Credit Crunch and Green Festival – Stay At Home

However hard they try, music festivals are never going to be green – until now if digital radio company PURE has its way. Billed as the Credit Crunch Festival, the company encourages you to listen to the radio (a PURE one of course), invite a few friends over, sit in your garden and enjoy.

All you need to do is listen to coverage of a festival on the radio and it’ll be like you’re there. Sort of.

Isle of Wight 12th-14th June XFM London,Absolute Radio
Glastonbury June 24th-27th BBC Radio 1,Radio 2, 3, 4, 6Music, Asian Network
T in the Park 10th-12th July BBC Radio 1
Cambridge Folk Festival 30thJuly-2nd Aug BBC Radio 2
East London Mela 2nd August BBC Asian Network
V Festival 22nd-23rd Aug Absolute Radio
Reading and Leeds 28th-30th Aug BBC Radio 1
Proms 17th July-12th Sept BBC Radio 3

Golden Promise Beer Eco Product Review

Now this is what I call a beer, well a bitter in fact. Although I drink my fair share of lager, these days I tend to choose an ale or bitter at the pub. The Caledonian Brewery claims that Golden Promise was the world’s first organic beer in the 1990s and is suitable for both vegans and vegetarians.

It’s also certified by the Soil Association which all adds up to it having impeccable eco-credentials. But how does it taste? The answer is that it tastes great. It’s a proper bitter but still quite light with little aftertaste and goes down smoothly. The hops are from Kent and the barley from Scotland which combine to make a lovely beer.

Sent to me by Vintage Roots, Golden Promise is the sort of beer that you could quite happily drink all day, but at 5% alcohol volume you might want to stop after four or five!

A 500ml bottle costs £1.95.

Book Of Green

Just a quick post to let you know about an email I received about the Book of Green. The deadline is fast approaching – June 1st – to get your business or website in there. If you don’t have either, wait until it’s out and then grab a printed copy or look it up online as it’s a great resource:

“Book of Green is a printed annual directory which will be distributed nationwide for free. It is a collaboration between two of the leading online eco directories- One Green Earth and Allthingseco. We have a print run of 30,000 and also an online flip magazine (circa 500,000 views) which will have clickable links. It will be published on 1st July.

“Distribution is already in place including The Ecologist, Permaculture magazine, The Eden Project, CAT, over 50 high street and online eco shops nationwide, which you can view on the distribution map.

“To book a basic listing (£35) fill in this form http://www.bookofgreen.com/listingform.html or to book a larger ad fill in this form http://www.bookofgreen.com/advertform.html.”

The World’s 10 Most Iconic Green Office Buldings

I’ve not heard of the Ahoys blog before but when they contacted us about the 10 most iconic green office buildings in the world, I thought it’ be rude not to check them out.

And I’m glad I did, it’s a really interesting article, ranging from beautifully striking buildings, to the more mundane but environmentally impressive structures. I think my favourite has to be the Cactus in Qatar (see picture). Anything that looks like an enormous plant has to be applauded, I’m easily pleased.

You can read the article here.

Prospect Sussex Organic Pale Ale Eco Product Review

Thanks to Vintage Roots, my testing of organic beers can continue unabashed. The company sent me an ale from Hepworth & Co Brewers, made in Sussex, UK.

Prospect Sussex Organic Pale Ale is made with barley malt and Golding and Admiral hops and has organic certification from the Soil Association. I like drinking UK beer, experiencing its flavour and there’s a huge difference across beers and I recently tried St Peter’s Organic Ale and loved it.

I can’t say the same about this one. Although it was still pretty nice it was a bit too fizzy for an ale for some reason and while tasted good, it was nothing special. Maybe it was the fault of drinking it straight after the St Peter’s but I just found this too standard and nothing special. And that goes for the actual bottle and label too.

A bottle costs £1.99 from Vintage Roots.

Method Launches Not Any Old Mop

Indeed, not any old mop, but an oMop – short for ‘oh what a mop’ – natural cleaning company Method’s new floor cleaning thing.

Unfortunately I missed the launch of this new mop so am unable to tell you a lot about it or it’s any good. What I can tell you is that it’s new and it’s a mop. The rest I’ll leave to what Method says itself. The mop can be bought as part of a wood floor care kit costing £29.99 from its website.

“…this kit has been making floors friendly to kids, pets and white tube socks since oh-seven. it’s got everything you need to take care of the floors you love… in a purely non-toxic, platonic sort of way. an ergonomic mop that bends so your back doesn’t. non-toxic, no-wax and biodegradable cleaning juice in a 100% recycled plastic bottle, a 50-times-washable microfibre cleaning pad, that works in micro time to lift and trap dirt, compostable sweeper cloths made from corn-based plastic, that track down and capture dust instead of just pushing it around and the cool, ergonomic mop itself – all in an uber-green box made of bamboo fibre and recycled paper that is compostable and recyclable, depending on your mood. it will leave your floors so shiny and clean you could eat off them (we don’t recommend it).”

Eco Canteen Steel Water Bottle Review

We’ve tested a lot of water bottles at Life Goggles (look under Home), but I have to say stainless steel bottles are still my favourite.

Even with BPA-free reusable plastic water bottles I simply prefer the taste of the water from them. I certainly don’t need to tell you about the reasons not to use disposable plastic bottles although the other week I used one myself without thinking, all too easily done!

So Eco Canteen sent us some bottles to test, the bottles are stainless steel, no aluminum, with a plastic cap (polyproylene #5 as apparently that’s the safest, non-leaching plastic). You can put the bottle in the dishwasher, but just wash the cap in soapy water. As you can see from the picture the bottle is clean in design, 26oz (a 16oz version is available) and has a wide enough neck to take ice cubes (one problem with my SIGG).

The Eco Canteen also has a carabiner clip on the top to hook to your backpack or sports bag, and comes with a free insulated tote (although a small additional p&h charge is included). Mine came in black, though their websites show blue and green too. It has a little shoulder strap should you ever need to carry it that way or secure it to something else. The bottle arrived securely but minimally packaged.

So if you’re looking to give up the plastic habit and save money, and want to try stainless steel water bottles then check them out.

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