Welcome to my blog, this is the very first post of the 'sleepygreen' blog :-) Sleepy Green is for all those really good green ideas you wished you'd thought of yourself and for the ones you had heard of and never really given a try. These are my experiences in trying out those ideas!

This idea started because I have been reading a forum called 'It's Not Easy Being Green' http://www.newhousefarm.tv/forum/ and I thought 'Well actually, its easier than people think', maybe I take being green as part of my life now, but it can be such a big departure from what most people are used too. For example, a friend recently couldn't believe I was going to walk a five - ten minute walk and offered me a lift, which I politely declined!

The INEBG forum was discussing people who have pledged not to buy anything new for a year, with certain exceptions, like food, medicine and work essentials. Well, that got me thinking, could I do it? Having just bought new trousers and a shirt, then probably not, but that is quite a rare thing for me, I usually shop in charity shops and on ebay. All my shoes are non-animal and from places like vegetarian shoes http://www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk , which are made in England.

OK then, so idea number one is to save yourself loads of money and save people and the planet from chains like Primark, by buying most if not all your clothes second hand. You only have to walk past the charity shops on bin day to see how much is wasted! There are bargains to be had, a few weeks ago I bought a Gap t-shirt for £3.

I suppose you will say that I should have got the shirt and trousers from a charity shop, but they are the first new clothes that I have bought in ages and they are for a special occasion. Incidentally, they will probably end up as work clothes so that they are not consigned to the back of the wardrobe for ever more!

Another great idea I heard recently was to take your lunch to work, sounds obvious, but just look at the queue at Greggs at lunch times! I heat up some left-overs from the night before in the microwave at work, or I make salads or sandwiches - exciting, vegan, sandwich fillings please! Then what about all the paper cups that are used by Starbucks, Costa and the like? Take a jar of (fair trade, from Oxfam) coffee to work and get one of those insulated mugs with a lid, save yourself a fortune and the planet in the process. You could always get your work-mates involved by setting up a coffee club. Where I used to work had a snack-club that works on an honesty box system and it was making enough profit for a mini-fridge by rounding off to the nearest 5p the cost from the supermarket! (BTW I don't think mini-fridges are very green!)

Always cycle or walk for journeys less than two miles! I do have a car, but it is a one litre engine and uses very little fuel. I try to only use my car when I have a passenger too. I usually walk or cycle to the train station for my commute. I have just started cycling, because I find walking two miles each way, a bit slow. I could probably live without a car, but then it would be difficult to do car boot sales :-)

I love the idea of freecycle, offer your unwanted goods, for free, to a good home, instead of them ending up in landfill. Anyone who has been to their local tip on a Sunday afternoon will know what I mean by its criminal what we all throw away! If it still works, and you can't ebay / carboot / charity shop it, then freecycle it!! If it doesn't work, try to get it repaired, if its beyond that or the cost is astronomical, then try to recycle it. Shops now have to take back old electronics for recycling, I haven't tested this one yet, but I will be trying it! http://www.freecycle.org

Switch stuff off when you are not using it! Lights, the TV, the computer and all those phone chargers, it wont charge any more once the battery is full, so switch it off and save money and the planet! I mean really switch it off though and not onto stand-by, my pet hate!!!

Bottled water, ahhhhhhh! What a waste, tap water is perfectly good and more tightly regulated than bottled, if you really can tell the difference and I can't believe you can, then get a filter if you must, but please please recycle the cartridges. All those plastic bottles filling up landfill space, if you must buy it then recycle the bottles or better still take it home and refill it. Buy a sports bottle and keep it topped up and take it with you where ever you go and then you wont have to buy bottled water ever again.

Use recycled toilet rolls and avoid hot-air hand dryers as these use loads of power, use roller-towel, a hand-dryer or paper towels in order of preference as dryers use power and paper towels use trees! As for tissues, find an alternative such as a hanky for colds, a face cloth for cleaning off make-up / washing. (btw a face cloth is much better than a sponge as you can bung it in with the towels to be washed, and you wouldn't dream of using real sponge (can you still get them?) would you???)

On the subject of towels, use bath towels and not bath sheets for drying yourself on as bath sheets take up loads of extra space in the washing machine that could be your clothes.

Stop buying kitchen roll and use dish cloths that can be washed instead.

I don't need to mention that paper, card, glass, metal, milk cartons and tetrapak can all be recycled. Use your curb-side collection if you have one, or sort it all out and take it to the supermarket if you use one. Or I take mine into town when I do the weekly shop. Try to use recycling banks that separate the glass into different colours, that way it is more likely to end up as a glass bottle again. I emailed the local council to ask if they were planning on recycling tetrapak (the milk / OJ cartons that don't pour properly!) and soon after they added another bin at the recycling bank :-)

Shop locally, buy fruit and veg from the market or green grocers or farmers market, its cheaper and fresher than the supermarket and more likely to be locally grown. If you have any sort of garden try growing your own, from herbs on a windowsill to a fully-fledged allotment. Home-grown veg are the best I've ever tasted! I always have a batch of cress growing on the windowsill, good to add to sandwiches.

Reuse the other side of office paper as scrap paper or print on the other side.

OK and public enemy number one... is the plastic carrier bag - get yourself a fair trade organic cotton bag, Co-op do a nice one, and take it out with you, put it in your bag or pocket and always refuse, reuse, recycle your carrier bags. I'm working on being a plastic bag free zone :-)