!

Note:   Check out our trouble shooting section below if you are having problems with your composting.

Related articles:

Composting Trouble Shooter

Composting Year Planner