Mates, Dates and Saving the Planet
Page 7
Loosen the soil around the hole a bit with your shovel.
Place the tree in the hole, making sure the soil is at the same level on the tree as when the tree grew in the garden centre.
Fill in around the rootball with soil and pack the soil with your hands and feet to make sure that there are no air pockets.
Make a little dam around the base of the tree as wide as the hole with leftover soil or grass clumps to hold in the water.
Give your lovely new tree a good soaking of water to help settle it into its new home.
Surround your tree with ‘mulch’ – a covering of rotten leaves, wood chips, pine straw or shredded bark that will insulate the ground, decrease the amount of weeds that grow keep moisture around the roots and provide food for your tree.
Be prepared with some flasks of tea/coffee/soup etc. to hand round to everyone who’s helped (either washable cups or paper ones, not plastic, so you can recycle them afterwards). This is another great way to get mingling with any nice-looking boys who have turned up. Tree planted – planet on the way to being saved – new boyfriend in the bag. Result.
One mature tree can provide enough oxygen for a family of four to breathe for a whole year!
TOP TIPS FOR GREEN GODDESSES
Don’t forget that if someone who would like a tree doesn’t have a garden but does have a driveway, patio, courtyard or even a balcony, you can always plant them a small tree in a container.
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Choose a suitable tree such as a Japanese maple, bay, holly or magnolia (check online or ask at your local garden centre).
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Make sure you have a container with good drainage holes.
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Use the right type of potting compost for container-grown trees (ask your local garden centre again).
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Check that your container is big enough for the roots to have room to grow.
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Keep the compost below the top edge of the container to stop it flooding out when the tree is watered.
The amount of wood and paper thrown away each year in the United States alone is enough to heat fifty million homes for twenty years. Keep reading to find out how to make sure you’re not wasting any.
If you and your mates really like a challenge, see if you can create your own ‘breathing place’. This means finding a patch of waste ground in your area, clearing it of rubbish and weeds etc., and transforming it into a healthy green space that improves the health of the environment and gives local people something to enjoy. A breathing place could be anywhere, such as:
a corner of unused land at your school
a bit of derelict ground at the end of your road
any space you walk past every day and think, ‘Why doesn’t someone clean that up?’
First, you have to find out who owns the land (like it’s not someone’s neglected garden, for instance). Your local council can tell you if they own the land or if it’s owned privately. The Land Registry can help you track down private owners. Once you’ve found the owners, you have to check that they’re happy for you to create a breathing place there, but it’s your chance to make something truly wonderful for wildlife – and the local community. It’s estimated that there are 70,000 hectares of derelict and vacant land across England and Wales alone – that’s an area the size of Greater London just going to waste! Some organisations such as the Big Lottery Fund will give you grants to create a breathing place. So get stuck in and rope lots of other people in to help – any boys who volunteer to get involved are likely to be interesting types with plenty of get up and go. (Use your common sense and don’t hang around waste ground on your own or after dark – TJ.) This chapter has loads of ideas on what to do once you’ve found your breathing space.
I love this idea. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my all-time favourite books. It’s about a lonely girl who transforms a neglected garden into a magical place. If you haven’t read it or seen the movie, do. I bet it will inspire you to make your own secret garden – Lucy.
Why not become members of your local nature reserve or conservation group? Environmental organisations are always in need of volunteers to offer their time and effort to help. If you and your mates give up even one afternoon to help pick up litter in a forest, or replant a river bank, or give out campaign leaflets in the shopping precinct, you’ll be making a huge difference to local plant and animal welfare (and it’s a great way to meet people – as in boys – as you have the perfect excuse for starting up a conversation).
Thirty-three football-pitch-sized areas of forest are cut down in the world every second. Join an environmental group so you can add your voice to those campaigning for this to stop.
It’s official: going to school is a bad thing. Well, a bad thing for the environment, anyway. Schools in the UK emit five million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the environment every year, just from using gas and electricity. And scientists reckon that schools contribute another five million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year through transport to and from school, and the manufacture of school equipment. (Hurrah, let’s not go then! – Lucy. Er, not what I meant – some schools are doing something about it – Tim. Bummer, I mean, er . . . yeah, cool – Lucy.) The government has been investing money in turning schools greener, so your school may well already have a green strategy and/or an eco club. If not, now’s your chance – you and your mates can start them. And if they have already got one – then join in. You can bring new energy and ideas such as these:
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Improve your class’s recycling.
