Ariel has announced the launch of a brand new initiative to donate 80 million litres of safe drinking water to children in developing nations. Working in partnership with the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme and Five and Alive, Ariel will donate 10 litres of safe drinking water for every special promotional pack purchased in the UK from 1 May – the equivalent to a week’s supply of drinking water for a small child in the developing world[1]

The new initiative builds on the success of the Ariel 2006/2007 ‘Turn to 30°’ campaign, which helped to inspire the country to do their bit for the planet and live more sustainably. Working together with Energy Saving Trust, Ariel helped UK households to wash in lower temperatures. The result has been 8 times more loads at 30 degrees to save up to 40% more energy[2].  Now Ariel plans to protect and provide precious water. 

Respected British actress and mother Joely Richardson is supporting the campaign to inspire the British public to help get safe drinking water to families in countries that need it most. Having witnessed first hand the life-saving efforts of the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme in Malawi, Ms Richardson will help to educate people on how their support of the Ariel campaign can truly make a difference abroad. 

Since its launch in 2003, Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme has provided 1 billion litres of clean drinking water for children and their families in need around the world. It has provided clean drinking water to people in 30 developing nations with the introduction of the PUR^TM purifier of water.  Since 2004, Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme has supported Five and Alive’s programmes with an annual contribution of $1.4 million dollars to help further programmes such as distribution of PUR^TM to orphanages in Uganda, school programme in Kenya, clinic programmes and emergency relief response network for Latin America. 

In 2007, the Programme received the Ron Brown US Presidential Award for Corporate Citizenship, the United Nations Association Global Leadership Award, the Grainger Challenge Bronze Award for Sustainability, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Children’s Health Excellence Award. 

Five and Alive is a programme of Population Services International (PSI) – a leading global health organisation. Five and Alive reaches children five and under to prevent and treat malaria, water-borne illness, pneumonia and malnutrition by providing children and their families with the education, products, services and care needed to improve health and save lives in more than 30 countries.

In 2006, PSI’s Five and Alive programme treated over 8.6 billion litres of drinking water, averting 4.1 million cases of water borne illness and saving lives of 6000 children through its safe water programmes alone. 

P&G and Five and Alive have been in partnership for the last three years with the goal of providing safe drinking water in the developing world through household water treatment using P&G’s PUR^TM Purifier of Water. P&G and Five and Alive work together to provide safe drinking water with PUR^TM in Uganda, Kenya, the Dominican Republic, Malawi, Haiti, Pakistan, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia.

Ariel’s safe drinking water donation will be supplied to the countries using PUR^TM technology – sachets of a powder that cleans and purifies water to World Health Organisation standards for safe drinking water, importantly reducing diarrheal illness. Each 4g sachet can purify 10 litres of water, with the campaign aiming to donate a total of 80 million litres of safe drinking water to children in developing nations. 

Greg Allgood, Director of P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme, said: "The campaign comes at an important time, with one billion people in many developing countries unable to have access to safe drinking water. With no running water, these families have no choice but to drink from contaminated rivers and streams which leads to more than 4,000 children dying unnecessarily every day[3]. With the British public’s help, we can continue to expand efforts and provide immediate relief to families in crisis in countries like Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. The power to make a real difference is within our reach."
 
British Actress, Joely Richardson, calls on the British public to get behind the initiative: "I’ve just come back from a trip to Malawi where I saw first hand how the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme and Five and Alive are saving lives. At home we take it for granted that we have clean drinking water literally on tap and it’s staggering that so many countries still don’t have this privilege.  Thankfully there is something we can all do here that can improve the lives of millions of children." 

The initiative will be in UK stores nationwide from 1 May until 30 September 2008. It forms part of the ‘Be Water Wise with Ariel’ 2008 campaign which aims to raise awareness of the importance of water in our day to day lives, both in the UK and abroad. As part of its commitment to sustainability, Ariel is working in partnership with Waterwise, the UK’s leading authority in water efficiency, to encourage the British public to make small changes in the home that can help to protect one of the world’s most precious resources. 

For water saving tips and advice visit www.ariel.co.uk/water. 

