The latest news, stats and facts on key environmental issues. The latest news from Sussex Green Living.
An Interview with founder and CEO Carrie Cort – April 2022 When did you first gain an interest in the environment? I have lived in villages, had dogs and loved horses and riding in the countryside since a very young age. I feel at peace, calm and complete when I spend time in nature. The […]
Smarter fashion lesson
Clearly, it’s important for us all to use less of everything for so many reasons- resources are becoming scarcer on our small island – and on our small planet too, with its billions of people.
We hope this goes without saying but please only buy something if you need it!
When we do need to replace something, however, there are several ways we can help to guide companies to understand that we would like them to ‘go green.’ One of those ways is for us as customers to sign up to Easyfundraising, where there are over 6,000 retailers ready to make a donation – including eBay, Argos, John Lewis, ASOS, Booking.com and M&S – and it won’t cost you a penny extra to help raise funds for Sussex Green Living.
All you need to do is:
1. Go to our Sussex Green Living spot at easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/sussexgreenliving/ and join for free.
2. Then whenever you shop online, go to Easyfundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping. Read more
Did you make it to the Transition Horsham Seed Swap last weekend, at the Kinder Living Home Show? If so, you will know that there was seed available from local allotmenteers, gardeners and Garden Organic … as well as a lot of talk about how things grew last year!
If you missed it – never fear! Come to the Seed Swap Part 2 at the Spring into Spring event on March 26th at Sussex Green Hub.
Some of the growers are members of the Horsham District Seed Circle, (launched during lockdown 2021.) And Transition Horsham distributed seed from Garden Organic to Seed Circle members and asked them to grow it with as little impact as possible. Each grew different crops, used the produce, then saved some seed to bring back to Seed Swap 2022.
Calling all climate commandos!
We’re facing the greatest human challenge of the 21st century in attempting to avert the extreme climate collapse which is endangering all the living beings we share this beautiful green and blue sphere with.
We CAN all make a difference no matter how small we may feel. We human beings are capable of great destruction but also of great compassion. Please join us at our Sussex Green Hub at the United Reformed Church, RH12 1PT (near Wilko off West Street and the Lynd Cross pub and opposite St John the Evangelist) on the last Saturday every month 10am – 4pm. Here you can attend our Carbon Clinic which as been designed to offer tailored advice and feedback to make your everyday living more sustainable and help keep our planet steady at 1.5°C global mean surface temperature (GMST). Read more
The new Leader of Horsham District Council, Cllr Jonathan Chowen, has made a series of new cabinet appointments, including Cllr James Wright as Cabinet Member for Environment and Rural affairs, and Cllr Toni Bradnum as Cabinet Member for Recycling and Waste and we were delighted that they both saw our Sussex Green Hub in action […]
As the time of seasonal exchange of presents approaches, many people may be considering gifting an animal.
The number of dogs and cats in the UK has shot up to 12 million of each. They undoubtedly make great pets and bring enormous pleasure but these large numbers bring difficulties as well as delights. The UK is now one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, as anyone over 50 will attest. From rockpools and meadows brimming with life we are now thrilled by a single butterfly.
According to the RSPB, UK cats catch around 100 million prey items every year. I’ve lost count of the number of nests raided by cats in my own small garden. Nestlings are particularly vulnerable as they can’t escape a cat, even one with a bell round its neck. Similarly, ground nesting birds’ nests are innocently destroyed every spring by dogs off leads.
So what can be done?
In Australia in 2015 cats were reported killing 75 million native animals per DAY so many towns now have cat curfews, outside of which stray cats can be shot. I’m not suggesting anything this extreme, but I wonder if cats in the UK could be sold with a “conservation rating”, similar to an energy rating on a washing machine? The rag doll breed, for example, has little killer instinct and doesn’t roam far. Many cat owners are horrified at the destruction their cats inflict and pet shops could inform customers of the cat’s likely potential to kill. Animals sold with a conservation rating could help customers choose the right one – similar to the way we might choose allergy-free dogs! Read more
Beneath our feet is a world that many do not even consider to be part of us, yet within two handfuls of healthy soil are more living organisms than people on our planet. It is within the first four inches that most food chains start; at the microscopic levels, bacteria eating protozoa and nematodes. These […]
Sussex Green Living’s Youth Eco Forum is a young persons’ environmental group where we speak about current news and creatively demonstrate climate activism in many forms. The YEF was founded in June 2020 in the hope of connecting like-minded teenagers to make a difference for our planet during a period of disconnection… so we started […]
The UK’s recent petrol crisis was caused by many individuals doing the same thing at the same time.
Due to media stories, people’s behaviour suddenly changed, causing nationwide problems. When I commented to the attendant, “I bet you’ve been popular these last few days”, he replied, “Yes, I’m everybody’s best friend! It’s madness. We’ve got plenty of petrol – it’s just that people are buying much more than normal.” It was people’s consumerism that was the problem. Read more
♬♫♪ We’ve got a Brand New Sussex Green Living Terracycle drop-off location in Southwater!* ♬♫♪
Here in West Sussex we’re very fortunate in that West Sussex County Council take a wide variety of materials in our kerbside bins for recycling. At present, however, there are a number of things they can’t yet take that can be recycled. This can be frustrating for those of us who are keen recyclers. A group of those frustrated parties, including Sussex Green Living, Southwater Church, Southwater Beavers and Southwater Scouts, (to name but a few), have got together with Terracycle to tackle some of this waste-that-isn’t-waste. In addition to the clothes bank already there, Southwater Church now has two more recycling collection bins up by the Church Rooms on Church Lane.
