The latest news, stats and facts on key environmental issues. The latest news from Sussex Green Living.

Clean renewable energy, saves money and the planet!

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Solar panelsTake a few moments to learn how you can power your home using clean renewable energy, saving money and the planet!

What do we mean by ‘clean energy’?

Power stations, wind turbines and solar farms all feed their energy into the Grid, like rivers running into a big pond. When you switch to clean energy, your supplier guarantees that however much electricity you take out of the ‘pond’, the same amount of clean energy will be put in. The more people who switch to clean tariffs, the more renewable energy that goes into the pond. This means that the energy sector is producing less pollution and carbon which is crucial if we are to reduce global warming and climate change.

Approximately 30% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewable sources.

Under new laws, Britain’s biggest energy companies will have to buy renewable energy from their own customers, for example, homeowners who install new rooftop solar panels from 1 January 2020 will be able to lower their bills by selling the energy they do not need to their supplier. Read more

Learn how to divert landfill waste into a recycling scheme and raise money for a good cause

Plastic food packaging. We need your help!!!

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South American Tree FrogDo you know which items are recycled with our “TerraCycle” schemes ?

We wish we could recycle all the plastic food packaging you have kindly donated however there are clear guidelines on which items will be accepted under the free TerraCyle recycling schemes that we are registered to.  Our small team of volunteers are working hard to sort through donations to remove all items which cannot be recycled under the TerraCycle schemes.

To help streamline the work of our volunteers here is a reminder of which plastic food packaging we can accept for recycling. Plastic food packaging from other sources will be discarded…..even if made of same or similar material.  Read more

Single-use plastic recycling stats

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Wow since December the general public have collected 25,136 crisp packets, thanks to our green team of volunteers who sort and dispatch this recycling! Our volunteers include the A Team from Leachpool School in Horsham, who collect from their school, K2 leisure centre in Crawley and The Pavillions leisure centre in Horsham.

We work with a number of charities and companies who recycle these single-use plastics one such company being TerraCycle, they are an innovative recycling company that has become a global leader in recycling hard-to-recycle materials. This scheme helps diverts billions of waste resouces from our landfills and incinerators, recycling them to make new products. Read more

‘The Future We Want’ Billingshurst Carnival procession

Climate Action procession in Billingshurst

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‘The Future We Want’ Billingshurst Carnival procession

‘The Future We Want’ Billingshurst Carnival procession

Want to join a climate action procession to express the urgent need for people to make changes to their lives to reduce the effects for climate change? Want your children to inherit a healthy planet? Join us as we march for the third year running for ‘The Future We Want – LESS C02’ and climate action.

When: Sunday 30th June

Where: The procession will depart from Jengers Mead, Billingshurst at 12 noon, arriving at Billingshurst Show just off of Lower Station Road *.

Led by Carrie Cort the founder of Sussex Green Living (SGL), volunteers from this West Sussex network and members of the public. Carrie trained with Al Gore the former US Vice President and leading climate change scientists as part of the Climate Reality Leadership Corp.

Read more

Make your home more planet friendly

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Save Resources – And Money – With Sustainable Living

Developed nations now consume an estimated 16 tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels, and biomass per capita every year, meaning that we are consuming Earth’s resources at an entirely unsustainable rate. Though this may seem a daunting fact, you can make a difference in your Sussex home by joining the 94% of residents in the South East that have already committed to making positive changes to lead a greener lifestyle. Doing so could have a worthwhile impact on your household’s pocket as well as its sustainability! Here are some changes you can enact at home. Read more

Buzzing Products Healthy Lifestyles

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Rainbow Brands: Buzzing Products Healthy Lifestyles

We are delighted to be featured on Sussex Green Living it is doing great work to inspire more smarter environmentally friendly living and it certainly shares our ethos to help bring about this positive change in our communities. Read more

Climate Emergency – please can you help us?