[1] Based on approximately 1.5 litres of drinking water per small child for one day.

[2] Research by IPC has shown that UK consumers are already getting the ‘turn to 30′ message with 8 times more loads now being washed at 30 degrees (from 2% in 2002 to 17% in 2007).

[3] Source – World Health Organisation.

Salad Leaves for All Seasons: Organic Growing from Pot to Pot

By Charles Dowding

As a vegetarian myself I thought I knew my stuff when it came to salad – but this book is an eye-opener to say the least!  Not only does it tell you how to grow virtually every salad leaf and herb you’ve ever heard of – but introduced me to the delights of eating the leaves of root vegetables, something (apart from the dill from fennel bulbs) I’d never really explored fully before.  Plus, the book is interspersed with the most glorious photographs, and written in such a way that you just know the author is in love with his subject and will make you fall for it too!

From sowing indoors, when and where to plant, including a fantastic section on winter growing both indoor and out (Yes! Salad in the snow! – no, seriously, indoor growing is very easy), and fabulous advice for small-scale "micro" growing and window boxes, this Salad Bible is informative, passionately written and highly inspiring.  I guarantee you’ll never to pick up another cellophane wrapped supermarket iceberg lettuce or bag of chlorine-rinsed ready made salad again (hoping you wouldn’t have anyway of course!). 

I’ll pick out a few of my personal favourite bits – the section where he describes the flavours is really nice, and very descriptive.  Apparently eating Burnet (what’s that I wondered?) is a bit "like eating paper" (so we’ll give that one a miss then!) whereas Sorrel is described as giving you a "fantastic mouth-filling taste of lemon, with a juicy acidity." But aren’t they just, erm, leaves?  Apparently not – Dowding approaches his subject with the intensity of a wine connoisseur.   I also found the chapter "The Unwanted" (coping with slugs and other pests) actually made me feel sorry for the little blighters, but my husband devoured the chapter after his allotment was basically a party zone for slugs last year.  But the book even helps justify the slugocide as being essential in order to get a decent crop (they just looove eating salad!) and gives the following advice to dispatch them "quickly and mercifully with a firm boot or sharp knife."  Ewwww…..

The recipe section (divided by season) is great too, ensuring vegans and vegetarians will never again feel the boredom of yet another salad – how could they with the recipe for a Micro Leaf Salad containing eleven different leaves…. Or September’s "Dark Red Lettuce with Cucumber, Cashew Nuts and Pumpkin Seeds"?  (I was half expecting a recipe for Leaf IceCream in fact, the book is so comprehensive!).There’s even some great mayonnaise and salad dressing recipes you’ll probably want to use for other purposes.

Anyway, the book is now a firm fixture on my kitchen shelf and I’m looking forward to some year-round slug-free salad growing and eating as it seems there is definitely a salad leaf for every season!

Buy this book at:  http://greenbooks.co.uk/store/product_info.php?products_id=267&osCsid=u4kf4tn5dsjodhtnl7d6fuhun3

Green Books http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/

Review by Lisa Jackson, of Shere Marketing Ethical Communications, and Pulse Assistant Editor

On May 24th 2008, Ben Mills and Gemma Miller will be embarking on a 190 mile walk from Robin Hood’s Bay on the East coast of Britain to St. Bee’s Head on the West.

The route passes through the North Yorkshire Moors, Yorkshire Dales and Lake District, and features 16,300 feet of elevation.

We will be supported by a fully vegan diet throughout the walk (and training), and whilst it is usually completed in around 2 weeks we are aiming to reach the end within 8 days.

We are undertaking this challenge to raise money for St. Francis Animal Welfare, an animal shelter located in Fair Oak, Hampshire (registered charity number 263172). Formed in 1953, they take in both domestic and wild animals and look after them until they can be placed with loving homes or released back into the wild. It is their policy to never put a healthy animal down.

Please sponsor us on our trek, every penny raised will go directly to St. Francis Animal Welfare and enable them to care for many sick, injured or unwanted animals in need of help.

