Bagging a plug

What's your legacy?

Of course the witches' knickers are as much about cultural and legal ignorance, as it is illegal to litter.

But you are right. Recycling seems to be the main mantra du jour, despite being pretty low on the re:totem. Hence I am also a keen advocate of re:use and re:pair (some great little outfits around turning the bikes in canals into ones that can cycle beside them again - link - I would love to know of more to upload and share). And speaking of turning things into something useful try link , link , or, as India has been mentioned: link

Re:duction is at the pinnacle (well, if you ignore 'avoid buying/don't make it', which is an extreme, if logical one). But then it's so hard to figure what's best. In a recent blog elsewhere I was advised by a plastics expert that the foam trays are much better at protection, and are indeed more enviro-friendly than the more prevalent hard-plastic ones, but are not 'seen' as eco-friendly.

Another discussion, which sadly I do not.. yet... have the answer to (it will be posted very soon on the Prof's Poser's section of our site) is to the merits of biodegrading. If oil and energy goes into making the bag, and hence produces greenhouse gasses, which is better? Burying it for eternity, or burying it for a while and kicking out more 'geegees' as it gets consumed? So 'we' look better and safe face, if not the planet.

So thank you for a delicate wander though the dilemmas that we all are confronted with, and with none of the usual 'you should's' that I tend to feel are foisted on a willing majority by a more privileged, or geographically-eco-blessed minority.

Oh, and since you asked (and to gain another small plug to at least five more folk), my legacy is http://www.junkk.com, a free website I created to offer a small extra opportunity to help people help themselves and each other in a truly re:warding way. It's my kismetic korrection for years spent in the ad world persuading folk to desire, buy and dispose of stuff they don't need, or at least less wastefully.

You may even find, or get to suggest, nice ideas on what to do with that mousse cap. You could then write about it. And people will try it. The manufacturer will notice that (a small% of) people are also buying their product because it has a second use and take an ad out to help me survive. All of us gain. And then other manufacturers and retailers see what is happening and start to find or build in second uses to their products and packs, so much less gets wasted.

And that is a practical legacy of something done, which I will be proud to leave my kids.

'Bah, humbug' - le son et lumiere

When I crest the last hill on the remaining few miles of the M50 on my way back from London late at night, one of the most welcome sights is the spire of St Mary's in Ross. It is a sodium yellow-illuminated symbol that I am almost home. It is also, by virtue of needing several dirty great big lamps to achieve this effect, a rather major consumer of juice, and hence cause of the dreaded GeeGees (greenhouse gasses).

Now, do I storm up the the next parish whatever meeting and insist they blow them out right away? Well, it's a consideration, really, is it not? And hence a socio, enviro, and all sorts of other 'io's' dilemma.

'Cos that being the case, I should equally well be lobbing up at the next meeting of the guys who run Wembley Stadium, which as I leave London on the A40 is also rather pretty. Or the Millenium Bridge (pictured).

Sorry, no solutions. Like firework displays, I rather see me getting into hot water between heart and head just with myself, let alone with anyone else.

But as is my way, I do think it a question worth pondering. And I wonder how many stalwarts of the nan-e state and guilt-e activism have also decided these glowing icons to be best left out of the tsk-tsk finger-pointing.

Maybe one for a Prof's Poser... or London's Mayor. Relative to the additional emissions (above simply driving around in, say, a Prius) of all the 4x4s in the city, what would be the negative GeeGee impact be relative to purely decorative illumination of public buildings? I'm not even sure which side of a hundred it would go.