Car sharing is when two or more people travel together by car for all or part of a trip. The passengers usually make a contribution towards the driver's fuel costs. Car sharing may be formal, using an organised car share scheme, or informal – for example, friends or colleagues travelling to work together. For example; Liftshare. 

Cat Fletcher is one of the founders of Freegle UK, a website for reusing almost anything, and was one of the key drivers behind the Brighton Waste House. She is currently the “Re-Use Manager” for Brighton and Hove City Council, which involves finding new homes for equipment and furniture.

She was voted 2019's Legend of Waste.

A circular economy is "a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible" that aims at tackling global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. Learn more.

Based in Brighton, City Clean offer waste disposal services for Brighton and Hove residents. Learn more.

A Consulta Popular is Spanish for "Popular Consultation" which is a legally binding referendum, which can be held at local, regional or national level and was enshrined in the Colombian constitution in 1991. It requires 33% of the electorate to participate in order to be valid.

In February 2016, the Council of Ibague, Colombia voted in favour of a Consulta Popular in relation to La Colosa Gold Mine.

Carbon emissions can be reduced.

The average annual carbon output per household is 12.5 tonnes and rising! Despite a government target to reduce our carbon emissions by 65% by 2050, the current trend is that the world's carbon output is increasing. Experts at The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation have produced statistics based on 30 years research. They claim that the world carbon output has doubled since 1990. It's going in the wrong direction!

Please consider how you can reduce your personal carbon footprint. Calculate your carbon footprint with My Carbon Footprint or Carbon Footprint. One third of your carbon output is from heat and power in your home, one third is a by-product from driving & flying and one third is from food miles. For help with this try Climate Care Calculator. Looking at this can be quite overwhelming so try to take it one step at a time and remember, Rome wasn't built in a day; you won't reduce your carbon footprint in a day. Well done for making a start!

Your carbon emissions can be off-set by supporting a scheme which aims to cut emissions. But according to Friends of the Earth carbon off-setting plays only a small role in the fight against climate change. Some of the offsetting schemes are seriously flawed so do consider them carefully.

Eat British carrots! From June, home grown carrots are available in shops for 11 months. They are rated at 45g of carbon per 1kg of carrots produced compared to 80g for onions and a whopping 240g for potatoes.

What else is good about carrots?

The greatest nutritional value of the carrot is it being an excellent source of beta carotene; evidence suggests that this may help protect against damage caused by free radicals (responsible for aging, tissue damage and some diseases). The body converts beta carotene into Vitamin A which is needed for healthy vision.

N.B. Unlike most other vegetables, carrots are more nutritious cooked than eaten raw.

And finally . . . . . . .

Carrots are orange! A colour that denotes energy, warmth and the sun - the source of all life. In colour therapy orange is the colour of creativity and also joy!

How can you not eat more carrots? What about growing your own?

Cars contribute significantly to carbon emissions. There are some simple measures you can take. Reduce how many journeys you make by ditching the car for short journeys. You could take the bus or walk instead. Good planning means you can get many jobs done during one journey. Car sharing is helpful. Check out the following Lift Share, Carplus, CityCarClub, Go Car Share and WhizzGo.

More "radical" alternatives can include the use of electric cars and alternatively fuelled vehicles.  The Government has recently pledged to make this "radical alternative" more mainstream and an available real alternative to petrol powered cars.

Using a computer can generate between 40g and 80g of carbon emissions per hour. Once you start using the internet this can rise even further.

When you sit in front of your computer it is hard to imagine the energy you are using beyond the electricity which powers your computer or laptop.

Try to imagine all the information the internet brings to you and how quickly it brings it to you. That information needs to be stored somewhere and then transported to your machine. This information is stored in large data centres which are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable.

In 2007 the information and communication technologies or ICT sector was estimated to be responsible for 2% of all global carbon emissions and data centres accounted for 14% of this.

Contamination is one of the biggest challenges facing recycling organisations. One of the biggest contamination issues in Brighton and Hove involves plastic recycling.

Including plastics other than bottles in the collection can lead to contamination. There is very little margin for contamination, it varies from 1 - 10% depending on the material. If the levels of contamination veer over the threshold instead of being recycled it will have to be incinerated for energy recovery. It costs the council £65 a tonne to recycle plastic BUT £165 a tonne to incinerate it. 

There are green alternatives to traditional coffins. Local companies offer a variety of options. Green coffins, also known as eco coffins, are becoming more popular in the UK as many of us consider the impact our lives, and deaths, have on the environment.

The idea behind a green coffin is it being as natural as possible in terms of the materials used so that the coffin will decompose naturally. This is done in order for precious resources and materials not to be used unnecessarily.. Please consider a biodegradable coffin made from materials such as wicker, bamboo or recycled cardboard.

For a silk screened "Ecopod" made out of recycled paper try Ecopod or Eco Coffins. For a traditional willow coffin contact Somerset Willow Company.

Cremation is often wrongly considered as the most environmentally friendly way of organising a funeral.

A cremation produces an average of 50kg of CO2. They are also responsible for around 15% of mercury emissions in the country as a whole. Other chemicals released into the atmosphere include dioxin, hydrochloric acid and sulphur dioxide and of course there's all that timber which goes to waste.

Contact Ecopod for more details about environmentally friendly coffins - 01273 746011

Contact ARKA to learn more about green funerals - 01273 766620

The challenges identified for each of the One Planet Living principles aim to focus our attention on the difficulties we face as a global community. For example, Bioregional believe the problem we need to overcome to achieve ZERO Waste is; 

• the waste from discarded products and packaging which is creating a huge disposal problem while wasting valuable resources