The UK needs to turn itself on and wake up to micro-power

Energy produced in Britain has historically been the governments and big businesses responsibility.  This process is heavily reliant on fossil fuel and too much energy is wasted in heat loss and distributing the power to consumers.

We need to wake up to what the rest of Europe is doing with its country energy supply and start acting.  Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries households and businesses generate electricity from rooftops, gardens and buildings.  More than 300, 000 solar systems have been installed in three years and micro-generation provides nearly 12% of all the country’s electricity.  The system also allows households to earn up to 8-10% returns on investing in their own home systems and in some cases pay their mortgages with the income earned.

Fake Christmas Trees should we or shouldn’t we?

 - Made and shipped from the Far East predominantly China

 - Majority are used for just two or three seasons before being casted out with the other festive rubbish

 - Final resting place: landfill, where they take hundreds of years to degrade.

Choose a real tree from a local tree grower that is preferably registered with the British Christmas Tree Growers Association, there are 400 across the UK so log onto www.bctga.co.uk to find a  local supplier.

Alerts issued by PAN UK, probed the BBC World Service to broadcast the devastating effects that Endosulfan pesticide use is having on West African cotton grower’s.  The report identifies an area of West Africa, Benin where many cotton workers have suffered serious health problems and even unexpected death due to the usage of Endosulfan in the cotton fields.  The report includes interviews with farmers, doctors and PAN local partners who discuss the problem these people face.  The World Health Organisation have classified the chemical as moderately hazardous to human health and with this in mind the report also examines how organic cotton farming would help these people.  The challenge to educate people of the dangers of Endosulfan to human life and the environment is a large scale project, but with the help of PAN and other campaigners this is slowly beinging realised.

Next will launch their first organic range of bathroom products this month and have named the body care range ‘Organic Surge’.  Congratulations, this is another high street shop investing in their organic product lines as this range has been fully certified by the Soil Association.