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Start up litter patrols to clear up rubbish and make sure that everything that can be recycled is recycled.
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Carry out a survey on how everyone travels to school, then see how you can make this more eco-friendly. For instance, you could organise a car-sharing rota, or campaign to have more school buses laid on, or raise more money to have new bike sheds built. (Good excuse to bag a lift with a boy you fancy. See, this green thing opens up a whole new list of chat-up lines – Nesta.)
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Find out if there’s anywhere in the school grounds that could do with some tree planting.
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See if you could set up an organic veg patch and set up a rota of volunteers to look after it.
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Campaign for school governors to switch cleaning products and teaching supplies to environmentally-friendly versions.
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Start a newsletter to raise awareness of green issues and how you all can contribute to saving the planet outside school.
If you and your mates put your heads together, you can come up with some fantastic schemes to involve the whole community too. (Lucy, TJ, Izzie and I managed to raise thousands of pounds once when we held a charity ball. As one of our fave sayings goes: ‘Fortune favours the brave’ – Nesta.)
In the UK, twenty-two per cent of secondary school pupils and forty-one per cent of primary school children are driven to school every day, pumping out carbon dioxide (the most evil greenhouse gas) from their cars. Walk or cycle to school if you can, or take public transport. If those aren’t an option, try to set up a car share.
Persuade your parents to let you remove your family from junk mail lists. You can do this online very easily at www.mpsonline.org.uk. Make sure that when they’re filling out forms, if they opt to receive sales and marketing info, they choose to receive it via email rather than the post. And finally, put a big note on your front door saying: ‘No junk mail or free newspapers’.
If each household in the UK changed three of their traditional lightbulbs for energy-saving ones, it would save enough energy to light up all the street lamps in the country.
Yes, this really is part of going green! You know how maddening it is when your parents nag you to do things? It can drive you bonkers – but more often than not you end up doing things their way (usually because we’re right – Izzie’s mum). Well, here’s y
our chance to get your own back, by putting pressure on non-green parents to do their bit to save the planet. The way to do it is to badger your parents at every available opportunity – in the car, family meals, while watching TV . . . If you want to be really super-annoying you could even stand outside the bathroom door when your mum or dad’s on the loo and talk to them through the keyhole – then you’ve got a captive audience. We can bet parents won’t understand things like why if they buy a hybrid-fuelled car, they’ll be helping to ensure that polar bears don’t die out, so explain green issues to ensure that your mum and dad get the message too. The best thing about this is that your parents won’t actually be able to argue with you – as long as you know your facts, when it comes to green issues, you’ll be right and they’ll be wrong. (Excellent – Izzie.) If that sort of information doesn’t get them, try financial reasons – for instance, make sure they know exactly how much money insulating the house better could save them per year . . . Talking money should produce results for sure.
Here’s what to try to convince your family about:
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Get your parents to switch to greener companies for gas and electricity. You can find out how at http://green.energyhelpline.com/energy or www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/press_for_change/choose_green_energy.
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Help your parents improve the insulation of your home and your family’s energy expenditure by researching any grants they might be eligible for. You can find out at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk.
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See if you can get your parents to set up a system to use your family’s grey water (water which has been used for washing and can be reused for watering gardens rather than sent straight down the drain – e.g. water from laundry, dishwashers, baths, showers, hand-washing etc.). This can be done easily with a grey water diverter valve (which enables you to choose whether you want to send waste water down the drain or send it to a storage vessel).
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When it’s time to decorate, see if you can persuade your parents to choose eco-friendly paints and update fixtures and fittings from salvage yards, charity shops and websites that sell second-hand items such as eBay.
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If it’s time to buy new furniture, floorboards or wooden fittings, check that they come from sustainable sources – go to www.fsc.org.
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Help your parents choose eco-friendly holidays for your family. For instance, camping, nature-watching trips, hiking, boating and cycling holidays, are all good choices. Encourage them to avoid flying if possible. Once you’re on holiday, try to help the local community by going to small shops and cafés, rather than spending all your money in big, commercial tourist centres.
A return flight for two from Amsterdam to the Thai resort of Phuket produces considerably more carbon dioxide than the average new car does in a year. Try not to fly!
