Save Money, Reduce Rubbish: Workshops with Tracey Smith

The Book of Rubbish Ideas positively celebrates reducing waste in your home and keeping more money in your pocket by being savvy with some of your shopping ideas. Of course, cooking from fresh is a terrific way of combining both and I’ve been doing it for years.  I started making simple recipe loaves and rolls [...]

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Exciting Times Ahead

Firstly, if you have a copy of The Book of Rubbish Ideas, then well done! It is now completely sold out and you are one of a very select group of people who got in first and are probably far more environmentally passionate than average! If you didn’t manage to get your hands on a copy, [...]

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Moving on from The Book of Rubbish Ideas

2010 has been an incredible year for Tracey Smith, author of The Book of Rubbish Ideas and it’s about to roll out with a BANG! Tomorrow morning, on BBC Breakfast Television News and on BBC World, the Global News Network, she’ll be giving her top tips on what to do with a rubbish present….and perhaps [...]

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Tracey Smith on Newsnight Tonight?

I might well have been, had I lived closer to the centre of the universe (London that is). Late this afternoon, I received an invitation to appear on tonight’s Newsnight on the BBC; it seems they’re going to be talking a load of old rubbish…

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(Rubbish) Free Easter egg hunts on organic farms: reserve a place now!

What better way to spend Easter than on a family-friendly egg hunt on an organic farm? Choco experts Green & Blacks are giving away 5,000 dark and milk chocolate eggs to smooth the way for the Soil Association-organised events, most of which are completely free – that’s my kinda afternoon out….

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There’s gonna be a jail break!

Don’t panic, it’s all for charity! You know, a good downshifter loves to practice their ‘blagging skills’… To that end, I thought you might like to hear about Jail Break 2010 from my good friend, Olly Joseph. What does £10 buy? A cinema ticket, a CD, a couple gallons of fuel maybe? Or on 27 [...]

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From the lovely John Naish on The Landfill Prize!

Golf club-shaped urinal, anyone? Motorised ice-cream cone holder? In the depths of the global crunch, why would anyone want to waste precious money on pointless junk that ends up in the trashcan after a couple of uses? But sales of consumer nonsense are still rocketing – stuff such as wand-shaped TV remote controls, desk-top hoovers, [...]

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The Conclusion of My Great North Swim

Not the most fetching of outfits I know, but here’s me in my neoprene wetsuit, getting ready to depart for Lake Windermere to take part in the second Great North Swim. It was the inaugural GNS at Windermere that took place last September that first hooked me in. In 2008, around 2,000 competitors swam a [...]

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Oh, There’s So Much To Catch Up On!

And only one lifetime to do it – eek! Hi all – delighted to be back blogging again on The Book of Rubbish Ideas. After a rock and roll of a summer (well, as much as being an author can ‘be’ rock and roll of course) doing literary festivals around the country, evaluating and playing [...]

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What on Earth’s an Earthship?

I love hearing from people who are doing amazing things to protect and care for our present and future environments for the generations yet to come. I genuinely feel very excited to be one of many optimistic green activists, at a pivotal point in earth’s history; we are the generation that will make incredible positive [...]

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