Last month, Bolton Council swiftly rejected footballer Gary Neville's plans for an eco-friendly, multi-million pound home that we told you about in January (here).

Despite opposition from locals and planning committees, Neville's bid to build the floral shaped house seemed pretty admirable; you don't have to be good at maths to work out that a premiership footballer's motivation probably isn't saving pennies on gas and electricity.

Few details of Neville's not-quite-successful plans to go green have been released, but we have a look at some of the things his £8 million pad might have included to inspire your own building, renovating and redecorating efforts. See the gallery below.

Help raise money for tree planting in urban areas with Trees for Cities Summer auction. Due to run until July 10th, the auction comprises several great lots including the following:

* A meal at your home for ten people cooked by Tom Aikens, Michelin-starred chef of the Tom Aikens Restaurant, Chelsea (reserve £6,000)
* Jamie Oliver's back catalogue of ten books, all signed (£300)
* Two tickets to Latitude festival 15 to 18 July, featuring Vampire Weekend and Florence + The Machine
* Three tickets to watch the filming of Britain's Got Talent at the O2 on the 11 July from a private box (£600)

People can also make donations of any size, or purchase gifts from the shop on the Trees for Cities website. They can also come along to planting events from autumn to spring and help plant trees across London, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield. They can also run the Tree-Athlon 5ks at UK cities.

Proceeds go to further urban tree planting activities in the UK and abroad. According to the charity, tree cover and green space have been shown to promote healthy lifestyles and lower crime levels by creating more welcoming streets and parks.

For more information, see the auction launch page here http://www.treesforcities.org/page.php?id=468 or Google 'Trees for Cities Summer Auction'.

With the longest, coldest, most horrible winter since the dawn of time almost behind us, a spring clear out is well and truly on the cards. While chuck-it-in-the-green-bin recycling is a good place to start, you might just find that your trash is just what someone else is looking for and that it can live a much more useful second life.

For any household goods you're ditching, Emmaus is the perfect place. The charity employs ex-homeless people who undertake a range of tasks, including restoring donated furniture and using profits to live self-sufficiently.

If the thought of a spring cleanout on your own seems daunting, roping in friends should make things more bearable, and if the word 'party' is involved it's almost quite appealing. Swishing parties are a top trend in eco-friendly fashion at the moment, letting you revamp your wardrobe without buying anything new.

Here is "The UK's greenest refuse sack", despite it being...err....black. However, The Green Sack is made from 100% recycled materials, which is where the green bit comes in, so I suppose we'll let them off for the potentially misleading name. The sacks are made in the UK from recycled UK farm waste plastics which are otherwise used for absolutely nothing at all, and I can testify that they're strong enough to hold a week's worth of student waste produced by the six messiest people you have ever met.

Don't judge these black bags by their cover, they are definitely green.

Find out more about The Green Sack here

Or follow The Green Sack on Twitter

Call me prejudiced but I don't usually associate footballers with green issues. And with all respect to Gary, who I've heard is a lovely bloke, he is one of the least likely Premiership footballers I would have thought would be so environmentally friendly. Aren't they all supposed to be driving around in Ferraris when they are not getting in their 4x4s to escape to the country?

So it was something of a shock - albeit a pleasant one - to discover in the paper this morning that not only does Gary drive to the training ground in a hybrid Toyota Prius (yes honestly) he's also submitted plans to Bolton Council for an eco-home in the grounds of his £8 million estate.

Not only that, but the eco-home is a radical 'underground bunker' design that has been likened by critics to the Teletubbies home. Personally I think it looks fantastic with its petal structure. Certainly it is very discreet unlike some footballers' homes I can think of.

Apparently the structure is so advanced the government wants to use the scheme as a benchmark for all future zero-carbon developments. What's more, the Man United captain has already impressed planning chiefs with in-depth knowledge of issues and sustainable technology. Good on you Gary. Whatever next? David Beckham buys all of his clothes at Oxfam or Wayne Rooney to open a nature reserve.

As a kid, one of my favourite ways to wind up my Dad was throwing his ornamental pine cones on to our open fire in the winter. Not to be mean: I just couldn't resist it. I loved the way the (carefully collected and long-cherished) giant cones lit up so quickly and burnt with a brilliant blue flame, created by the salt in the sea air they'd absorbed as they grew.

So I was filled with childish, pyro glee when I found that you could now buy pine cones specially made and prepared for burning, along with other naturally fire-attracting and fragrant forms such as bay leaves, dried lemons and chillis. Designed to be used on barbeques and bonfires, natural herb barbeque lighters are a charming alternative to chemically laden fire-lighters and are scented with herbs and thyme oil. These are a damn site better for the environment and smell delicious too. Hand-made in Dorset, they're £14.50 for a pack of 12 at the Green Rewards Shop.

Related: How to have a more eco-friendly barbeque | Help butterflies as you barbeque with UK charcoal | Veggie and vegan barbeque ideas

Method make some of Hippyshopper's favourite things, from the revolutionary O-Mop to the cleaning wipes that smell of yum.

If you're as much of Method junkie as I am - or haven't yet found out for yourself what all the fuss is about - then you might want to enter our latest competition, in association with Big Green Smile. You could win all the products shown here, which are enough to 'detox' your home from strong chemicals and bleaches while keeping it squeaky clean.

