Bloggers! Win tickets to the Olympic Games with Coca-Cola

Examples of Coca-Cola's colour-coded recycling bins designed for London 2012I hope all you bloggers with some waste-busting credentials out there have got your fingertips at the ready, because today's news is that I'm judging a fantastic competition that's promoted by Coca-Cola as part of its Olympic Games Sustainability Challenge and which is inviting YOU to talk about my favourite topic.REDUCING WASTE!And the prize on offer is an exciting package featuring two tickets to the Olympic Games for 4th August, as well as travel and accommodation, all of which are provided by Coca-Cola as as an Olympic sponsor.All you have to do is publish a blogpost...

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Cheering myself up with zero waste flower power

I've been feeling totally rubbish today, possibly overtired following the weekend's BritMums conference.  I've got a busy few days coming up, Mr C's at a long conference and to be honest, I'm feeling overwhelmingly disorganised and quite glum!After a morning of sweeping and mopping the floors like a charlady - no, we don't live in a huge house, it just takes my procrastination that long to get into the swing - and working my way through the emails and four cups of tea, my mood still hadn't lifted.There was nothing for it!I took to the garden with a scissors. Not even my pruning shears.  Honestly, there was no time for such precision...

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BritMums Live! A glimpse at blogging for the greater good.

The 'Blogging for the Greater Good' panel at Britmums Live with Camila Batmanghelidjh - Kids Company, blogger Kylie Hodges, Claire Hazelgrove - ONE.org, Polly Gowers - Give as you Live and blogger Kate Davis-HolmesIf you haven't been introduced to BritMums yet, I urge you to listen up and take note.This weekend, the online community, formerly known as British Mummy Bloggers, gathered together for BritMums Live, a high-profile conference with over 500 delegates in attendance, attracting members from all parts of the country and with a diverse range of personal stories and blogging achievements.Bloggers, old and new, listened to inspirational...

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Recycled Paint? Yes please!

Anyone who's tried to take a pot of paint to a recycling centre will most likely have been met with the disappointing news that unfortunately it can't be recycled due to the nature of the chemicals. Often the advice is to use it up, donate it to a community repaint scheme, or dry the contents thoroughly with sand before bunging it in the rubbish bin.But there is another solution, one that I discovered quite recently, which is to actually recycle waste paint into new paint.  This is something that I thought would be impossible, until I stumbled upon the West Sussex based company Newlife Paints.Newlife Paints does exactly what it says in its...

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Confessions of a rubbish blogger - for Recycle Week

Blimmin' 'eck, it's Recycle Week!The 9th one apparently - although I've only ever been aware of the last 5.  I reckon I must have been sleepwalking beforehand, probably too busy at work or with the kids, or doing the washing up, picking pins out of the wall or probably flossing.Well it is a bit of a bizarre thing to have on your kitchen calendar isn't it! "Recycle Week whoop whoop. I love a bit of that!" isn't quite the typical cry to be heard in the average household, unless of course you happen to be someone entrenched deeply in the recycling sector and can't wait to make a big noise this week.So, seeing as I'm pretty much of a waste groupie, with one leg dangling inside the recycling industry whilst keeping the other one safely on my home turf near the kitchen sink, I thought I ought...

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The lowest-mortality BMI: What is its relationship with fat-free mass?

var citeN=0; Do overweight folks live longer? It is not uncommon to see graphs like the one below, from the Med Journal Watch blog (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1), suggesting that, at least as far as body mass index (BMI) is concerned (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 2), overweight folks (25 < BMI < 30) seem to live longer. The graph shows BMI measured at a certain age, and risk of death within a certain time period (e.g., 20 years) following the measurement. The lowest-mortality BMI is about 26, which is in the overweight area of the BMI chart. Note that relative age-adjusted mortality risk (i.e., relative...

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The future of hard plastics recycling is here!

I've enjoyed many unique experiences since starting this blog, but there have been none so fascinating as a recent project, where I accompanied waste management company FCC Environment to find out what happens to the hard plastics that are recycled through the Household Waste Recycling Centres in Suffolk.Yes, you read that correctly. Hard plastics, aka rigid plastics, where examples include broken toys, garden furniture, kitchen utensils and even coat-hangers. You name it, if it's made from hard plastic, even if it has metal components, Suffolk HWRCs can recycle it!Yes, even broken loo seats!I wanted to find out how effective and efficient the process was and share the results with the residents of Suffolk, who can help the county divert even more of this material from being buried in landfill. ...

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How to make white rice nutritious

var citeN=0; One of the problems often pointed out about rice, and particularly about white rice, is that its nutrition content is fairly low. It is basically carbohydrates with some trace amounts of protein. A 100-g portion of cooked white rice will typically deliver 28 g of carbohydrates, with zero fiber, and 3 g of protein. The micronutrient content of such a portion leaves a lot to be desired when compared with fruits and vegetables, as you can see below (from Nutritiondata.com). Keep in mind that this is for 100 g of “enriched” white rice; the nutrients you see there, such as manganese, are added. White rice is rice that has had its husk,...

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