All sponsors will be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win some great prizes, including a box of Hazelnut Crunch Truffles from Booja-Booja, £25 worth of organic goodies from Cooks’ Delight, £20 cake voucher from Blue Lotus Products, £15 gift voucher from Gossypium, signed Gillian McKeith books, £20 worth of Vegtalia products, selection of juices from James White Drinks, a week’s supply of RDA Organic drinks for a child and their classmates and a murder mystery DVD game from Find Me A Gift, as well as many others!

 See http://www.vegancoast2coast.co.uk/ for more information.

It’s hard to find much positivity in the media these days.  The vacuous ‘celebrity’ culture combined with a political system riddled with spin and half truths leaves most people with little to inspire them.  But of course that does not mean that great things are happening and that there are many truly wonderful people doing them.  In compiling ‘Be The Change‘ Trenna Cormack has found a whole bunch of them!

‘Be The Change‘ is the product of Trenna’s attendance at a conference of the same name in May 2005.  Delegates listened to a series of speakers all of whom had an inspirational story to tell and were exhorted to go out and take action themselves to provide leadership in changing the world.  A tall order but Trenna’s response was to compile an anthology of interviews she conducted with many of the speakers and bring their experiences to a much wider audience. 

The result is both inspiring and humbling in equal measure.  Some of the twenty or so interviewees are well known figures such as Jonathon Porritt, Rob Hopkins and Satish Kumar but it’s unlikely that you will have come across most of the others.  And that’s what I found so encouraging about this book.  Here you can read about individuals who came across a problem and simply had to act. Guided by their own passion and dedication they have all made small but infinitely significant differences in an amazing range of places and people. 

For example there is the barrister turned circus performer who took clowns to Iraq to brighten the relatively wretched lives of many hundreds of Iraqi children.  Then there’s the Harvard graduate who took strength from the ‘political’ deaths of both of her parents in Nigeria to campaign for women’s rights there.  Other interviewees recount there involvement in such diverse issues as bringing higher education to sub-Saharan Africa, tackling disability in the developing world, undertaking ‘guerrilla gardening’ in London and confronting the horrors of child slave labour. 

Each chapter is, as I say, the outcome of an interview with the author.  However the questions have been edited out so that you get a smoothly flowing account of what each person has been doing.  The length of each chapter is just right.  You can easily read one in around 10-15 minutes and it’s the ideal book to dip into when you need a little boost to your optimism levels in these difficult times.  I would highly recommend it. 

‘Be The Change‘  is published by EJ Members Love Books

Richard Barnett – Editor, Ethical Pulse 

Do you suffer from hay fever? It may not feel like summer yet, but now is the time to be thinking of putting an end to that dreadful problem.

I used to suffer badly from hay fever – itchy roof of my mouth, itchy ears and eyes, endless sneezing and a runny nose – I often felt like I had flu too. I used to keep the windows closed and the curtains drawn – what a way to enjoy the summer!

Now it’s all different. I can go for a walk in the countryside, sit in the garden. I could even cut our lawn if I wanted to, (but don’t tell anyone that).

So what changed? I found a great homeopathic solution to my problems and took homeopthic pollens and grasses and other homeopathic remedies. I now sell the remedies on my secure site. Do take a look – a natural homeopathic remedy for hay fever that doesn’t just deal with symptoms and doesn’t make you drowsy has to be worth looking at.  I took the remedies for a couple of years, but now I don’t need them at all, which is just great. We offer a 60-day money back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose.

We just thought we’d let you know a few exciting things going on at How on Earth at the moment. We’ve got absolutely loads of new ranges coming over the next couple of months, so we’re having a spring clean to make some space for the new stock which means some great special offers!  For details, see www.howonearth.co.uk/articles/sale.aspx

The first of our new ranges is the ultimate in mineral cosmetics, the Suki Color range. 100% natural and certified cruelty-free, Suki skin care products are some of the cleanest available on the market. Whilst the price tags seem high, like with the skin care, once you’ve tried the range, they are so pure and gentle, you’re highly likely to become addicted. Also, most of the cosmetics products have at least two uses – for example the eye cream definers can be used as eye shadow or liner, and the concealer can also be blended with a moisturiser to make a great foundation. For details, see www.howonearth.co.uk/brands/suki-color.aspx

If you want to see an independent review of a couple of the products, follow the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiAOlnjpV6M

http://www.howonearth.co.uk/

01444 454 212

‘Reduce Reuse Recycle’ is a very useful pocket-sized guide to how to reduce your waste – for individuals and organisations. The book begins with an initial chapter on how to rethink the waste that we produce and smashing some recycling myths. The bulk of the book is laid out in an A-Z guide. Each section, from Christmas to Yoghurt Pots, contains suggestions on how to reduce, reuse or recycle the item.

