New Year, New City

Three days into the new year, and I found myself in a new house in a new city. Leaving Nottingham after 6 years and coming to London wasn't a difficult choice to make. I've been meaning to move to London for a while, and so here I am. Nottingham had lots of good points, not least for being cheaper to live in, but I have grown a little tired of travelling up and down the good old Midland Mainline between London and Nottingham. I thought it was time to see if the pavements are really lined with gold here in London - well, at least travelling around the country will be easier. As of course all the train operators tend to spiral out from the capital city. So despite living bang in the middle of the UK in Nottingham, it wasn't always helpful for train services. Now I'm living in South London and adjusting myself to a faster pace of life.

The move was nothing short of stressful. Downsizing to a one bedroomed flat with all our stuff came as a massive challenge over Christmas. The local charity shops did very well, but I was distressed to see how much we also threw away. Some to recycle, some - shamefully - not. All this taught me a valuable lesson - not to accumulate rubbish- or things! Things, things, things. Do we really need them? My method of keeping or getting rid, became a task of deciding if I'd miss the possession after a week of not seeing it. The answer was usually no, and so it had to go. Now I'm in London and thankfully everything fitted into the flat. We'll see how life in south London compares to life up north. So far, so good.

recycling ecoescape: part 1

Thanks to Arthur at Calverts, we have our first suggestion of how to go about recycling well loved and well read ecoescapes at the end of next year.

Fuel for the fire

ecoescape can be turned into a very handy log for your open fire or the barbeque. You just have to follow some very easy instructions and incredibly the briquette will burn for 1 - 2 hours and leave a very small ash deposit!

1. Take one very well used guide and remove staple.

2. Half fill a bucket with water.

3. To the bucket add the old copy of the guide, and any other newspaper you have lying about.

4. Soak until you have a gooey pulpy mush.

5. Next you will need something to squeeze out the excess water. You can buy them here or here. Put the mush in the briquette maker, squeeze and leave until dry to form a very handy brick shape or 'log'. Logs can be made without the briquette maker providing pulp is dried out and compressed properly.

6. Alternatively, the pulp can be added in small amounts to a compost heap.

You may wonder why we are talking about ecoescape's return to the ashes before it has even been printed, but that's how much we care about what it means to create a product which is sustainable and part of a life cycle and not simply thrown into landfill. If you have more ideas for ecoescape's after life email info@ecoescape.org. Don't forget ecoescape will return with a new installment in 2008!