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Dear Horsham and West Sussex residents,

Climate change news is everywhere. It seems too bigger problem for many people and is the greatest environmental threat humanity has ever faced, but you can do something. Here are some ways in West Sussex and Horsham you can help….. Read more

Caring for clothes & planet events

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During the first half of 2019 Sussex Green Living and the Horsham Repair Cafe are out and about, inpiring people to ‘make do and mend’, remake, repair, repatch and basically love the clothes and materials around them. Come and learn long lost skills of sewing, patches, repairing buttons, clothes etc. Learn about fast fashion and the damage it is causing our planet, solutions, ways of saving money and the planet……

2nd (10-4pm) and 3rd March (10-3pm) Horsham Repair Cafe and Sussex Green Living are at the Kinder Living Home Show, County Hall, North Horsham, Park Street, Horsham, RH12 1XH. The event aims to encourage more sustainable choices in our homes, gardens and daily lives. We will be offering repairs to electrical household items and clothes and clothes swapping. Read more

Kinder Living event in Horsham

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We are going to be at the Kinder Living Home Show on Saturday 2nd (10-4pm) and Sunday 3rd (10-4pm) March 2019, with Sussex Green Living displays and a pop-up Horsham Repair Cafe come along and see us.

What is the Kinder Living Home Show? Read more

Declare a climate emergency

Press release: World SOS Climate Emergency Day Horsham meeting

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Tsunami of support for Councils in South East to declare Climate emergency

Councils across the South East of England are being urged to declare a ‘Climate Emergency’, after a ground-breaking meeting in Horsham on Saturday 2nd February.  Held to mark World S.O.S. Climate Emergency Day, the meeting brought together for the first time environmental groups from 11 towns from Surrey, and East and West Sussex. Over 126 people aged from 10 to 80 were present. The venue had to be changed three times to accommodate the surge of interest, and took place finally in Horsham’s Unitarian Church. Read more

World S.O.S. Climate Emergency meeting

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PRESS RELEASE

UNITED WE STAND

On Saturday 2nd February at 1.15pm a S.O.S. Climate Emergency Day Meeting is taking place in Horsham Library, the Quaker Meeting House Unitarian Church now due to increasing numbers, open to the general public. In attendance will be people from environmental groups from Horsham, Steyning, Worthing, Chichester, Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint, Keymer and Dorking. The aim being to discuss the climate emergency, planned regional actions and agree collaboration.  Read more

Ethical & sustainable clothes detector game & lessons

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This award winning ethical and sustainable clothes detector invention and game is teaching children and adults alike about the link between fast fashion and climate change.  Through our environmental education programme this year the invention has visited 40 primary schools in West Sussex, where we delivered free assemblies and lessons. We have also used the detector as part of clothes and climate change sessions in children’s groups and public events and delivered talks to adult groups around the subject.

Who invented such a game? Seven pupils from the William Penn Primary School in Coolham are responsible for this great green invention, which won a national award  at the Better Energy School Awards at London Zoo. Read more

No do NOT make eco bricks!

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Here at SGL headquarters we are contacted time and time again about whether we could be a drop off location for eco bricks, our response is always NO NO NO.

Eco bricks have been around for years, they were first developed to deal with flexible single use plastics and plastic bottles in countries which did not have a council offering waste collection and recycling. The idea being it was better to collect the materials, preventing them from going in the rivers and sea and making something useful with them. Now Eco bricks have taken off in the UK after a post was seen a lot of times, and people have begun to ‘make’ them. Read more

Whose waste is it anyway? Event in Brighton

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Whose waste is it anyway? Is a new event taking place at the Brighthelm Centre, Brighton on Thursday 1 November 2018 between 10:00 – 3pm. Carrie Cort, founder of Sussex Green Living is giving a talk on the shocking journey of a cotton T shirt and the environmental effects for the fast fashion industry.

Waste is a hot topic right now.  Read more

Climate change awareness in Horsham District

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Saturday 8th September Horsham Market saw climate leadership rising from the grassroots. Volunteers from Sussex Green Living and the Horsham Repair Café took part in the global Rise for Climate mobilisation.  Together with tens of thousands of people from 7 continents, in 95 countries, people worldwide demanded real climate action from their local leaders. Read more

Carbon offsetting made easy

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When Carrie flew to Montenegro in May for the Green Culture Festival she offsetting four tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. There are a number of organisations offering carbon offsetting but after liaising with other climate leaders   Carrie chose www.carbonfootprint.com . Read more

