Coffee is a big global business and many - myself included -are practically addicted to it. Unfortunately the high consumption of takeaway coffee leads to more landfill as UK coffee shops are failing to make it easy for java addicts to recycle the estimated 2.5 billion takeaway cups thrown away each year.

It is consumer group Which? that has warned the UK coffee industry of these startling figures after its investigation found that consumers are confused by the use of 'mixed materials' and end up throwing the cups in the general waste bin. Of the 2,471 people surveyed more than half admitted that they throw their paper cups in the general waste bin instead of recycling them.

One solution to the brewing problem is to encourage people who drink their fair share of coffee to invest in reusable coffee cups and bring these with them on their daily coffee run. Starbucks is already trying to sway its customers to think more eco-friendly by offering 25p off for anyone bringing in their own cup.

If you're interested in doing your bit to reduce coffee cup waste, one brand of reusable mugs is KeepCup, the first barista standard reusable coffee cup. And you can personalise it to be any colour you like!

Currently, about 3.6 million tonnes of glass is used in the UK every year and over 1 million tonnes goes to landfill.Yet glass is the perfect material for recycling as it can be recycled indefinitely.

The energy saved from recycling one bottle will power: a 100W Light Bulb for almost an hour, or, a computer for 25 minutes, or, a television for 20 minutes or a washing machines for 10 minutes.

One company that is doing its bit is By Nature which offers an extended range of recycled glass homeware. Among the recycled glass items featured above is Nkuku's Laksha glass (£4.95) and Jeevika Jug (£11.95). Stylishly embossed they are handmade from 100% recycled glass.

For more information go to www.bynature.co.uk

The time is nigh for me to move out of the parental abode and into university accommodation! With the independence will come the possibility of properly implementing a green way of living. Here at home, we don't have such displays of domestic eco-friendliness but uni will hopefully inspire more soon-to-be undergraduates, like myself, to go green.

Here are five pointers to help you, as a live-out student, towards a more sustainable lifestyle...

1. Buy second-hand textbooks
Whatever your subject, chances are the prices of your textbooks will chomp a sizeable bite out of your budget. Before you hit the book store, browse the net for ex-students flogging their used books for less. There's a slight chance your search will yield little as new edition replaces old edition rapidly but it's worth a shot. My graduate brother hoardes his Law tomes for no apparent reason - I think they remind him of richer times.

2. Recycle, recycle, recyle
Things'll most likely be a bit manic throughout the prime cut of your settling in at uni but when you get a moment, do locate your nearest recycling post. With studying being quite common among students, you will get through a lot more paper than you care to. Pot Noodles too. And beer cans. And coffee jars (okay now I'm just speaking for myself.) But really, try and get into the habit of separating and recycling, Also, try to use the back of rough paper instead of binning it - god knows how many times your tutor wants you to emend that thesis.

3. Leave your car keys/travel pass at home

Okay that's probably not too wise or commendable realistically as you might need a speedier travel alternative than foot should an emergency arise. The point, is walk to your lectures even if the bus stop is literally a stone's throw from your front door. I'm a 25 minute walk from my classes but the campus consists of luscious greenery, which I'm a sucker for, and whispers too of rabbits that scamper about merrily. So I'm not complaining. Plus it's money saved. (Also looking to tone the legs a little.)

4. Green societies and clubs
For the devout greengoers primarily, societies given to sustainable living are an essential. Join or, in the event that there isn't one, your shining moment as founder awaits you. The group can share ideas on greener living, fundraise and - here's a crowdpleaser - drink in the name of eco-living. A-free-shot-for-every-recycling-trip game? Recycling bins would be brimming!

5. Don't make plastic cups a long-term thing

Or plates and cutlery for that matter. Plastic cups may see you through your pre-carnage warm-up sessions amongst flatmates, particularly at the start, but don't continue to use them just because they mean less washing-up. They pile up on both the waste and your budget.

Photo credit

Plastic bottles and the seemingly thoughtless discarding of them in this country has been a topic we've looked at many times before. One big brand that has come under fire from environmentalists for using plastic bottles - adding to landfill contribution - has announced it is finally rolling out its partially recycled bottles in the UK.

