Another year has come and gone. It’s time to wipe the slate clean again and make some changes for the better. Here are some ideas for green New Year’s resolutions for 2008.

1. Grow some of your own food.  Be realistic in your goals.  Perhaps some sprouts on the windowsill is a good place to start, or if you’re ready to go the whole hog, plant some fruit trees and a vegetable garden.

2. Shun plastic bags.  Get yourself some nice reusable bags and take them with you when you go the shops.

3. Leave the car at home.  Get on your bike.  If you’re a train commuter, how about a cool fold-up bike to get you to the station, and then to the office on the other side.

4. Buy energy efficient appliances for your home.   When replacing fridges, washing machines and dishwashers, be sure to look for an A-rating for energy savings.

5. Make Shop Green at Pricegrabber.co.uk your one-stop shop for all things green and eco-friendly.  And don’t forget to visit Blog Green too for lots of green living ideas.

Our feathered friends need a helping hand over the winter months when food is scarce. Feeding birds in your garden will attract birds to watch through the window and to keep you entertained while you’re shut away inside away from the cold. If you have children, caring for the birds is a great way of bringing nature in closer, especially in cities and towns. It is a very rewarding activity for adults and children alike, and for children it may even help develop a lifetime love of nature.

There are a multitude of bird feeders available. I particularly like the one pictured that attaches to a window of your home (this would be ideal if you live in a flat without a garden).

What to feed the birds?

1. Bird seed mixtures available from supermarkets, garden centres and pet shops.

2. Peanuts (these must be raw and unsalted).

3. Fat balls and bird cakes.

4. Mealworms available from garden centres.

5. Cooked rice.

6. Uncooked oatmeal.

7. Peanut butter.

Don’t forget to put some water out for the birds too. Their regular water sources may have frozen over in cold weather.

Electronics companies weren’t thinking about saving energy when they invented standby. Fortunately there’s a general consensus on what a bad idea it was, and some electronics manufacturers are addressing the problem. But there are a lot of televisions, DVD-players and VCRs still out there haemorrhaging electricity while they’re left on standby. I make every effort to switch of my TV, DVD and video player, but there are times when something gets left on because the children forget or because I’m in a mad rush to leave the house and don’t go around checking everything. It would be a whole lot easier to be sure I’d switched it all off if I just had to press one button and all those appliances were switched off at once. And now that’s possible. Hooray! Bye Bye Standby makes it easy to switch off everything at the touch of a button. Check out this video to get the gist of how it works:

Beauty products are an area of green living that is often overlooked. You may be eating organic, wearing organic, saving energy in your home, driving a fuel-efficient car, buying carbon offsets and planting trees, but are you still slathering a chemical cocktail all over your face every morning?

Skin is an amazing thing. It’s not what seals us off from the outside world, it’s the way that we experience the outside world. We experience our world through touch, and we also absorb a whole lot of what’s outside through our skin. So it follows that’s it’s important to put only the purest and most natural ingredients on our skin. Helena Rubenstein once famously said that you shouldn’t put anything on your face that you wouldn’t be happy to put in your mouth.

Here are some pointers for making sure that the cosmetics and beauty products that you use are best for you and best for the environment:

1.  Go for organic wherever possible.
2.  The word “natural” on the bottle does not necessarily mean that the product is all natural.
3.  Avoid synthetic chemicals, especially parabens, mercury, thimerosol, lead acetate, formaldehyde, toluene, petroleum distillates, ethylacrylate, coal tar, dibutyl phthalate, potassium dichromate and artificial fragrances and colours.
4.  Go for ammonia-free vegetable or herb based hair dyes.
5.  Choose natural, water-based nail varnishes and solvent free removers.
6.  Try essential oils and products that contain them for a natural and powerful burst of cleaning and healing power.
7.  Opt for natural sun protection.

The key to reducing your carbon footprint is reducing your energy consumption. Here’s list of products that will help you do just that.

Owl Wireless Electricity Monitor: It’s easy to monitor your household’s electricity usage with this little gadget. It clearly shows you the cost of running individual electrical appliances, helping you identify those that are being used needlessly and providing an incentive to switch off those that aren’t in use. There’s even an alarm that will go off if you go over your pre-set limit, so you can rush around the home turning things off. And it will tell you the quantity of greenhouse gases that your power usage is generating, as well as ambient temperature and humidity of your home. People who own one of these generally use less electricity than those who don’t.

Low Energy Light Bulbs: Did you know that up to 20% of your household electricity bill could be coming from your lighting? These CFL light bulbs use at least 60% less energy and last loads longer than the regular incandescent type. The energy saved by switching to low energy bulbs is so considerable that it’s worth replacing even a brand new regular light bulb with one of these, saving you money and reducing your carbon footprint. They’re even recyclable these days, you can take them along to IKEA or to Rymans in London for free recycling.

Thermostatic Radiator Valves: Fitting CRVs to all your central heating radiators will help you maintain a predetermined room temperature to keep heating at a comfortable level. The benefit of having these valves means that if a room isn’t being used, you can turn the heating down low in that room without affecting the radiators in the rest of the home. It’s also great for when you go away because you can turn them down to the frost protection setting, your home won’t be heated while you’re away, but if the temperature goes low enough, the radiators will kick in to prevent pipes freezing. You may need help getting these installed.

Tyre Pressure Gauge: Here’s one way to cut carbon emissions that many of us forget about. Check the air pressure of your car’s tyres to make sure that you’re running as efficiently (and safely) as possible. Over-inflated tyres can put you at risk of a dangerous blow-out, and under-inflated tyres are a waste of fuel.

