Remarkable are the stationery company that make plastic cups into pencils. We think this is pretty amazing. After all, not every stationery company out there's so clever to design bright, quality and eco-friendly products. The man behind the idea to recycle car tyres into note pads is Edward Douglas Millerin and began, as most good ideas do, by experimenting with ways to turn everyday throw away materials into something useful. What resulted was a collection of fun and functional products that had a long second - reincarnated - life.

The brand's philosophy ‘is to create recycled items that are well-designed, great quality and a joy to own.' Remarkable have a strong green credentials. As part of their environmental policy they endeavour ‘to develop technology and provide products that will be sensitive to the earth's finite resources and environment through the use of recycled and sustainable materials.' This month we launch the new look Remarkable range. There are even a few new products to discover and play with!

Whilst investigating this truly remarkable brand we came across the secret recipe for creating recycled plastic cup pencil...

Ingredients:

• Recycled plastic cups (1 per pencil)


• Graphite (enough to fill the middle bit)


• 1 x pencil-making machine


• water-bath (cooling tank)


• Tim (he makes them)


• Secret ingredient (makes plastic behave like wood)


• Sharpening machine

Collect as many plastic cups as possible and stop them from going to landfill.
Wash off all the tea and coffee off and shred them into tiny pieces.
Preheat pencil machine to 180oC (30 mins)
Mix some of the plastic cups into the graphite and pour into the pencil machine.
Take the rest of the plastic cup material and pour into the other side of the pencil machine. Watch closely while all the material is melted (technical term: extruded) and brought together to create one long pencil (this is another secret bit). Ensure there is always a continuous length of pencil leaving the machine.
Allow the pencil to cool and harden as it passes through the water-bath (cooling tank)
Cut long pencil into smaller standard pencil size lengths.
Sharpen and leave until ready for printing.
(Easy job Tim, the machine seems to do it all for you.)

Please note we are not entirely sure if this recipe was a distraction from the real secret processes and would not advise adults try this at home.

This month's free gift when you spend over £50 at So Organic is a Remarkable suprise. You may get a recycled ruler and pencil or a car tyre notebook. Very nice indeedy.

What better time than January - month of the New Year Resolution - to start planning ways to green up your house. CarbonNeutral.com can help you out in this department - they say that everyone can reduce the carbon footprint of their home to zero. "Around 20 per cent through small, long-lasting changes inside the home and 80 per cent by international carbon offsets." Which means every kilo of CO2 you produce you need to offset by putting the equivalent money into eco-friendly projects i.e. you could donate money to the World Land Trust or get involved in a tree planting scheme.

Some of the ways you can reduce the carbon footprint of your home in order to reduce the amount of carbon offsets you need to make are:

• Double glaze your windows to keep the heat in


• Use solar panels for energy


• Insulate your roof


• Buy white goods with an A energy rating


• Fit energy saving light bulbs


• Switch off appliances at the wall and that includes computers!


• Replace your old boiler with a condensing boiler (according to CarbonNeutral.com this will save 1,100kg of CO2 a year)


• Switch energy suppliers. Ecotricity is the only UK supplier reinvesting in extra capacity / renewable sources. They're also in the top six companies on price so it needn't cost you or the earth!

As we're still in the midst of winter - these ones may have to wait until spring but you could certainly get a start on the preparations, like researching where to source materials.

• Create a compost heap and add to your garden with organic matter rather than buying oil based pesticides and plant growing enhancers


• Use a water butt to collect rain for watering your garden


• Line dry your washing - we all know how energy zapping tumble dryers are!

If anyone saw Breakfast News on the BBC or read the front page of the Daily Mail website this morning you may have been as gobsmacked as us organic-ites at the the state of recycling in the UK. It has been revealed that a significant amount of the paper and card we have come to habitually recycle is not being used. That's right - our waste is being wasted.

The poor global economic conditions has meant that our biggest recycled paper buyer, China, is demanding less of our paper waste. The result - prices have dropped (£70/ton to £10/ton in the last six weeks) and the excess which can't be sold is being stored. What's more, recycling contracters charge councils for their stored waste and taxpayers receive the bill. The alternative would be councils sent our paper waste to landfill and foot a bigger bill which will of course be passed on to us also.

