Books are a valuable resource we should be treasuring, but the reality is that creating books is not very environmentally friendly. And ebooks will never have the same feel and appeal as holding a new book in your hand and reading it curled up in bed or stretched out on the beach.

One company in the UKis giving us a middle option - probably not half way between an ebook and a traditionally published book, but still an improvement. They use paper prepared from sustainable forests and they recycle 91% of the water they use. Add in a few other sound business practices (e.g. recycling in the office, printing double sided in house, avoiding cars) and they are a better option for book publishing.

So, if you had a choice between a traditional book, an ebook or a hard copy book printed using less resources, which would you take?

Does this give you inspiration and ideas to make changes in your industry for a greener alternative?

Posted: May 6th, 2008 under green products.
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Leaf guards for gutters generally consist of some sort of mesh sitting on top of your gutters to stop leaves, twigs, animals and so on getting into your gutters.

Whilst it is important to keep gutters free of such debris, gutter guards are not the perfect solution. Leaves can build up on top of a leaf guard which presents a fire risk and also means that decomposed leaves will get through the mesh into the gutters below.The smartflo gutters are based on the same principle but instead of a mesh across the entire gutter, they have a solid cover to the gutter. There are filters along the length of the gutter to allow water through but prevent other materials entering the gutter. The long term prospect is that the water harvested will be cleaner and the gutters remain unblocked and undamaged for longer.We have not seen these gutters in action, but the manufacturers claim all debris is blown away so these gutters never need cleaning, even in fire season.

Posted: January 26th, 2008 under collecting water, green products.
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We recently saw ads for a new style of toilet. It has a cistern as usual, but the top of it is actually a basin and tap. So the water from washing your hands then goes into the cistern and is used to flush the toilet.

Instant use of your grey water with minimal plumbing and pipes - sounds like a great idea to us! Could save space in msall rooms, too.

We can’t give you a price or brand name, but it’s certainly something to think about next time you need a new toilet.

Posted: January 17th, 2008 under green products.
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A natural, cheap and easy-to-get pest repellent is flour, and it doesn’t take any water to use either.

To use it, just sprinkle it liberally over the dry leaves of the infested plant(s). Repeat after any rain as long as necessary to get rid of the bugs.

It is effective against cherry slugs (tiny little slugs that love cherry trees) and all other slugs as sliding over it dehydrates them so the go away or die.

You can use talcum powder in the same way, but the production of talc is not sustainable so flour is more ecologically sound.

Posted: January 12th, 2008 under gardening, green products.
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With a tank to collect your rainwater, you can save a lot of water in your house by using tank water for things such as flushing the toilet and washing clothes as these functions don’t have to use drinkable water.

But what happens when your tank is empty? Maybe it hasn’t rained for weeks or months, maybe you had a lot of visitors and they used up the tank water faster than usual, and now you can’t use tank water to flush your toilet.

Well, you could resort to using buckets of water from the shower/bath or straight form a tap. However, the easier method is to install some sort of switching device in your plumbing system.

A switch will automatically use tap water when there is not enough tank water available. This means you can save water most of the time but not face the inconvenience of an empty tank.

** Connecting your tank to the house pipes and adding a switching device need to be done by a licensed plumber.

Posted: January 9th, 2008 under collecting water, green products.
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If you run a business, do you make any attempts to make it a green business? For instance, Precious Water uses a green courier company for delivery of FlexiTanks to minimise the impact of our tanks and we recycle everything we can.

The February edition of the Business Mums Magazine will have an environmental theme, and we will be contributors to the magazine, too. It always has easy-to-read short articles so even the busiest of us can find time to read them!

Leading up to that edition, the Business Mums Network is running a survey about green businesses- we’re fascinated to see what the results will be as we’re not sure how much small business owners consider the environment within their business.

And while we’re on the topic of green behaviour, Save Time Online is running a survey about green shopping that should also provide some interesting results.

Posted: December 20th, 2007 under general, green products.
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To give your plants a slow but steady source of water, you can make your own drip watering systems. These can sustain your garden if you are going away for a few days or for plants that need watering more often that your restrictions or time will allow.

Simply collect some plastic drink bottles (bottles from milk, soft drink, sauces, cordials, etc) and make a few small holes in the bottom (these form air holes later).

 Dig a small hole next to or between your plants.

Fill the container with water and tip it upside down into the hole.

This way, water will also reach the root area and encourage deeper growth.

For longer trips away, do the same thing but cut off the bottom of the container altogether. Keep a lid on the container but put nail holes in it to slow down the water flow from the bottle. Each time it rains or the garden is watered, the containers are refilled.

The same concept can be achieved with tin cans, old buckets, pieces of pipe and so on - use whatever is handy. You may even be able to find somethign that looks quirky and attractive in your garden as well as practical!

Posted: November 28th, 2007 under gardening, green products.
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A couple of weeks ago, we went to the save water save energy expo in Melbourne. It was great to see so many products and services available to us all.

One product we saw there which we hadn’t seen before was a shower cover. It was effectively a plastic dome which fitted on top of the shower walls - even corner showers can be covered.

The cover does a couple of things - it keeps the warmth in the shower so you don’t get draughts and don’t nee to turn the water temperature up higher and it keeps the moisture inside the shower area.

As water can’t get out, it condenses inside the shower instead of in your bathroom, thus excess water goes into the drain (and into your grey water hopefully!) I t also means your bathroom doesn’t get steamed up or moist so there is less mould growth - and less cleaning has got to be a good thing!

It may not save heaps of water, but it saves energy of heating water and saves cleaning so we’re looking into getting one in our house.

Posted: November 13th, 2007 under green products.
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