The guide is immensely useful and I discovered new things that could be added to our compost bin that I hadn’t considered before, plus items that could be recycled that I didn’t know about – and includes a handy guide on how to tell what plastics can be recycled. There is a resources list at the back of organisations, books and websites to help you have your ‘waste’ reused or recycled.

The book ends with inspirational stories of people and cities that have aimed for zero waste – a state that we should all be aspiring to! If you want to reduce the amount of waste that you are responsible for, this guide could be essential.

Published by Green Books £4.95

Review by Carole Backler of Animal Aid

The first thing I should say before I review ‘Vegan Rustic Cooking: Through the Seasons’ by Diana White is that I’m not a vegan. In fact, I’m not even a vegetarian. I’m what you might describe as an aspirational vegetarian. Until now I’ve been quite successful at reducing my consumption of meat. However, veganism is an even more distant aspiration.

Why do I tell you this? Well, to be perfectly honest, I’ve always looked at veganism with trepidation, as something that would be unattainable for an undisciplined person like me. I suppose I’d unconsciously subscribed to that stereotypical view that veganism is, well, a bit grim. A meagre selection of ingredients, unexcitingly cooked, preferably eaten while wearing sackcloth.

Oh, how wrong I was! ‘Vegan Rustic Cooking: Through the Seasons’ is a perfect antidote to my outdated view. The book contains over 160 interesting, original and tasty recipes. You’ll find a selection of classic dishes like Leek & Potato Soup and Minestrone, but there’s also a refreshingly interesting range of dishes, like Aduki Bean Pottage and Basmati & Pine Nut Stuffed Peppers with Creamy Tomato Sauce to titillate the tastebuds.

One of the best features of the book is that the recipes are organised by sections (soups, sauces, mains etc) but also according to the seasonal availability of the ingredients, which I really loved. Most of the recipes are pretty straightforward too; you don’t need to be Heston Blumenthal or have a small army of sous-chefs to help you out.

So if you’re on the path to veganism, then I strongly recommend ‘Vegan Rustic Cooking: Through the Seasons’. If you’re already a committed vegan, then I think these recipes will make a very nice addition to your home cooking repertoire. Right now, I’m salivating at the prospect of Spicy Gram Pancakes and Spinach Frittata. Which goes to show my vegan aspirations have just made a big leap forward.

By Nicholas Watson

www.jungleberry.co.uk

Happy Downshifting Week!

This pocket size book is part of the Green Books Guide series. Other titles include "Cutting your car use" and "Car Sick". 

At first glance this is a well put together little book, a simple little guide for the beginner, but despite its size, it contains a wealth of useful information. I’m sure it would be a great encouragement for someone who is thinking there might be an alternative to the car journey to work with its traffic jams, endless red lights and searches for a parking place.

The book starts with the many reasons for using two wheels and your own energy to get to the office. The health, climate change and economic benefits are all explained carefully with plenty of statistics. The book then guides you through choosing a bike and offers ideas on how to hook up with other cyclists. 

The writer has thought of everything down to bike maintenance, suitable clothing and tips on avoiding traffic. I liked the little case studies of enlightened work places and companies too. For those who want to give it a try there is the admittance that cycling to work is not for everyone everyday and that most people who cycle to work still have their cars for those longer journeys or bad weather days. 

In all a well-researched little book, that will be really handy for cycle to work virgins or perhaps a great gift for someone you’d like to encourage out of their car! 

Reviewed by Jenny Edwards Assistant Manager of the Environment Centre Swansea

Buy the book