Money is an option (unfortunatley) so what green stuff can/could you do (cheaply)

[Katymac]

I recycle
I compost
I Insulate
I use eco bulbs

Can we swap cheap/easy tips?

I ment problem not option

Spending less is very green.
Stay away from shops as much as possible.

growing veg/fruit/herbs is cheap and green!

I use vinegar in lieu of fabric softener. I buy a big jug of it in a Chinese market shop.

Make your own cleansers and air freshners! I posted a recipe for Kim and Aggie's surface cleanser the other day.

Instead of shower spray, we spray our tiles down w/vinegar. Add some essential oils to the mix to counterbalance the smell.

Are your kids still in nappies? Check if your council has any incentives for switching to cloth.

I got a 'log brick maker' as a gift back when I lived in a cabin in Colorado. It's fab for recyling newspapers, egg cartons (the cardboard kind) and even shredded junk mail into bricks you can burn.

I brought it over - didn't have a fire, but it was a gift from my Dad w/sentimental value - and make bricks and kindling gifts (I posted how to make kindling cups from egg cartons).

Try to buy as much of your food as locally as possible.

Don't run water when not necessary, such as whilst brushing your teeth or in between wetting your face and rinsing of your cleanser.

So NO to those nasty carrier bags. Get a bag for life.

I don't have a garden to grow my own veg, but if I did . . . :)

I'd also compost - many councils offer cheap compost bins.

I try to clean as little as possible, hence not releasing nasty toxins into the environment.
Seriously, i don't use many household products, soda crystals for much of the cleaning.
Don't run a car?? That's v green.

get a water butt to conserve rainwater?

Also, since most energy/pollution is from manufacture, buying second or third hand anything is much better than buying new.

I'm coming to Edinburgh next week expat so I will be looking out for this famous chinese supermarket of yours.

I don't have a garden either but I am thinking of getting some pots for my balcony - not sure what would grow well though! Tomatoes? Lettuces? Have already got herbs

spacedonkey why don't you try strawberries? and maybe some cherry tomatoes?

it's in Leith Walk, Bozza, but NOT the one near the Action Group/Jayne's - that one is small. It's the one farther down, towards the bottom of the Walk, on the right hand side as you come down. It's HUGE, you'll see big ol' bags of rice as you walk in.

LOADS of great stuff in there. Have a browse around.

I live in the Links area close to The Shore, about a 10 min. walk away.

Don't stay up in that poncey Elm Row area. That's not even really Leith. Come down to the foot of the Walk where the mortals and real Edinburghers dwell !

Space, we have no balcony, but I grew tomatoes in a bag when I had one and they grow easily and well.

tomatoes would be good, my balcony is only about 5 foot by 4 foot, but that's big enough for a few pots innit!

they'd work great on a balcony that size, especially one w/good light.

But Don't miss Valvona's (Elm Row)
Only don't take your credit card in...

it's west facing so it gets full sun all afternoon

sorry, i've gone off topic here :-S

Yes, but DO go to Valvona's! You really MUST go there. Oooooo. There's a Blacks a couple of doors down from it, too.

Excellent!

Yay, expat and Pruni finally find something they both like!

Oh to have the money to try everything in Valvona's.....

Well, you could just nosh on the bread and olive oil samples at the back, Pruni. I do :o

Mmm.

(expat I used to sign on in Leith - way back in the dim and distant past - and did indeed use the bread and oil as breakfast on my way back from the dole... )

Pruni,
They've closed the Job Centre at the bottom of the Walk .

It's been almalgamated w/the huge DSS office in Commerical Street.

The building will probably be converted into MORE flats.

Right will have to get on multimap and work all this out. We are staying in a travel inn so actually the issue of breakfast is topical. We don't have a big budget for this trip so we are staying in a travel inn. But I am not prepared to spend £15+ each morning for breakfast for the four of us. So have to work out what to do instead.

Ditto Moondog-dont buy anything unless you NEED it

I'm just going to barge back into the OP's question and ignore all this travel rubbish....

sign up to www.freecycle.org so you can give away old stuff and get free stuff that other people want to get rid of

also you can set up a swop shop - we have a local email system where people swap stuff they don't want; I swopped all my old maternity clothes for wine , a plant and shelves that I didn't want for the desk I'm sitting at now, my old pushchair raincover for a load of garden plants and a spare handblender for a basket of allotment-grown veg

stops everyone taking the stuff to the tip

if anyone wants to set one up they can cat me for info on how to do it