If your parents are about to buy a new car, make sure they choose one which gives off less carbon dioxide. They can find advice on www.dft.gov.uk/ActOnCO2
Remind your parents to keep the tyres pumped up well – if they’re under-inflated the car has to work harder and will use more fuel.
Make sure there’s not loads of clutter in the boot – extra weight uses unnecessary fuel and creates extra carbon dioxide.
Nag your parents if they rev the car up a lot or keep the engine idling when the car isn’t moving – these things waste fuel and increase CO2 emissions.
How many gadgets does your family have that they never use? Think about sandwich toasters, plug-in grills, slow cookers, electric carving knives, foot or face spas, electronic toys or electronic gym equipment? Take them to a charity shop (check first that they accept electrical goods) or car boot sale or sell them on eBay. That way, other people can buy them instead of getting new ones.
When your household appliances break, make sure your parents try their best to get them mended, rather than just rushing out to buy new ones. See if you can track down a local repair shop for them – look in the phone directory. And if they do end up buying new, then remind them to go for eco-friendly choices. Energy-efficiency information should be clearly detailed on the labels of appliances in shops.
You’ll be glad to know that the most efficient dishwashers use only one to two units of electricity for a full load, and just fifteen litres of water, whereas washing the equivalent full load by hand would use anything from thirty litres to two hundred litres. So using a dishwasher can be better for the environment than washing up in the sink – as long as your dishwasher is an eco-efficient model and you only run full loads.
TOP TIPS FOR GREEN GODDESSES
Your family’s fridge-freezer could be responsible for about twenty per cent of your household’s total electricity use; you can tell your parents how to ensure it is working efficiently.
Here’s how:
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If it is placed near to a radiator or the oven, it will use more energy, so see if it can be moved somewhere cooler.
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Check the manual to see if your fridge is set to the correct temperature.
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Make sure that your freezer is defrosted regularly, because a build-up of ice may mean the door won’t shut properly, which will mean the freezer won’t be working to maximum efficiency.
Using an energy-efficient fridge could save half a tonne of carbon dioxide emissions per year, compared to an older, less efficient model.
Talk your parents out of taking the car through the car wash as it uses a massive amount of water, electricity and chemicals. You might have to offer to wash the car yourself but think of the brownie points you’ll get.
Did you know that many of the ingredients in washing-up liquid are not biodegradable, so they will exist forever, polluting the environment? Get whoever does the shopping in your house to choose eco-friendly versions, or, better still, lead the way and buy some yourself to show that they work just as well.
When going for a coffee with your mates, meet in places which use washable mugs and crockery, not disposable ones. That way, you’re not adding to the planet’s mountains of waste.
We love a good party – and what could be better than a ‘Save the planet’ party? Your guests can come as bits of organic broccoli. Only joking, but this saving the planet business can be fun. Try a few of the following ideas and you’ll soon be looking more like Kermit’s cousin (Kermit’s a frog, they’re green, yeah? Izzie) before you know it.
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Your party could be a spring picnic, summer garden party, autumn barbecue, or winter supper.
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Invite everyone you know, young and old. Sing along: ‘We are the world, we are its children . . . lalalala.’
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Make all the invites out of recycled paper, or email or text so that you don’t use any paper at all.
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Use washable crockery and cutlery rather than disposable ones.
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Make your own party decorations by recycling scrap material into paper chains and streamers.
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Eat green by making nibbles and drinks from local, unpackaged food. You don’t have to be Jamie Oliver’s little sister to impress: homemade dips and veggie sticks, baked potato skins with various toppings, interesting sandwiches and salads, cookies and fairy cakes, and fruit punches and smoothies will all help to get your point across and they’ll look and taste great too. (And you’ll score points with the boys here, of course. The way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach. I have two brothers so I should know . . . Lucy.)
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Hold a ‘Why Save the Planet?’ pub-style quiz. You can take your questions from all the info we’ve put together in this book. This will get people thinking while having fun at the same time.
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Invite everyone to think of something practical that they can do to go green and give a prize for the best one.
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Put on your most flirty smile and sashay around, asking people
to add their names to a sheet on which you’ve written a pledge. It could say something like:
‘I, as a responsible, caring citizen of the world,
want to do what I can
to help Planet Earth BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
This is my pledge to make a difference!
I shall start with small changes –
for instance, I shall turn the telly and
computer off properly
when they’re not being used.
And I shall aim for bigger changes –
such as walking or biking instead of using the
car, whenever possible.
I hereby promise to try every day to do