Creative self sufficiency (part 1 - introduction)

Being environmentally conscious, and/or self sufficient is not just about installing solar panels to your roof (although admirable), for those that are serious it also means you can get to try many creative activities too!

It gives you the opportunity of reconditioning items, turning old things into new and prolonging its life, or producing healthier alternatives than bought ones.

Such activities can include weaving, wine/beer or bread making. Making your own jewellery or candles, or even restoring old toys and furniture. There are countless hobbies, pastimes or projects that you can turn your hand to if you look around and put a little thought into it.

The benefits to you, your family, and the environment definitely worthwhile. Producing any of your own food, or wines for example means that you know exactly what you are eating or drinking. From a health perspective this is priceless.

Mass produced foodstuffs including simple things such as bread, not only contain hidden ingredients such as preservatives and other chemicals, they're also less nutritious than what you are able to make for yourself.

You can start small at first such as a simple pot of herbs growing on your kitchen window sill, and progress to having a whole section of your garden dedicated to growing your own fruit and vegetables. The flavours of home grown food can also taste so much better than those bought from your local supermarket.

Once you have grown it .. learn to cook with it (if you can't already!). Remember, start small, start simple, and build up slowly. There is no rush, just take everything one small step at a time and everything will eventually fall into place. Taking on too much in one go is one of the main reasons many people giveup or fail. They are overwhelmed. Yes it will require effort, but the rewards for your effort are so much greater all round.

You can turn old 'rubbish' into something new, restore it which will not only save you money, but also prevent you having to throw it out, adding to the increasing landfill. As well as the environmental benefits, you will become more creative and self sufficient in the process! This is the most creative form of recycling that you can partake in.

Doing any of these activities will give you a real sense of achievment - the satisfaction of producing or creating something for yourself. It will provide you with an interest, a hobby to persue, as well as the opportunity to share ideas with others or just show off your latest project!

This isn't a dated 'hippy' outlook, but a way of living that will help you to survive in this fast paced, modern age of waste, mass production, and disposable everything.

The next three or so articles will show you a few projects I have personally completed lately, including some how to's and photographs. This will hopefully give you some inspiration or ideas that you could try to help yourself and/or the environment.

These include making a 'new' necklace and bracelet from a broken wood bead necklace, breadmaking using a breadmaking machine (keeping it simple see!), to restoring an old footstall.

Can software be environmentally friendly?

Well, lets start off with a happy new year to you all!

I work in the IT industry, and have always had more than a passing interest in software ... or more precisely, free software. I think everybody loves something for nothing!

But what has this to do with being green, or environmentally friendly?

The answer to this can easily be seen by just walking around the software department of any large computer store ... PC World in the UK is a good example. You'll see row, upon row of big, bright colourful boxes, excessive plastic wrapping, and other eye catching gimmicks.

These boxes contain nothing more than a single disc, and perhaps a booklet or a manual, and yet most are large enough to hold perhaps 20, 30 discs or more!

It's rather sickening to think that the majority of this packaging will quickly end up in the bin as soon as the software gets into the home or office where it is going to be used. It is a dire waste of resources and materials, and all for the sake of self promotion.

It is intended to be big and brash so that the consumer is attracted to it. Unfortunately, its boldness is just such a waste. Even if you recycled most of the packaging, you still have the energy and resources expended to produce it, and spent again to recycle it.

This is where free software has the advantage. Unless it comes on a disc on the cover of a magazine, then you need to find it and download it from the Internet. The ecological advantage of this is now obvious - no waste from over ambitious packaging!

Now this is also true of commercial software or shareware that you can pay for online and download, but, as with most people, I prefer free when I can get it, and if I want a backup of the install file I just burn it to CD.

This brings us to our next problem - where to download from?

There are thousands of sites that you can download software from, the trouble is much of it is not free. It expires after 30 days, or useful features are crippled after a set length of time, or worse still, your computer gets infected with some malware, spyware or some other nasty! Another thing I have found in the past is that it's not always easy to find what you actually need, or there are a dozen titles that 'appear' to do what you want ... leaving you wondering which one do you download?

A good starting point for downloading safe free software is the Lessfuss Collection. It's free to join and has one perhaps two of any type of program considered to be the best of its kind currently available making your choice a lot easier. All of the programs are free to use forever, and they are also selected because they do not contain any adware, spyware, or malware.

Now, with broadband becoming more prevalent, I urge you all to download your software from now on instead of purchasing overly packaged 'boxed' versions. Yes, software can be green or at the very least 'greener' if you follow this advice. So get downloading, and leave those overly packed puddings on the shelf!