Fire dragon chilli blog

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My name is Adam, I am 10 years old. I have been growing chillies now for 2 years. This year I have grown 232 Ring of Fire chilli plants, which I am selling to raise money to care for stray dogs in Montenegro. My donations will pay for neutering, to stop unwanted puppies. Did you know that if one bitch is not newtered within 6 years she and her puppies could have bred 67,000 dogs. I have donated to Stray Aid Montenegro. It costs about €62.50 to sterilise a dog, so I am hoping to sell some of my chillies and products to raise more money for Stray Aid Montenegro. Read more

Join our Eco Billingshurst Carnival Procession

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Grandparents, parents & children sharing ‘The Future We Want’ at Billingshurst Carnival

Come and join our ‘The Future We Want’ Billingshurst Carnival Procession

This is your invitation to come, have fun and share your greener living message with our Sussex Green Living carnival procession. For a second year running we are taking a procession in the Billingshurst carnival, run by the Billingshurst Rotary on Sunday 24th June.  Last year about 30 local people of all ages and two eco vehicles joined us, learn more here. This years Rotary theme is Heroes and Villains, our theme is The Future We Want – Greener Living! Read more

Pop-up Share Fair in Horsham

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Join us in the Human Nature Garden, Horsham Park on Sunday 8th July 12 – 6pm, where there will be a pop-up Share Fair and Horsham Repair Café. We will be running alongside the Horsham Rotary family event Funday Sunday.

A Share Fair is a social event where instead of buying new things, people share, swap or recycle stuff. People meet each other to share skills, ideas and stories – like an old-fashioned market but with no money. Read more

Wildlife Eco Warrior assembly & workshops

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This workshop is a fun, informative and practical session, showing the synergy between biodiversity, environmental protection and upcycling. Led by Carrie Cort the founder of Sussex Green Living, this is one in a series of workshops Carrie offers.

In this workshop we generate ideas which  inspire our children to become the next generation of green champions. In turn these ideas can help them make decisions about the way we do things individually and collectively, both locally and globally. This will improve the quality of life now, reducing damage to the planet in the future. The workshop includes some hands on creative upcycling for the garden, e.g. butterfly hibernation boxes from TetraPaks, owl boxes out of old wellington boots, bird feeders out of plastic milk bottles.  Subjects: Science, PSHE, Art & Design and Citizenship.

Learn more about the Wildlife Eco Warrior session we ran for Annington Homes at Gamlingay Primary School in Bedfordshire…..

Read more

All About Horsham (AAH) – Green Crusader

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All About Horsham (AAH) – Green Crusader – article

Carbon footprint of a cuppa!

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Now we all love a cuppa, but have you ever thought about its carbon footprint? Is there a greener option? For example …..Where in the World was the tea grown? Where in the World does all the packaging come from? Where in the World was it blended and packaged? How much packaging does it have? Can you buy your tea with less packaging?  Or no packaging?

Think about this…….. Read more

You CAN solar power your home!

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“Just a few more of these will do it.”

More solar for Sussex!  Carrie the founder of Sussex Green Living and her husband Brian have fulfilled their new year’s resolution by calling in local firm CC Solar to install ten solar panels on the roof of their Sussex home. So now they power their home using daylight and the sun’s almost limitless energy rather than having to buy electricity from the national grid.  For the last 7 years Carrie and Brian have been buying 100% renewable energy Read more

Raspberry Pi helping to save the planet!

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We’re really excited to tell you about another sustainable solution for schools and this one might win your school £1,000!

Now in it’ sixth year, the PA’s Raspberry Pi competition 2018 is offering three £1,000 prizes for teams from primary and secondary schools, and sixth forms and colleges.

This year’s theme is Sustainability. The challenge is to use the Raspberry Pi – a credit-card-size yet highly capable computer – to invent something that will help ‘save the planet’. Read more

Living in an eco-home

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Ever thought of living in an ‘eco-home’?

When we came to Brighton from London in 2015 Sue and I were looking for an old house like the  terraced house we were living in, built well before the First World War. After all, older houses have lots of nooks and crannies and lots of character.

What we ended up with was a very modern, ‘sustainable’ home, Read more