Matthew Elliott, from the TaxPayers' Alliance, told the Daily Mail: ‘When the economy is in recession and families are struggling to pay their bills and fear for their jobs, councils need to think hard about the future of these schemes. We all want to do our bit for the environment, but we can't afford higher tax bills this year.'

This is disheartening and extremely frustrating for avid recyclers and the response is understandable given the time and hope invested in recycling programs. But here's something to think about - why has the market in recycleble material really dropped? We're buying less largly due to the credit crunch but we are also largely still choosing non recycled products over recycled ones.

Yes, the less we consume the better off the environment will be, but when we do spend our hard earned cash we must make a more concerted effort to buy stuff that uses less packaging, that can be refilled, reused AND recycled. It's time to promote sustainable recycling - that's for long term and that which incorporated our entire lifestyle.

We can't take this market challenge as an excuse to fear higher council taxes and stop our recycling efforts. We are alllll part of the solution. If we don't buy the recycled loo paper, recycled office paper or support smaller companies who offer recycled alternatives how can we expect our councils recycling contracters to magic up the demand for our household recyclables?

For those who say buying recycled products is more expensive - we say not in the long run. The cost may be more immediate - ie 10p more for that loo roll made from recycled paper - but overall the cost of not recycling is massive. We can't afford not to recycle and buy recyled products.

Let's make the collective effort and choose wisely - there are companies like Neal's Yard (whose bottles are all made for recycled plastic) and Remarkable (whose business is about making cool recycled stationary) who go out of there way to support recycling manufacturers. Let's go out of our way to support them.

In time for the post Christmas throw away period when old clothes and old technologies get replaced with the latest and greatest version, So Organic have joined up with Greener Solutions to provide a means to recycle old mobile phones.

Postage is free so there is no cost to anyone who wishes to recycle an old phone. What's more, for every phone sent to Greener Solutions £2.50 will be donated to the Woodland Trust, a not-for-profit organisation working to save some of the oldest forests from being logged and overtaken by multi-nationals trying to strip untouched land of valuable resources.

We will have the bags in our Greenwich store and will be sending them out with every order made online.

Giving up smoking as a New Years resolution has a whole lot more weight to it in these developing eco conscious times. The process of using nicotine and other chemicals to make cigarettes uses a lot of energy and creates pollution by virtue of the distances travelled to get the ingredients together and deliver that finished Marlboro pack to the supermarket cigarette counter. Smoking of course is also polluting the atmosphere, not just of your lungs and your families but those of nature. So eco-conscious times call for resolutions that go beyond benefiting our health and our personal desires. It's time to resolve on making our planet a cleaner place to live... more importantly to start taking actions towards ensuring it's still inhabitable for future generations to come.

There's no need to quit your job, don a beaded headscarf and join the peace corps (not that there is anything wrong with that) to contribute to the eco cause. It can be as simple as making a few easy changes, for example:
* Photocopy on both sides
* Drink fairtrade (coffee); Eat fairtrade (chocolate)
* Praise others for making steps in the right eco direction
* Start using eco-friendly washing powder
* Challenge your work about their lights on at night policy
* Swap the products you use for your daily beauty routine (moisturiser, cleanser, make up) from high street brands to organic, chemical free brands
* Educate yourself - find out where your lunch has come from and choose local ingredients where possible
* Take the stairs

Here are a few of the So Organic teams New Years Eco Resolutions:

Sam...

1. Get involved in a regular organic veg box scheme 2. Find out where I can recycle my tetra paks locally

Stuart...

1. Drink more organic beer 2. Recycle more

Claire...

1. Change to a more ethical bank 2. Do a course on how to make my own biofuel

Christelle...

1. Buy, where possible, from ethical and Fairtrade companies 2. Eat more organic food

Chris...

1. Eat organic sausages 2. Actually put our recycling in the recycling box (rather than leaving it for my flatmate)

And mine...

1. Visit a biodynamic/organic farm 2. Learn how to grow my own vegetables