A move that is certainly going to improve its eco creds, PlantBottle bottles are made from 22.5% plan- based materials and up to 25% recycled plastics and more than 200 million are due to hit the shelves this year. This type of packaging has already been introduced in the US and carries a PlantBottle logo and on-pack messaging to explain about plastic bottles and the harm they do to thirsty consumers.

It is good that one of the biggest brands in the soft drink sector is finally taking measures to reduce its contribution to landfill. Let's hope Coco-Cola's aim to have all of its bottles made from a combination of plant based materials and recycled plastics by 2020 comes true.

The company has also enlisted Wayne Hemingway to create a limited edition umbrella that is made entirely from five plastic bottles. If you'd like to get your hands on one for the rainy season, the limited edition umbrellas are being sold exclusively at Harvey Nichols.

Recycling is an issue we really care about in Hippyshopper offices, especially the recycling of plastic bottles - a topic we've written on previously.

When working in central London it's far too easy to pick up a bottle of water or fizzy drink than attempting to drink the rather dubious tap water. And until bottles are 100% biodegradable we will continue to have a slight sense of guilt when picking up yet another bottle.

In modern society - with plastic bottled drinks having become such a commodity - it is difficult to really see how things will become better very soon...

To emphasise the growing issue bottle wastage, a giant plastic bottle family recently visited the capital. The 10ft sculpture, created by artist Bamber Hawes, is made out of 827 plastic bottles - the number of bottles the average family consumes each year.

The horrible truth is that only 100 of every 500 plastic bottles used in the UK are being recycled at present. So out of the 13 billion plastic bottles consumed only a meagre 20% reach a recycling plant to get a second lease of life.

New research by SodaStream also reveals that Brits hugely underestimate the amount of bottle waste they generate; with almost half of all adults believing their families use between 1-5 bottles a week when the actual figures is double that.

Perhaps the fact that ONE PET bottle takes around 450 years to break down will make you think twice about picking up unnecessary drinks from the shop in your lunch break...

Most of us has a tendency to cling on to things we don't use anymore, call it sentimental value, hoarder instinct or simply because we might possibly have use for it in the future... In fact, recent research found that nine out of ten hang on to items we never or rarely use.

However if you have a flat that is scattered with old games consoles, unloved toys or perhaps a wardrobe filled with clothes that you don't really wear there is hope! Of course you can take any unwanted items down to your local charity shop, or you can go online to www.netcycler.co.uk - a new swapping site - that allows you to swap and give away unwanted items for things you really want and need.

By creating matches between offers and wishes all you need to do is list what you want to get rid of and what you would like in return. In the words of a well-known meerkat: Simples!

You can also give away things for free or in return for a charitable donation.

Could it be more easy to minimise waste and clutter in your home and give unwanted items a new lease of life? Get netcycling now!

PS: there is even an iPhone app to make things really easy...

Food waste. It never stops to amaze me how much food we actually throw away each year.

Personally I am a repetitive food waster. I go to the shops and get mesmerised by the colours in the fruit and vegetable aisles - usually post-work and without a shopping list - and end up buying more than I need or will eat over the next couple of days. What usually happens? At the end of the week I will find a half full salad bag or a lonely courgette at the back of my fridge, too far gone to even attempt to rescue parts of it. So in the bin it goes.

According to the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, UK households throw away 8.3 million tonnes of food every year, most of it could actually have been eaten. This amounts up to an average of £680 a year thrown out with the rubbish.

Why are we wasting so much food?

Well, a lot if it falls into the categories of 'cooking or preparing too much' or 'not using food in time'. How often have you not bought a bag of apples because they looked delicious, only to forget about them until you re-discover them a little soggy and brown. Not so appetising anymore, are they?

Another reason for food waste is simply because people's plans change. You might have planned to use that mince before its use-by-date tomorrow, but then a last minute call from a friend sees you heading to a restaurant in town.

And how are you with leftovers? In the freezer for another day or can't stomach eating one day old food?

How can I cut my food waste?

There is a group of people called freegans who live according to alternative strategies. Combining the words "free" and "vegan", Freegans avoid buying any products to the greatest degree possible. Instead of heading to their local shop entrance, they head to the back of buildings to rummage through the rubbish of retailers, offices, residences and other facilities to recover food and beverages, as well as other goods.