The first bin is for crisp & snack packets only – all brands and all sizes.
The second bin is for
• Ballpoint pens, felt tips, biros, correction fluid, markers, glue sticks and highlighters
• Plastic wrapping for; sweet biscuits, cakes, crackers, chocolate, popcorn & nuts
• Fruit & Vegetable baby food pouches – Ella’s Kitchen and other brands (no pet food pouches please!)
• Plastic Milk Bottle Tops
• All other plastic container tops (metal lids can be recycled in kerbside Blue Bins)
• Plastic Air fresheners: cartridges and packaging Read more
Local Locations for TerraCycle® recycling single use plastics
“The bins are ready and labelled. All bags (canvas for mixed recycling and large 300 litre black sacks for the crisps and snacks) are ready to go. I’ll bring them down on my way to The Horsham and Shipley Community Project to save an extra car journey.”
Thus sayeth the Womble.
Across the district, the Sussex Green Living partnership with TerraCycle® continues to increase local recycling points in the villages. Crisp packets, biscuit wrappers, toothbrushes, baby food, popcorn bags, disinfectant trigger pumps, pens and more are recycled to produce a wide range of products from park benches and road side bollards to children’s playground equipment. Read more
The very name of our planet is also the name of our soil. Earth. One of the most precious things for our existence.
It’s an apparently strange mixture of living beings and dead ones, inert substances and active ones.
Anyone over the age of 50 is likely to remember the abundance, the rich aliveness of summer meadows-the colours, the scents and the joyful assault on the ears of crickets, grasshoppers and bees below, with skylarks above. Read more
Press ReleaseAn eco 1974 milk float, pop-up shop and pop-up climate emergency centre – what do they all have in common? They are all initiatives offered by multi-award-winning charity Sussex Green Living, to help people reduce their carbon footprint.
It might be hot air in Glasgow but not at the grassroots where this charity is concerned. On the first day of COP26 the charity became part of a new pop-up shop on the high street. They popped up their first once a month climate emergency centre, the Sussex Green Hub, on 25th September and earlier in the year saw the first appearance of their unique and quirky mobile eco display, a 1974 retrofitted milk float, called the Inspiration Eco Station, and the launch of their Bright New Future Roadshow. Read more
Gardening is for everyone – I truly believe that!
It’s time to change its reputation as a middle class hobby for retirees or young people who would like a pet but don’t fancy finding poo on the carpet- so they settle for a cheese plant. From some pots on a balcony to an ambitious permaculture project, I challenge you to feel the benefits!
I found myself in the role of Light-Police recently at a joyous family gathering to celebrate several ‘zero’ birthdays which had been postponed due to Covid.
At our beautiful AirBnB, bathroom lights, shower lights, bedroom lights, corridor lights and kitchen lights were left on even though the family were all outside for much of the time.
My dad grew up in poverty and was delighted to be able to provide for us- we had plenty, and he was very generous, but we learned the lesson young that lights should be switched off if you’re not in the room. Nothing should be wasted.
By coincidence that same weekend an article was published relating how Greta Thunberg taught her father the same switch-it-off lesson. Read more
Imagine a beautiful Persian carpet. Then cut it into a thousand squares. What do you get? Not a thousand smaller Persian carpets but a thousand scraps of cloth unravelling at the edges. That’s what’s happening to nature in the modern landscape, the scraps becoming ever smaller as the threads begin to trip us up. It is causing the Sixth Mass Extinction – a catastrophic loss of biodiversity affecting the whole planet.
We can see the unravellings all around us if we know how to look. A patch of ancient woodland surrounded by a monoculture of arable is vulnerable to ‘edge effect’ – the drift of chemical sprays, exposure to wind, extreme heat and frost – eating away at habitat on its periphery. That single ancient oak in the middle of a field of wheat has its roots assaulted by ploughing every year. The fine fungal filaments – or mycorrhizae – leading off its roots in search of nutrients are drenched several times a year in agricultural chemicals. The tree can no longer communicate underground with other trees. It is like a lone elephant in a zoo, deprived of the society of its herd, doomed to die alone. Read more
The COP26 Climate Summit starts in Glasgow on November 1st. It’s an opportunity that simply can’t be missed if the world is to get on top of climate change, and the multiple threats it poses to the planet, before it’s too late.
But who knew that crucial, behind-the-scenes, preparations for the conference are happening right here in Sussex, at Wiston House, just up the road from Steyning.
That’s where Wilton Park, a specialist offshoot of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, is based. In their 75th anniversary year, Wilton Park have been instrumental in convening a whole series of dialogues and meetings – mostly online, because of Covid – all geared to making the Glasgow Summit a success.
COP stands for the ‘Conference of the Parties’, and Glasgow is the 26th such event since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed in Rio at the 1992 Earth Summit. This one is particularly important. It is the first time that governments will be asked to report back on progress on the pledges made at the Paris Summit in 2016, and ‘ratchet’ them up with new and more demanding targets. Read more
PRESS RELEASE Repair, refill, recycle, reuse, restore, revive and reunite: These crucial ‘R’ words for building a sustainable world all came alive on Saturday 25th September in the Bishopric area in Horsham as Sussex Green Living launched its latest initiative – the Sussex Green Hub. The Hub was officially opened by the High Sheriff of West Sussex, […]
The Green Boutique