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Speak to Eco Designer about creating the perfect Eco Home

Speak to Eco Designer about creating the perfect Eco Home

Eco Homes are Spreading all Over the UK

Have you seen petrol prices recently? With the cost of electricity and gas also continuing to rise, living in an eco home is becoming ever more appealing. In response, eco home developments are sprouting all over the country as the desire for a low carbon, low energy consumption style of living grows in popularity.

Would you like to pay only £33 in energy bills per month?

Earlier this month the Architectural Heritage Week in Dorset opened up seven eco homes to the public for an event entitled Greendar 2012. The aim was to enable people with an interest in eco living to see real life examples of eco homes and to speak to their owners to get ideas on eco improvements they could make to lower their energy bills.

The homes on show varied from an innovative modern eco home to houses built in the 1970s and even a historic listed building dating back to the 1700s. What they all had in common was that they used green building technology, like electricity monitors, solar panels and rainwater recycling, along with eco materials, like recycled plastics, mineral fibre and sheeps-wool, to reduce their carbon footprint. These changes enable the homes’ owners to vastly reduce their energy bills, with one resident paying only £33 per month in gas and electricity.

Greendar 2012 was a huge success, with 260 people visiting the seven eco homes over two days. The event demonstrated the enormous interest and appetite for a more environmentally way of living which can reduce our reliance on gas and electricity.

Dorset’s Olympic Village of eco homes goes on sale

Visitors to Greendar might have been interested to know that just down the road in Portland, south of Weymouth, a whole development of eco homes is now up for sale. What’s more, the eco homes’ previous residents were Olympic and Paralympic athletes competing in sailing events on Dorset’s coast.

Among the residents was Team GB’s Ben Ainslie, who won gold in the Finn Sailing Class, leading to a central area being named Ben Ainslie Square. At the time of writing, half of the 77 eco homes in Dorset’s Olympic Village have now been sold. Now doubt buyers were attracted by the developments’ Olympic links and their communal wood-pellet boilers, rainwater harvesting and low energy lighting.

Gary Neville’s ‘Teletubby’ eco home gets the green light 

Ex-Manchester United footballer and Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has now received clearance to build his controversial eco home. After agreeing not to install a 100 foot wind turbine, his plans to construct the Northwest’s first carbon neutral home have been approved.

Harnessing the latest eco design technology, such as ground source heat pumps, sustainable rainwater harvesting and solar panels, Neville’s home will be a ‘Code 6’ eco home, which is the highest available score on the government’s energy rating system –  his dedication to environmentally friendly eco home design is to be applauded.

What Arsenal’s New Football Kit has in Common with an Eco Chair

What Arsenal’s New Football Kit has in Common with an Eco Chair

What Arsenal’s New Football Kit has in Common with an Eco Chair               

You won’t often read about football on this blog, but Arsenal’s new kit deserves a mention. Not for its eye catching design and garish colours but because it’s made from recycled materials and is their ‘most environmentally friendly to date’. The next time you see Arsenal’s players run onto the pitch each player will be wearing a kit made from 13 recycled plastic bottles – which we think deserves an extra round of applause. 

Arsenal has pots of cash to spend on the best, highest quality clothing materials around. So their decision to use eco textiles for their new football kit, which will be seen by millions of viewers around the world, reflects how far eco design has come. Rather than coarse and scratchy, Arsenal has chosen a material for their kit that’s just as breathable, comfortable to wear and durable as any artificial material – except it’s much kinder to our planet to produce.

Arsenal isn’t the only major brand to use eco textiles made from recycled materials. Safeways in the US is reported to be selling eco chairs made from recycled plastic bottles too (hence the title of this post). Recycled plastic is just one material that can be used to make eco chairs. So if Arsenal’s kit designers are reading this, here are some other materials that can be used to make eco chairs (and maybe even football kits): 

Eco leather – Stain and fire resistant, eco leather is made from recycled leather fibre and offcuts that would normally go from the tannery straight to landfill. As well as hard wearing, you can spill coffee, wine or fizzy drinks on it and then simply wipe it clean – making it the perfect material for a luxurious eco chair. 

Eco textiles – Eco chairs, cushions and curtains can be made from a wide variety of sustainably harvested textiles, such as wool, organic cotton and hemp. These materials can also be treated with vegetable inks which are less toxic and emit lower VOCs (volatile organic compound).

Wood – Sustainably harvested hardwood is one of the most common materials for eco chairs. When shopping around make sure to check for the FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) stamp of approval. The FSC label gives you the reassurance knowing that any trees chopped down to make eco chair will be replaced with new trees.

