What first attracted to aging millionaire celebrity...

My views on polls, their methodologies and hence how and where they get used are well know.

So I loved this one. How 'green' are you?!!!

Thing is, look at the results. Those saying 'very' are in the minority! Well, at posting. I may have skewed the result with my vote for us.

Darn honest those Yanks.

I'm easily excited

And I feel like ending the day on a high.

Here's the latest RE:tie prototype, courtesy of the nice folk at the Jewellery Innovation Centre at BCU who are helping us with of product development.

This is not an evolution, but merely another alternative design, which we found was necessary to help our marketing following some feedback at the Caps & Closures Show, where a few nice production-type gurus suggested the flatter block orientation would work better in many hoppers and fast-moving lines. It's also less 'radical', so consumers will 'get' it as it's pretty much what they are used to... only with a hole. Hey, like I say... it didn't hurt the Polo mint.

OK, not so great as a chat up line, but we still like it lots! And as the first model is now getting noticed, and appreciated, as it does the rounds of some brands and retailers, here's hoping these new lovelies will keep the ball rolling in the right way!

There's a lot you can do from the rooftops

Another share from another group:

It looks like a cut and paste from a report, but comes unattributed:

Dirty nappies will be turned into roof tiles when a recycling plant
opens within the next year.

The recycling plant, the first of its kind
in Britain, is expected to divert thousands of tonnes of waste that
would otherwise end up in landfill sites. Nappies processed at the
facility will be turned into a range of products including roof tiles
and plastic cladding. The site will have the capacity to recycle about
30,000 tonnes of nappies and similar absorbant materials such as
incontinence pads each year. It is expected to open late this year or
early in 2009 and will be built at a cost of more than £20
million in Birmingham by the firm Knowaste in partnership with Alpha
Wastecare.It it estimated that up to 750,000 tonnes of nappies -
enough to fill Wembley Stadium eight times - are buried in landfill
sites each year in Britain as part of 29 million tonnes of the
nation's annual municipal waste. Local authorities are under
increasing pressure to reduce the quantity of waste sent to landfill.
Each year until at least 2010 tax per tonne, now standing at pounds 32
for every tonne of waste, will rise.

No sh...! Works for me.

Perfect for those with £199 to spare

Which, I am sure, many in London do.

Green Homes Concierge Service

It also spawns my latest acronym: NiWiYCGI - 'Niwikki' - 'Nice Work if You Can Get It'

Not like you cannot get info for free anywhere else on saving water or what car you should buy, or even good advice on what renewable energy systems to buy.

In addition to what £199 from your pocket could go to in terms of actual energy saving measures, I do wonder how much is spent running the scheme that might be better directed, too. Like many things, one imagines the ROI and enviROI might prove elusive as time goes by.

Still, if you are so moved... here you are . There are at least grants to scope.

Just a thought or two

Inspired by two others (on an often well-informed blog/forum that discusses sustainability issues) key points here..

If we can adopt ways of being and ways of action that are attractive, effective, compassionate, fun and wholly satisfying to us, (and which still allow us “to be a pleasure to be with”!) then there’s a chance that our way of thinking (ie that there is catastrophic collapse imminent) will be heeded, and our ways of action, contagious. Otherwise we surely just invite others to ignore us.

I truly don’t think The Establishment, Media and most professionals have any concept of how close our infrastructure is to collapsing, and as our resources dwindle we won’t be able to pay others to maintain and extend it for us,

My concern is primarily with communications to and hence influencing the behaviour of the public/consumer.

Rather unfashionably, I am devotee of the notion of persuasion-based methods that use reward and incentive as end-benefits for more enviROI+ actions.

What I am not so keen on is (what appears at least to be) more negative methodologies, from fines to guilt to nannying to shame to scare, used to varying degrees by the authorities, media and activist groups. And often with less than clear, or downright less than noble main aims, being less the good of the future and more meeting targets, creating empires/careers, driving ratings or securing funding/donations.

And, IMHO, the public is not buying. Little wonder, bearing the sheer inconsistencies of message and often rank hypocrisy of the messengers.

I simply don't trust almost any subjective pronouncement from HMG, the national broadcaster, all the 'quality' newspapers to not have a rampant agenda attached. So I have to trawl all and then a wadge of even more overt propaganda from all 'sides' online, simply to try and get to a more accurate middle line. Equally with most factual 'information'.

There's also the simple question of credibility. From politicians to many influential editors, one day we get mammoth issues regarding our environment top of mind and then consigned to oblivion the next as more pressing local, selfish issues arrive the next day... 'Minor Royal does something naughty! Meanwhile, in other news, the planet is past tipping point...'

I took the statements and findings of such as the IPCC and UN ('single greatest threat to humanity... etc) very seriously, yet the minute attentions get redirected it all gets dropped (often pretty quickly) in favour of making political capital, money or a quick rating.

No wonder 'we', the great majority who do still rely on sensible guidance from the Establishment (which I regard as encompassing the totality of influencers, who rather worryingly see and hence set themselves up as a separate, distinct and rather 'better' alternative 'we'), have tuned out, assuming we ever tuned in. And may now be cruising blissfully to an unwelcome surprise or two.

I wish I could be more positive, but will continue advocating, and practicing as far as possible, the notions of reduction and/or mitigation in any DOING ways possible and practical... that can still be fun and inspire.

Sites unseen, heard... or accounted for

UK government websites out of control

Report...the Government is not sure exactly how many websites it has, but believes there could be as many as 2,500. Nor does it know how much these websites cost or if anyone is using them.

Does this include quangos? I'm guessing not as they don't have the suffixes indicated. Yet they, and their comms budgets, still drain the public purse, do they not?
It's certainly not easy, especially when there are those who serve more niche social areas that may well be worth supporting... way up to those that really feed a major information interest and could be nice little earners if commercial.
Hence ROIs must be hard to judge, but I think the public deserves better in being able to assess them, from what they do, for whom, with what, at what cost... and to what effect.
Otherwise many seem no more than conveniently vague and unaccountable ways to employ lots of folk at best keeping them busy... or less nobly pushing agendas.
I recently had an emailing from one eco-effort, that seems to have been set up with a massive wadge of wonga with many noisy bells and confusing whistles, staffed by all manner of nifty titled folk, claiming a monthly visitorship of '50,000 hits'. Now I know what the average Reg reader can carry in a fingernail about IT and the web, but this doesn't sound like the best way to share such info, and even if it was doesn't sound like a lot.
And let's not forget, when thinking of bigger (and possibly 'better') sites such as http://www.dft.gov.uk/ActOnCO2/ or recyclenow.com, you are also talking massive ad budgets in support to drive traffic.
It would be great to really challenge these in the same way those not so blessed by 'more benign' funding models are, yet can find themselves competed with for audience... often unfairly. I certainly have experience of going to one quango for help in an area their remit required, only to be rejected but then find what I pitched got cranked out subsequently as part of their offering.
Yet private sites often are much better in delivering public information at much better value, especially by not being constrained by the dead hand of public service agenda, committee mentality and ministerial oversight. You just have to start with some URLs to see how they have not exactly got what it takes to push the buttons of a public used to pretty exciting and entertaining fare.
I find it amazing those we do have to pay for seem to have no way currently of judging their performance and/or worth.