As found on Doors of Perception, China has been testing with experiments to re-purify their water supplies, due to what is thought to be caused by fertiliser running off the land into their rivers. Oenanthe Javanicas are planted into floating beds to resolve the problem of dirty water. The full article can be found here.

Team Green Britain held its first ‘Green Britain Day’ in July this year where 5 teams worked together to make a difference. The idea behind Team Green Britain, and in partnership with EDF Energy, London 2012 and the Eden Project, is to group together, no matter how small or big, with your friends, family, neighbours, strangers or anybody to make a change. If everyone does something small, when added together, makes something big. This is Team Green Britain’s philosophy.

Existing teams consist of Team Energy, Team Swap, Team Big Lunch, Team A to B and EcoTeams with more on the way. Teams can try everything from persuading friends to switch their TV off, not just on standby, to getting together with whole communities and having a big lunch together. Team Green Britain then rewards people for their hard work with prizes like London 2012 tickets for example.

I think this could work as Team Green Sweden, Team Green Brazil and perhaps every other country. Rewarding people for doing good with big incentives, this in itself is a great idea to get people thinking more about the environment.

http://www.teamgreenbritain.org/

Modbury in South Devon was Britain’s first plastic bag free town. On May 1st 2007, Modbury hit the international headlines as being the first UK town to turn its back on plastic shopping bags. All of the Modbury traders stopped issuing plastic bags and started selling reuseable, and biodegradable bags instead. Setting the example, Modbury has already had a large number of visits from small delegations wanting their towns to go plastic bag free. Instead of plastic bags, Modbury has designed its own cornstarch shoulder bags for people to use.

Going plastic bag free is such a small thing if everyone pitches in to help out. In Britain, more and more supermarkets are now also gradually encouraging customers to use bags for life or alternative storage methods for their shopping, and if you really want a plastic bag, it will cost you. This is similar to foreign supermarkets that bring the same principles to their UK stores, LIDL as an example I can think of. So if Europe is also re-using bags, everything is in place to start spreading this idea. I’ve re-used my bags for life for nearly 3 years now, and not only does it feel good not to waste more and more plastic bags, they can actually carry more and are easier in doing so.

A few plastic facts taken from the Modbury website:

- Plastic production uses 8% of all the world’s oil production.

- At the current rate the world produces 200 million tons of plastic a year. Less than 3.5% is recycled. Or in other words, 96% of all the world’s plastic is not recycled.

- The world plastic production is increasing at 3.5% per year. This mean every twenty years the amount of plastic we produce doubles.

- The world produces over 200 million tonnes plastic annually. Around half of this is used for disposable items of packaging that discarded within a year.

Perhaps rather than being approached by people, Modbury, as being the first in Britain, could promote the idea of whole communities going plastic bag free. As each new community puts in place the idea, more and more of the problem is solved. Seems like a simple idea for other countries to use as well. Many people don’t even have access to such things like plastic bags to carry items, so why are the rest of us using them like they are going out of fashion?

Be sure to check out all the information on Modbury’s website.

http://www.plasticbagfree.com/

Nike launched their ReUSE A SHOE initiative back in 1990. The basic idea is that Nike encourage customers to recycle their Nike or other athletic footwear at partnered Nike ReUSE A SHOE outlets. The shoes are broken down at the Nike factories and then chopped into lots of tiny pieces making up ‘Nike Grind’. The material is then melted down and ‘put back’ by re-creating sports pitches into communities such as tennis courts, basketball courts, football pitches, running tracks and putting greens.

Nike ReUSE A SHOE has spread across the world with outlets and new sports surfaces being created all the time. The Nike ReUSE A SHOE website uses Google Maps to show where the outlets and surfaces are allowing users to see the global impact of such a basic idea. As the idea has already been imported and exported between countries, is there scope for further simple ideas like Nike ReUSE A SHOE by recycling an everyday item to re-create what its original purpose is for? Recycling paper doesn’t seem to be so ‘fancy’ anymore and if big brands like Nike can recycle their products it’s a win win situation, customers feel good about recycling and buy back into the brand.

How about UniQlo recycling their jeans created in Japan to be recycled and re-sold only in their London stores. Then London’s jeans being recycled to only be sold in UniQlo’s New York stores?

http://www.nikereuseashoe.com/