Plastic – Along with plastic bags and plastic bottles, lightweight yet durable eco chairs can be made from recycled polypropylene, which is the most environmentally friendly form of recycled plastic

How to Decorate Your Eco Table for an Eco Summer Party

How to Decorate Your Eco Table for an Eco Summer Party

Looking out of the window right now, it’s difficult to believe that summer will ever arrive. But with a few months left, it’s worth getting preparations in order if you want to have a planet friendly eco birthday party. After all, if the worst comes to the worst, you can still have it indoors by covering your eco tables with a tablecloth made from eco textiles, like hemp, organic cotton or linen.

 If you’ve ever held a children’s birthday party before you’ll know how they can create masses of waste to be slung in plastic bags and dumped in our overflowing landfill sites. Even worse the party bags, balloons and toys are often made from plastic, which doesn’t degrade and will pollute our soils forever.

 So if you’d like to have an environmentally friendly party this summer, here are some ideas for how you can do it without sacrificing your eco consciousness:

Eco party ware – Paper plates and plastic cups might be quick to clean up but they’re not very kind to the planet. So consider getting some organic tableware made from sustainably harvested bamboo, palm leaf, sugarcane or natural wheat fibre. Along with being longer lasting and luxurious, these materials are biodegradable. So should you ever need to throw them away they won’t cause long-term damage to the planet.

Organic cutlery – Plastic knives and forks don’t have many positives: they’re difficult to eat with and aren’t biodegradable. They might save washing up time, but a more eco conscious option would be to set your eco table with eco friendly birch cutlery. You might need to spend an extra five minutes washing up, but they can be reused afterwards and are biodegradable, should you ever need to throw them away. 

Eco placemats – On your eco table, instead of plastic placemats, why not use placemats made from recycled materials like vinyl or palm leaf? You could also provide your guests with some spongy cork coasters to complete your eco table’s environmentally friendly credentials.

Eco party bags – Made from plastic and packed with plastic toys, traditional party bags must give environmentalists nightmares. Thankfully, there are greener materials that can be used for party bags, like luxurious cotton or paper. Instead of cheap plastic toys, which get thrown away after barely being played with, why not pack your bags with balsa wood toy planes, mini plywood jigsaws and other gifts made from sustainable harvested wood and painted with non-toxic natural dyes. 

Latex balloons – No party is complete without balloons. Thankfully you can still ensure your party goes off with a ‘bang’ by decorating the space around your eco table with brightly coloured balloons made from latex and tied with ribbons coloured with natural dyes.

Turn Your House into an Eco Home with Eco Furniture

Turn Your House into an Eco Home with Eco Furniture

With tackling global warming, pollution and our shrinking rainforests high on the agenda, living an ecological lifestyle is seen as the responsible thing to do. This is why eco furniture is growing in popularity all the time.

It seems inevitable that eco houses will become more widespread in the future. And eco furniture, such as eco chairs, eco tables and eco sofas, enables you to start living in your own eco home today.

Why We Need Eco Furniture

Some scientists estimate that half the world’s mature tropical rainforests have already been cut down in the last 50 years, and that we could be left with only a fifth of the world’s rainforests by 2030.

With rainforests so vital for reducing pollution and global warming, it’s essential that we find more sustainable ways of living. And this applies to the way we furnish our homes too.

Eco furniture is built from recyclable materials or those from sustainable sources. Being made from recyclable parts means they can be easily disassembled and reused, whilst wooden eco furniture, such as eco chairs and eco beds, is made from wood taken from ecologically managed forests.

The environmental impact of eco furniture is also minimised by sourcing materials locally. This reduces the carbon emissions produced by transporting them to the workshop, compared to the pollution created by planes and ships hauling them across the Atlantic.

Longer lasting

A lot of cheap, mass produced furniture isn’t designed with longevity in mind. So it often deteriorates and breaks after a few years, instead of lasting a lifetime, as well designed furniture should. This leads to unwanted furniture becoming dumped into our already overflowing rubbish tips.

Eco furniture, on the other hand, is designed to be durable and easy to repair. This helps it to last a lot longer than furniture which isn’t designed with sustainability in mind. So investing in eco furniture makes smart economic as well as ecological sense.

Elegant and comfortable

Going green and creating your own eco home doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice on comfort and style. Eco furniture is just as luxurious, comfortable and attractive as any conventional item of furniture.

In fact, lying in your own eco bed in your eco house can offer a heightened sense of comfort knowing you’ve helped to reduce pollution, save trees and take care of the planet at the same time.