Eco Gifts - Ethical & Fairtrade Gifts

A shower coach for 'slow-coaches'

A handy little device that every household should have.  Someone at home hog your bathroom?  Got a flatmate who says she's going to 'pop into the shower for five minutes' only to emerge a full two hours later?

As water conservation becomes ever more important, this great water saving device will train you to save water when having a shower.  More importantly it just might give you a very handy excuse to make sure you can get your turn a little more quickly.

   The Shower Coach shower timer times exactly 5 minutes, showing you when it's time to turn the shower off. According to the BBC's water saving tips: taking a 5 minute shower every day rather than a bath uses a third of the water and will save 400 litres of water a week. The Shower Coach sticks to the wall with a sucker on the back, and you can rotate it on the wall - just like an egg timer. It looks very simple, but it is very effective. 

The device is great as a gift, for children or for anyone who spends too long in the shower! Currently available for £4.99 you can click here to take a closer look and make your purchase.

Organic & Fairtrade Wines - a handy tip

  The truth is that most of the wine we drink (and we consume quite a bit of the stuff) has travelled many thousands of miles to reach our kitchens and dining rooms.  It's also probably laced with a number of preservatives. 

There are a growing number of British organic wine growers, but it is still early days and these wines are pretty expensive.  For Fairtrade wines you should simply look for the Fairtrade label on the bottle.  With these wines the farmers  should have received fair trade prices for their grapes, as well as free technical advice and assistance. Traidraft offer a variety of individual bottles, as well as crates, on their website. 

The ultimate eco gift - the eco holiday!

An article in todays Guardian newspaper focuses on the growing market for Green travel.

Anyone who thinks that recycled furniture and compost toilets mean a poor standard of accomodation should think again.  Varied degrees of comfort are available, with the hotels, apartments and lodges promising everything from solar power to organic restaurants.

On a recent trip to Cornwall we viewed the beautiful Trelowarren Estate (its pool area pictured above) on the Helford River. 

This historic, 1000-acre private estate on The Lizard peninsula has been transformed by restoring its environment and converting old or abandoned buildings to provide a real alternative to holiday inflation, based on green principles.  Week long stays in its cottages are currently avaialble for under £500.  For further details on self-catering holidays available on the estate click here.

Doy Bags, Juice Pack Bags, call them what you will..

I first saw these bags at the Science Museum shop in London shop a few months back. To tell the truth, I had no idea that these bags were environmentally friendly, I just thought that they looked pretty cool.

 

Colourful and fun, these bags are made from recycled juice packs by a women's cooperative in the Phillipines. They come in a range of styles and colours, and will make a great eco gift.

These bags are available at a range of online gift stores specialising in environmentally friendly products.  To have a look at the full range take a look here or here.

  The bags are made from recycled juice packs, non-biodegradable foil and plastic packaging which would otherwise go into landfill sites and incinerators.  They range in price from £5 to around £25.  So its a funky gift, that isn't too pricey, that also does quite a bit for the environment.  They don't make your shopping feel any lighter, but other than that not bad at all really!

Organic Gift Set's for men, women and babies

These beautifully presented gift sets come from Spiezia Organics. A Cornwall based company, they have been certified 100% organic by the Soil Association .  All their products are handmade using herbs, flowers, oils and nothing else. They don't even use water in their creams.

Because all of their products are certified organic by the Soil Association, this gift will help your recipient care for himself/herself, their health and the environment.

Spiezia Women’s Organic Gift Set is a sensual organic gift set for her, containing three carefully selected organic skincare balms from the Spiezia collection, to help nourish and revitalise the skin. Comprises:

Organic Daytime Moisturiser (30ml), Easily absorbed, it helps soften and revitalise the skin, giving it a healthy glow.

Organic Floral Skin Toner (100ml), a light and refreshing toner to give your skin a boost without drying it. Alcohol-free.

Organic Facial Cleanser (60ml), handmade using carefully blended herbs and oils to deeply cleanse the skin.

Spiezia Men’s Organic Gift Set is a masculine organic gift set that contains three fabulous organic products for men, all created to help nourish and soothe, a perfect present for this season. Comprises:

Organic Men’s Nourishing Cream (30ml), to help revitalise the skin

Organic Men’s Body Oil (100ml), specially formulated to help moisturise and revitalise the skin, whilst freshening and toning at the same time

Organic Aftershave Oil (30ml), created to soften and protect the skin after shaving. Alcohol-free.

A gift set is also available for  a new born baby. To purchase one of these gift sets visit Natural Collection or simply click here to be taken to their site.

Wind Up Eco Media Player - Gadgets getting ethical!

Good old Trevor Bayliss.  Not content with the simple wind-up radio, he has brought his invention well and truly into the 21st century with the eco media player.

 

Retailing at a reasonable £169.99 this item lets you watch your favourite movies or music videos, listen to mp3 music files, tune into the radio and evn charge your phone. This wind up and rechargeable video and music player has 2Gb storage, and you can easily add to this with plug in SD cards.

The eco wind-up system means that you never need to worry about running out of power or wasting environmentally harmful batteries - one minute of winding gives up to 40 minutes of play time. For those with small biceps, the device can also be charged via the USB port of your computer (but that's cheating really!)

For more information on this and similar environmentally products and eco friendly gifts, visit Nigels Eco Store or click here.

Back to school with recycled pencils and pencil cases

On holiday in Cornwall earlier this Summer we found a great shop selling a range of eco-friendly products.  The shop is called Seasalt and they currently have outlets only in Cornwall and Devon.

Fortunately their full range of products is available online.  In a week where children and students are going back into education its a good time to highlight the excellent  range of recycled products they have for students.

 
For example, the pencils made from CD cases.  This pack of 10 HB grade pencils retails for £3.00. Made from recycled CD cases, packaging made from 70% post consumer waste and 30% sustainable forest wood and printed using vegetable based inks.

Recycled pens, colouring pencils and notepads are also available.

We also like the recycled pencil cases made from car tyres.  Currently retailing at £3.50, the pencil case with a zip fastener is made from 1mm thick recycled tyre material.  All cases are black but have coloured zips and printing (in blue, green or pink).

 

To view their full range of products visit the Seasalt website or click here.