Read on after the jump for prize details and how to enter!

Paul Ridden writes: The doorbell rings. You answer and it's a bunch of your friends come for an unannounced visit. You show them to the front room but there aren't enough seats for everyone. The kitchen is way too small and as for the bedroom - they're just not those kind of friends! The sun is shining for a change so you could take the party into the garden but there is even less opportunity for bums on seats there. You can't risk losing your 'party host of the year' title by having people sit on the floor or standing around. What to do, what to do?!?

A humble cup of coffee is usually transformed into a stylish and sophisticated cappuccino by adding frothed milk, which has been whipped up using an electric 'steamer'. But if you don't want a bulky and energy-guzzling device taking up space in your kitchen, a cool alternative is on offer at Ethical Superstore, which now stocks the 'Presso' non-electric espresso and cappuccino coffee maker. It has handles, a bit like a bottle opener, to create the necessary pressure to make these speciality coffees and more.

Still confused? So was I. Follow the jump to see a video of the Presso in action!

£88.95 at Ethical Superstore

I wouldn't normally get this excited about a cleaning product, but Method's natural stainless steel wipes have proven to be my number one ally in my spring cleaning efforts this year, and I've been raving about them to anyone unfortunate enough to come in and find me in my rubber gloves.

The thing about them is, they just smell fantastic. The natural fragrances and cleaning agents mean that there's no harshness to their scent, and somehow they also seem to make everything they touch very shiny. Pick up a pack for £3 at Goodness Direct

I've included an extra-large image of the bottle this product comes in, just to make the point that Febreeze it definitely is not! Pairfum's room fragrances not only smell lovely (I'll get to that bit in a minute) but it looks pretty smart too, meaning you won't have to consign it to the under-stairs cupboard.

The 'Flacon' range of room fragrances by Pairfum, whose entire range is based around the idea of 'luxury with a conscience', can be used on linens, fabrics or on pot-pourri. What I like best about it is that it doesn't contain the overpowering, 'masking' chemicals found in ordinary room sprays, so I'm quite happy to waft it through my home with gay abandon, and it really helps make the place smell fresh. It's pretty packaging is also fully biodegradable. Available for £14.95 a bottle at Treasurebox

Related: Method want you to kick the bucket | Spring clean the green way with Maison Belle

It's fair to say that if half as many people commuted to and from work each day, we'd halve the emissions that rush hour transport causes each day. Which is a lovely idea, if it weren't for the fact that working from home is not everybody's cup of tea. My main problem with working from home is that I live in a house and not an office, and have never really got on with this whole 'laptopping in your jim-jams' idea. Getting into work mode for many people involves scrubbing up nice and stepping into a professional environment, and my pad just isn't going to become that overnight.

If I had one of these bad-boys in the garden, however, I'd be inclinde to see it rather differently! The Office POD brings a whole new meaning to the idea of remote working as it comprises a rather sleek workspace in an all inclusive capsule. It's not actually available to buy- these pods are designed to be rented by employers as a cheaper alternative to office space.

Some people claim to enjoy housework: my flatmate likes washing up, whereas I find ironing quite therapeutic. I've yet to find a person who enjoys washing the floor though, so anything that renders the process any less painful and mucky has got to be a good thing.

Method have devised a good new, er, method of getting the job done that's not only more ergonimically acceptable - it's greener too. Their revolutionary 'OMop' uses a non-toxic 'juice' to get your floors sparkling, it takes re-usable microfibre cleaning pads and its packaging is made of pressed bamboo and recycled natural fibres. It's also a joy to use, with a handle that bends so you don't have to. Sounds horribly expensive, doesn't it? But the O-mop is actually pretty well priced at £29.99 at Homebase, John Lewis and Method online.

Related: A green spring clean for 2009 | Method Kid: Good clean fun comes to the UK

As the days grow longer and the sunlight stronger, it's harder to get away with sloppy housekeeping, hence the age-old tradition of giving your place an almighty spring clean around this time of year. Clocks go forward on the 29th March, so in less than a fortnight there'll be plenty more ambient light to work its way into your home's darkest nooks and crannies.

You may normally rely on powerful chemicals to do the work for you, but if you're concerned about your chemical splash and don't want to harm wildlife, you may want to use more natural methods to clean your home. Using strong bleaches and other products has been described as attempting to attack your home cleaning with pesticides, and there are far kinder ways to go about the job.

Follow the jump for some tips on how to get it looking spotless using friendlier substances, like lemon juice, vinegar and sald (plus a few of our favourite non toxic products!)

In the admittedly unlikely event that you have an old birdcage lying around, there are some really rather wonderful ways you can upcycle this symbol of avian oppression, turning it into something quite beautiful. I've noticed this lighting trend cropping up in a few places recently, and it got me wondering how complicated it would be to make one of my own. So I looked around a few how-to sites and found absolutely dozens of ideas, each one unique, but most pretty straightforward to assemble.

Here are two very different ideas for turning birdcages into lamps: the first uses the cage as a base unit for the lamp itself, whilst the second has had its inner bits removed and replaced with a string of LED lights; a fantastically simple idea!

Follow the jump for more ideas and some great examples of birdcage lamps!