Green behaviours costing the least money and effort are currently the most popular with the British public, despite the fact that 59 per cent of people think that if things continue on their current course we will soon experience a major environmental disaster.

A fuller picture of environmental and other behaviours and attitudes based on the first annual survey of 100,000 individuals from 40,000 households for Understanding Society will be published at a later date.

Keep reading.

The Guide makes it quick and easy to find out which brands of facial tissues, toilet paper, paper towels, and napkins are truly green and which should be avoided. Our experts have carefully evaluated over 100 brands and recommended those that: contain 100% overall recycled content; contain at least 50% post-consumer recycled content; and are bleached without toxic chlorine compounds.
When you’re doing your grocery shopping or just stopping by the corner store to grab a roll of toilet paper, make an informed decision as both a consumer and someone concerned about the world’s ancient forests.

Here’s a neat idea for Canadians: have manufactures pay for waste management of their products. To our European (and some other) readers, this is not a new or crazy idea, but here in Canada this concept is revolutionary. For Earth day The Toronto Star has examined how Ontario can get manufactures to make more environmentally friendly products through legislation – and things are looking good.

One of the most obvious steps is Extended Producer Responsibility, the European concept that the manufacturer must cover the full cost of properly recycling or disposing of a product at the end of its life cycle.

The merits of EPR are simple: It entices companies strictly for cost reasons to redesign their products so they are easier and cheaper to recycle.

European rules, for example, forced Apple to create a computer without lead – leading to lower costs at the end of its life.

In its purest sense, EPR challenges companies to make product lines that lead to zero waste, because no waste would mean no charges at the end of the day.

The requirement may sound radical in Canada, but elsewhere, especially throughout the European Union, EPR is a familiar feature on the regulatory landscape.

4. Print Double-Sided

Computer paper has two sides; how many are you printing on? If you have a laser printer at home, you can change the setting to double-sided printing and copying. Otherwise, consider printing documents one page at a time and printing the second page on the back of the first. It may take you more time, but you’ll also have less paper to buy.
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7. Make Paper Bag Book Covers

With more cities placing restrictions on the use of plastic bags, paper bags may be your packaging of choice. Well, these bags have many reuse options to keep them out of the trash, including covering your hardcover books. This also protects your books from damage and food stains. Plus, once you’re done with the cover you can still recycle the bag with the rest of your paper.

1. Throw a book swap party. Get in a few bottles of wine (organic and fair trade of course) and get together your friends, family or neighbors for a book swapping party. You can make up ‘rules’ if you wish, or just let people dive in and help themselves.

2. Donate your books to your local library. You can feel great knowing your old books will be read by hundreds more people.

The fees will go to an arm’s-length organization established by Waste Diversion Ontario and will be used to fund the collection and recycling of the products from hundreds of drop-off locations to be established across the province.

The program for TVs and computers is just the beginning of the province’s plans. Waste Diversion Ontario, which creates and runs recycling programs for the province, will today begin drafting the next phase of electronics recycling in Ontario. By next summer, the agency will put forward a plan to recycle nearly all other electronic products.

The ultimate purpose of adding recycling fees is to force manufacturers to create more environmentally friendly products.

Under the program, the fees, which are expected to total $62 million in the first year, could drop in future years if, for example, the cost to recycle the products decreases because manufacturers have removed lead or mercury components.

Things Are Good’s occasional writer, Cam Proctor, will be working on the program! Congrats to Cam!

Looking at it another way, according to the National Recycling Coalition, the amount of energy saved in one year by Americans recycling their soda cans, plastic containers, newspapers and packaging represented the energy equivalent of:

Enough gasoline to power 11 million passenger cars for a year
A year’s worth of electricity supply for 17.8 million Americans
11 percent of the energy produced by coal-fired power plants in a year
29 percent of nuclear electricity generation in a year

Compact fluorescent bulbs
CDs/DVDs/Game Disks
Foam packing
Exercise videos
Toothbrushes and razors