But if this is not your cup of tea, here are some tips on how you can reduce your food waste and perhaps even save a few pennies in the long run.

We like it when celebrities put on their environmental boots and help raise awareness about issues.

The latest to do so is US rapper Pharrell Williams who has teamed up with Kiehl's to create a Limited Edition Eco-Tote, to help raise awareness for World Earth Day, 22nd April 2011. The eco-tote is made using Bionic yarn technology in which fabrics are created from recycling plastic bottles. How cool is that!

Unfortunately it is only US customers who take part in the Kiehl's 'Recycle and Be Rewarded' scheme - recycling their empty product bottles, jars and tubes at their local Kiehl's stores from April to June - that are eligible to receive the complimentary bag. We kind of wanted one for ourselves... Is it too late to relocate across the pond??

On our daily quest to find the eco movements out there we came across Green Office Week - yes there is a week for everything these days.

It's all good being green at home, but what is the state of your office? A 2010 Avery environmental survey found that one in three office workers has a lazy attitude when it comes to looking after the environment at work, despite 69% believing that being eco-friendly at work will make a substantial difference to the environment.

Simply by making a few small changes you can make a difference to the environment - something we all should be doing every day of the year. Green Office Week (GOW) runs from Monday 9th May to Friday 13th May this year and is encouraging you to make your office greener by daily themes. So why not use this year's Green Office Week as a start to a greener office environment!

Check out the gallery below to see how you can make your office greener in just five steps!

Yesterday saw the start of Climate Week and mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced a £70m fund to make London greener, The Guardian reports.

London produces 2.6 million tonnes of organic waste each year which could generate revenues of £170m if diverted to composting and energy generation. Londoners and the capital's visitors also throw away around 280,000 tonnes of plastic which would be worth £140m a year if recycled correctly.

The £70m fund will finance the development of low-carbon waste and recycling facilities in the capital, and could create hundreds of green jobs, save 28,000 tonnes of carbon and divert 245,000 tonnes of waste from landfills.

Johnson said: "A century ago London was cashing in on carbon, but I am determined we now harness the wealth of investment opportunities coming from the shift away from the use of increasingly costly fossil fuels. The prize is not only better environmental stewardship and cash savings, but the injection of billions of pounds into the city's economy and tens of thousands of high quality jobs ... and a better quality of life."
He said the environmental goods and services sector was already worth about £23bn to the London economy, with carbon finance alone contributing about £5.8bn, despite the recent problems in the carbon trading markets.

Environmental artist Ha Schult has installed his army of one thousand life sized trash people in the Arctic at Longyearbyen, Svalbard.

The German artist has travelled the world with his sculptures made of discarded materials since 1996 and has been below the La Défense arch in Paris, in the aptly named Piazza del Popolo (the people's square) in Rome, by the pyramids of Giza and now the freezing conditions of the Arctic.

Images: top - www.lokalstyre.no / all others www.haschult.de

Environmentally friendly materials and packaging have been the source of many news stories this month: Coca-Cola unveiled plans to create a recycling plant to tackle UK's plastic bottle recycling issues; and new research show recycled cardboard might not be as good as initially thought.

Yesterday, PepsiCo - the company behind brands like Pepsi, Tropicana, Quaker and Gatorade -unveiled what it claims is "the world's first 100 percent plant-based, renewably sourced PET bottle." Boasting that the 'green' bottle beats technology of other industry competitors like Coca-Cola, it appears that Pepsi has won the race to take recycling and plastic bottles to the next level.

Pepsi's 'green' bottle is made from bio-based raw materials like switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. In the future, the company plans to also use orange peels, potato peels, oat hulls and other scraps from its food manufacturing business.

This is a welcome innovation and in terms of recycling biodegradable bottles, made from reused materials, will be a wise investment for beverage companies wishing to remove themselves from using PET plastic made from fossil fuels.

The pilot production of the new bottle is set to start in 2012, and upon successful completion Pepsi intends to move directly into full-scale production.

Cardboard packaging made from recycled newspapers contains toxic chemicals, known as mineral oils, which contaminate food products, Swiss researchers have found. As a result leading food manufacturers are in a rush to chance their packaging amid concerns of health issues.