Dryer Balls: Let’s face facts. Dryers are energy guzzling monsters. I wouldn’t have one in my home if you paid me to. But if you are going to go down that route, then get yourself a set of these dryer balls to reduce drying time, thereby reducing energy consumption too. When you’re using dryer balls you can cut out fabric softeners and drying sheets, which will also save you some money. If the weather is good and you have access to a washing line, forget using the dryer and let the sunshine kiss your laundry.

Boys love toys, and that doesn’t change when they grow up. Here are a couple of ideas for toys to delight the boys in your life this Christmas:

The H-Racer is the world’s smallest hydrogen powered fuel-cell car, a futuristic toy car containing one of the most exciting and advanced technologies of the 21st century. With new advances in technology, hydrogen is on its way to becoming the world’s next fuel. The H-racer is the working miniature version of what is being developed in real-size cars of the future, which are also called “zero emissions vehicles”. Boys of all ages would love one of these.

Watch this video for a little taster of the H-Racer:

Way more impressive than a kite, and easier to get launched, the Science Museum’s Solar Airship will guarantee a fun-filled Christmas afternoon (guarantee only applies if there’s a bit of sunshine) for the boys (and girls too). Just a small amount of sunlight will get the 8-metre monster into the air. It comes complete with tether and cable ties to make sure it doesn’t fly away. And no need to worry about going on an involuntary airship ride, it would take at least 150 of these to lift an average adult.

Watch it in action on this video:

For a few more eco-friendly ideas for grown up boys, check out my post on wind up gadgets over at the Christmas Shopping Blog.

What sort of gift do you give somebody whose sole purpose in life is saving the planet? If you have a greener than green eco-warrior in your circle of friends or family who’s a bit handy, and has their own home that he or she would like to take off-grid, how about getting them started with a solar panel?

Depending on the size and output of the panel that you choose, they could run anything from a light to a television set off it. Producing your own power at home from renewable sources (like the sun) is called renewable micro-generation. And there are lots of good reasons why micro-generation is becoming more and more popular. Here are some of the benefits that a solar panel would bring to the eco-warrior:

1. It saves money and protects them from energy price fluctuations.

2. It’s a great status symbol for the eco-warrior. It’s a physical sign to others that they care about the environment and are doing their bit.

3. Others in their neighbourhood will see how easy solar panels are to install and use, spreading the word about renewable micro-generation.

This is a great gift for anyone, but one that eco-warriors in particular will appreciate.

Use your household’s burnable waste to get your fire going this festive season. That’s right. Forget chopping down trees to get your chestnuts roasted. Don’t even think about buying those petroleum based “logs” from the supermarket. Get yourself one of these nifty gadgets and you can turn your household and garden burnable waste into free logs for your open-fire, wood burning stove or chiminea. Logs are ready to burn as soon as they come out of the Recycled Waste Logmaker, and will last for between 10 minutes and one hour, depending on their contents.

Around 30% of the average household’s kitchen bin is suitable for use in the Recycled Waste Logmaker: shredded junk mail, shredded paper, newspaper, wrappings from food and household products, cardboard, tissues, ripped up toilet rolls, olive stones, nuts, tea-bags (dried), used coffee beans and coal dust can all be used, as can chopped twigs and branches, sawdust and dried leaves and foliage from your garden. Just keep a separate bin for your burnable waste so you always have something available to make your logs out of, and you’ll be significantly reducing the amount of waste you send to landfill, while keeping warm this winter.

I don’t like fruit cake, never have. But I do like this cake, and it’s a great alternative to Christmas cake. My late Auntie Laney made this regularly, and I’ve updated her recipe to include organic and fair trade ingredients. So let’s put on that apron and get into the kitchen for a spot of pre-Christmas baking.

Auntie Laney’s Tealoaf

500g organic self-raising flour
250g organic raisins
250g organic sultanas
1 cup organic fair trade sugar
100g organic almonds, chopped
1 slab of fair trade dark chocolate, chopped
3 free-range organic eggs
1 cup fresh fair trade tea

Soak the raisins and sultanas in the tea overnight. Beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and sugar mixture to the soaked fruit and mix well. Add chopped almonds and chocolate. Lastly, add the flour and mix in well.

Put the mixture into a well greased loaf pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 200′C/400′F/gas mark 6 for 1 hour. If the cake starts going a little too brown on top for your liking, cover it with some recycled aluminium foil.

Cool, slice and serve.

So often when considering ethical or eco-friendly purchases as gifts for others we are doing so because of the whole “gift that gives back” angle. Buying green gives back to the planet, buying fair trade gives back to the producer, and so on. But how often is a gift that you give one that the recipient, the planet, the producers, and you will also benefit from? This is one of those gifts.

Lingerie has been given by men to their sweethearts for centuries, and yes, it is a selfish gift because part of the motivation (if not all of the motivation) is to be able to see her in it. But I doubt the practice would have continued this long if women didn’t like receiving lingerie from their lovers. Who doesn’t like a little appreciation to make them feel good about themselves and their body? Knowing that someone finds you attractive is a wonderful confidence booster, not to mention aphrodisiac.

So here are some lingerie gift ideas for your green goddess. Adorn your beloved in 100% organic cotton, sexy yet tasteful, sensual yet down-to-earth. And guys, make sure you know her size before ordering!