Recycle week - make your pledge now!

The lovely people at WRAP have launched Recycle Week to encourage more recycling. We're invited to make a pledge, set ourselves a forfeit and nominate a friend to check up on us. Suggested pledges are listed on the site, acting as a useful prompt about things we should all be doing as a matter of course.
The Recycle Now website is bright and visually appealing, with engaging graphics and all the usual social media connections. On the practical side, there are tips for recycling at home, in the garden and at school, and a separate section for home composting. There's also a useful guide to what can be recycled and how, and a search for recycling activities in your postcode area. So no excuses for not getting involved!

Back to the future

A 1950s revival is apparently sweeping the nation as an escape from the ubiquitous virtual world of the internet, Wi and iPod. Old-fashioned pastimes such as knitting and baking are regaining popularity as an antidote to the mass production of industry that has all but wiped out craft skills. Although a modern twist has been added to knitting with the advent of yarn bombing, where taggers create knitted items and then display them prominently - for example as "bollard cosies". There are even knitting circles with attitude, called Stitch 'N' Bitch.

Elsewhere, thirty-somethings disenchanted with a world where technology has overtaken everything are attending tea dances and retro evenings where the entertainment is provided by swing bands and burlesque. Advocates claim this return to the simpler pleasures is meditative and calming, a view that's supported by Dr Colin Gill of the British Psychological Society who considers the over-worked and under-appreciated are seeking solace in tradition.

Unplugged activity is a great way to reduce energy consumption, and in my house the board game is undergoing something of a renaissance. This one one trend I'm happy to follow.

Happy World Environment Day

World Environment Day (WED) - June 5th - was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. It's one of the UN's key activities to promote worldwide awareness of the environment and enhance political attention and action. It has four key aims:

• Give a human face to environmental issues;
• Empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development;
• Promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes towards environmental issues;
• Advocate partnership which will ensure all nations and peoples enjoy a safer and more prosperous future.

This year's theme is 'Your Planet Needs You-UNite to Combat Climate Change', to reflect the urgency for nations to agree on a new deal at the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen this December.

The World Environment Day site has some lovely features: There's a daily "Do something" tip on the front page - and a link to a list of other useful actions - and a Twitter for Trees campaign where UNEP will plant one tree for every follower it has by 5th June. Plus there's an inspiring profile of Climate Heroes which should encourage us all.

Greenpeace Cool IT Challenge

A new campaign by Greenpeace builds on the experience of the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics by seeking to engage public pressure - and a little humour - to move IT industry giants towards action on climate change. Greenpeace wants the IT industry movers and shakers to adopt a leadership role in the run-up to Copenhagen. According to the Smart2020 report, although the IT industry is responsible for 2% of global emissions, it has the technology to enable 15% cuts across the industry, buildings, transport and power sectors. And it's this potential that Greenpeace wants to harness with its new Cool IT campaign.

It has a Green CEO league table and a scorecard showing the progress of the twelve chosen organisations towards three key objectives:

• Providing IT solutions and accurately measuring the impacts these solutions provide for the rest of the economy (in areas such as grid transmission, transport and building efficiency);
• Lobbying for a strong climate deal in Copenhagen that would stimulate an increase in demand for IT-driven climate solutions by the rest of the economy; and
• Reducing their own emissions and increasing their use of renewable energy.

Visitors to the site are encouraged to join up, choose 5 CEOs to follow, invite their friends and follow the campaign via Twitter and blogs. Greenpeace says it will update the campaign regularly in the run-up to Copenhagen.

It's an interesting idea, and it's good that Greenpeace are trying to extend their reach into the maintream, but the idea seems a little simplistic and the rating system relies too heavily on what companies say, rather than what they do. there's a danger here that it's the greenwashers that emerge the heroes, and that won't benefit either Greenpeace's credibility or the climate change debate.

UK worst at recycling

A study by Dell, published on the BBC website, suggests Britons are the worst in Europe when it comes to recycling electrical equipment. The survey found that fewer than half of UK residents regularly recycled old hardware, compared with more than 80% of Germans. Within the UK, the Welsh are the worst when it comes to recycling technology products; almost 20% have never done so.

The results are similar to the findings of Kyocera in a survey last year, which found that only 56% of respondents recycled end-of-life IT equipment. By industry sector, retail/media/leisure were worst at 50% and manufacturing/construction/utilities best at 61%.

It is thought the UK creates enough electrical waste each year to fill Wembley Stadium six times over. Under WEEE legislation, suppliers of electrical and electronic equipment have a legal obligation to take back end of life equipment when a new item is purchased, and dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner.

In praise of low-fi theatre

With CGI and other digital techniques making increasing inroads into entertainment media, it sometimes feels like the story is lost behind the special effects. But Nic Rawling has devised a new concept that harks back to a simpler time when storytelling was a central element of human culture, rather than a multi-million pound industry.

The Paper Cinema combines live animation with live music to create an experience which is almost like watching a film being made in your living room. The elements are simple - black ink line drawings, cut out and mounted onto recycled card to create sets and characters, which are animated live via an antiquated video camera and projected onto a screen. The tiny original drawings are enlarged on the screen, but still retain a compelling intimacy. The action is accompanied by a musical score played primarily on guitar and violin by a single musician. And that's all. The entire show fits in three small cases, making it portable enough to play at music festivals and other makeshift venues. A large part of its charm is the fact that the animation takes place in plain view so that you can see how the illusion is created, and the performance we attended was preceded by a workshop where we could try the techniques for ourselves.

The current repertoire includes two pieces. King Pest, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, is a dark tale of pestilence and plague, scary enough to see off some of the more timid children in the audience. Night Flyer is an original story of a young man's quest to find and rescue a flying girl, still rather dark and gothic but with a touch of romance.

It's not entirely unplugged, but The Paper Cinema is still sufficiently low-fi to qualify as low-carbon entertainment. And with no technological barrier between the audience and the artists, the result is a show that is as authentic as it is entertaining. You can find out more at www.thepapercinema.com.

Round the World without flying

Hats off to Tom Fewins and Lara Lockwood who recently returned from a round-the-world trip during which they didn't take a single flight. Instead, they travelled a total of 44,609 miles on 78 buses, 61 trains, 34 cars, 18 boats, three bicycles, two mopeds and an elephant. You can read a great interview about their journey here.

Tom proposed to Lara on a container ship in the middle of the Pacific, and she said yes. I wonder what sort of honeymoon they'll have?