Eco Friendly House And Garden

Watch this short video – and it will jolt you into reality!

Where do you think all your stuff comes from?  What happens when you get that new phone?  How can we get our stuff so cheap?  What is the real cost of our spending?

All these are answered in this lively, well animated and well written short video by a well traveled, very experienced environmental investigator specialising in health and justice issues across the globe.

It is filled with some scary facts about what we are doing to our planet – or in reality what we are not doing to help our planet.

It highlights – with a fact-packed dialogue – what we are allowing to happen or are being coerced into thinking is ‘OK’.

Annie quotes that the US represents just “5% of the world’s population but uses 30% of the resources and makes 30% of the waste”  Is that right?  Or is that just how it ended up because no-one has really ever thought it was wrong?

Think about it!
She certainly makes you think about everything you are going to buy – or anything you have recently brought.  And it should certainly make you think about anything you are planning to throw away!

The cost of something shouldn’t be the value that the store attributes to it.  For example the $4.99 radio she talks about in her video could not possibly have only cost $4.99 to make. 

Firstly, the store has to make a profit and it needs to be packaged up and shipped across the world from where ever it was made.  So none of that is what it actually cost to make either – so we are down to about maybe $3.00 or less to make?

And how long would you think 1 single radio takes to make from it’s basic parts? About 30 minutes?  No, that would be stupid, right?  But would you work for less than $6.00 an hour? I don’t think so.

So, how much money do the people that build these get paid?  And we haven’t even started on the people it took to mine the raw materials and the time it took to shape them into the component parts.  And what about driving and shipping costs?

And we haven’t even started on the cost to the environment…… 

Yet to some people, throwing out an un-needed $5 radio is not a worry to them – it’s only $5. They don’t even think about what was destroyed or who was exploited to make it in the first place.

And you can be sure that many people do not think about what happens to it after they throw it out!

Well, Annie explains all in her hard-hitting fact-filled docu-video - but keeps it fun and a bit funny even.

And you can help out by showing people, schools, social clubs or anyone else this video to help change that!  Check out the resources on the site for more information.

That quick drive to the store before dinner could cost you your open spaces!

I’m not talking about the cost of car pollution on the environment – although that is becoming a major problem. And I’m not talking about the amount of front yards and gardens being concreted over for parking spaces – although this is seriously affecting natural water cycles and causing localised flooding.

What I’m talking about is your single little car on your ‘quick drive to the stores’ being one of 30 other little cars on a quick drive to the store.

How Can 1 Little Car Cause A Problem?
Well, imagine only the people that 100% need to be on the roads at rush hour were on the roads.  People going to work, emergency services and buses are who I mean here – and they all know where they are going.  As a result of their A – B actions, they may well run smoothly with no snarl-ups – I mean traffic lights and roundabouts are designed to keep traffic flowing to avoid congestion.

Now, add dithering drivers to the mix.  They either drive too slow, can’t decide which lane they should be in, are too busy fiddling with something on the passenger seat to watch the lights or are not in a hurry at all so make bad driving choices.

All these people are responsible for causing traffic delays – and these traffic delays get noticed by the residents and they want the traffic sorted out.  This can involve a whole host of changes.

Who Decides?
If residents get annoyed about traffic issues, councils want to implement more traffic regulations and traffic lights to control the flow.  They want to ‘improve’ the roundabouts and dual carriageways – which all make it more difficult for pedestrians to get around – what with all the railings and extra lanes to navigate.

The worst case scenario here is unfortunately the best alternative to traffic in towns – and that is to build a by-pass!  Heavy machinery is used here to plough out fields and woodlands to make way for a super-fast easy-to-drive-on dual carriageway!

I know that this won’t happen overnight – but it could already be happening.  Has your town got any roadworks going on?  Any ‘highway’ improvements at the moment?  Do you already have speeding cars and multiple junctions?

If you keep driving in rush hour or when you really don’t need to – you are causing some of these problems.  And there is a simple way to slow this development down – and it involves forward planning, buses, trains, bikes and your very own little feet!