Well known cereal brand Jordans has already stopped using recycled cardboard and several of its competitors like Kellogg's and Weetabix have said they are taking steps to reduce the amount of mineral oil in their packaging, the BBC reported yesterday.

Is there reason to worry?

According to the study, exposure to mineral oils has been linked to inflammation of internal organs and cancer. The scientists found quantities of mineral oils between 10 and 100 times above the agreed limit in popular foods like cereals, pasta and rice that had cartons made from recycled cardboard.

Should we be ditching our morning ritual of Crunchy Nut and say no to recycled cardboard packaging and demand food manufacturers use only newly harvested trees? Errr... No.

Today though UK food safety watchdog Food Standards Agency (FSA) insists there is no safety risk from recycled cardboard boxes, and the study did conclude that if you eat a balanced and varied diet you won't have much need to worry.

So unless you eat the cardboard as well and have a very limited diet of products that are packaged in recycled cardboard, you can continue to enjoy your bowls of cereal and pasta. Also think about the poor trees; no need to cut down more trees than necessary.

What do you think? Should food manufacturers stop using recycled cardboard packaging, or is it all a bit of an overreaction?

Earlier this week the BBC reported that a planned recycling plant in Lincolnshire will more than double the UK's ability to re-use PET bottles. A partnership between ECO Plastics and drinks giant Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE) will allow the isles to process 75,000 tonnes of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) each year, which is almost double the current volume processed in the UK.

Considering we live on an island with over 60 million people where each person on average goes through 90 drink cans, 70 food cans, 107 bottles and jars and 45kg of plastic each year, perhaps a large scale programme of re-using plastic bottles should have been brought into action years ago?

We've previously written that in other countries, like Norway, recycling schemes for plastic bottles have been around for years. What happens is you pay a small 'fee' for each bottle, which will be returned to you once you bring it back to be recycled. Each bottle will usually be re-used 10-15 times before getting another purpose. If other countries can make it work, then why hasn't Britain done something about it before? If having paid for the bottle - not just its contents - perhaps people would think twice before just throwing it away for others to deal with or worse at the side of the road so that it becomes an unsightly blemish on Mother Nature's green roads...

While it is good that a company like Coca-Cola - whose livelihood (mostly) depends on the use of plastic bottles - is doing something to help the growing plastic bottle issue in the UK, we can't help to think that recycling PET bottles to be "re-used in packaging" doesn't help the cause much unless the 'packacing' in question is actually new bottles. If the recycled bottles are reused in other food packaging, it may just end up on a landfill somewhere to decompose for hundreds of years or join the ever increasing 'plastic island' that is said to be floating around in the Pacific Ocean.

Besides, could this just be another tick on Coca-Cola's check-list to boost its environmental credentials in the run up to the London 2010 Olympics, which the company is sponsoring?

What do you think dear readers? Is it a genuine attempt to address Britain's plastic bottle recycling issue or just another way for a global multi-billion dollar company to gain eco creds?

Image: greencrawler.com

Ladies - if you're planning this year's spring clean of your wardrobe here is a new way of getting rid of unwanted bras.

Charity Against Breast Cancer has introduced an recycling fundraising scheme for bras that have served you well, but are no longer wanted. Pink bins - you can't miss them! -, or bra banks, are currently being placed in lingerie outlets across the UK, ready to welcome all unloved bras.

Recycling bras will prevent them from being dumped into UK landfills and Against Breast Cancer will receive £1,000 from every tonne donated. The recycled bras will be sent to Africa where they are a popular purchase on the markets, and the scheme is also helping to create jobs in the UK.

Wendy Taylor-Hill, Corporate Manager at Against Breast Cancer said "We are over the moon with the enthusiasm the public has shown for the scheme and excited that well known retailers are adopting the idea. It seems the perfect solution on so many levels and we hope to see further take up of our banks as a result of renewed environmental focus during Climate Week starting on 21st March."

Funds received from the scheme are put to work by the charity to support the research they are conducting into breast cancer, now affecting 1 in 8 women in the UK.

For more info visit www.againstbreastcancer.org.uk