Squaredy

Yes I do agree totally. I decided that when I buy twenty or thirty polo tops for myself and my workers I would make a more environmentally sound selection than polycotton, but it is proving difficult. I am am still researching and hope to find a good choice eventually.

The energy consumption of cotton is high, in fact as far as I can tell wearing cotton clothes has a huge environmental impact. But at least you avoid the problem of tiny bits of plastic ending up in our food because it enters the food chain. As an organic substance at least it simply rots away when discarded. Imagine how much microplastic will be in the world's oceans if we keep washing plastic based clothes as we are now for a century or two.

Washing machines need to be designed with a simple easily accessible little filter which is cleaned every week or so. Maybe in a few years we would all be horrified at the idea of a machine without such a filter. But at present we are still in the dark ages with sewage. In times of heavy rain it is still normal for raw sewage to discharge totally untreated to rivers and the sea. I know this is a different problem from micro particles but it shows how far even a developed nation like ours has to go.

WAS shipped to China. They stopped this about two years ago and are now really cleaning up theirs act.

Thank you for that. I am struggling to find bamboo products on their website. Do they do bamboo polo tops do you know?

Yeah I found Finisterre, and it looked good. Bit out of my price range though sadly at £40 each polo shirt.

Not quite right, though not totally wrong. The ten rivers that feed 90% of the plastic into the oceans are: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong, Nile and the Niger. So yes the biggest culprit is the Yangtze in whose basin 500 million Chinese live, but several other problem areas as well. And China are making massive strides to clean up their act, like no longer taking other countries plastic.

I am trying to source sustainably produced clothing - polo tops etc. They must be plain enough to put a logo on, and probably made from bamboo or organic cotton. I have found Bam of Bristol, but mainly they are highly patterned. Any of you fellow arbtalkers who are concerned about our planet know of a brand I could try? I am looking for workwear to get embroidered and only need it for two or three staff, but ideally I want to avoid synthetic fabrics and get a more ecologically sound option than cotton. Any ideas?

It is not impossible to use Eucalyptus for furniture, just not ideal. More a case of why would you try when Ash, Alder, Beech, Cherry, Birch, Elm, Oak, Sycamore, Sweet Chestnut and others will be so much easier! They planted it on a large scale in California many years ago and discovered it was pretty useless - too twisty even for railway sleepers. This link details special milling techniques (quarter sawing) employed to minimise splitting in Eucalyptus, but still ultimately unsuccesful. Making furniture from eucalyptus wood WWW.DOWNTOEARTH.ORG.IN Though scientists have developed a way to saw eucalyptus wood without cracking or twisting it, furniture makers aren't convinced of its utility. The best Eucs for timber are apparently the old growth ones in Australia, which is not surprising I guess. Having said all that I would love to hear of other peoples successful uses for Eucalyptus timber, if anyone has any.

Great looking sticks. Such a shame they are Eucalyptus. My limited experience of this timber is it splits and twists so badly it is barely worth milling. Might have uses for crude landscaping milled into sleeper sizes, but the user will have to expect serious movement. Fun friday fact....Eucalypts are the most planted tree in the world, largely due to their extraodinary speed of growth and ability to find moisture in even the most arid conditions.

Clean compared to just burning on an open fire - yes of course. But burning plastic waste is just burning fossil fuels in a similar way to burning coal or oil. It produces lots of carbon dioxide and lots of particulates. Larger particulates are removed, but under a certain size they aren't even monitored. So I agree it is better than dumping our waste in the rivers and sea, but we need to drastically reduce our plastic waste in the long run. There is no truly sustainable way to deal with it.

Or maybe just accept that a few hundred pounds worth of damage has been done to your patio by a couple of trees and pay someone to re-lay the affected slabs? Would you want to live in an area with no trees?

I have read some of it and it is quite radical. I am no labour supporter but the people who are behind the report have my respect. I suspect very little of it will ever be enacted but maybe it will help start debate. We we need to talk about the housing disaster that has befallen this country, and the extreme disparity it has created. In the last twenty years house and land prices and therefore rents have spiralled out of control, which is lovely for many people, and a nightmare for the rest.

It is very important to get it right. I have had this done by a local saw doctor and even sent them off to Fuelwood in Warwick the Lucas agent. The only people I would recommend are Tewksbury Saw Co. They have vans covering much of the country and know how to do it right. They transformed one of my blades that had never been right even when re-tipped by others.

Ah you have my sympathy, I hope the police get somewhere. Good luck with it and I hope you can continue whilst you get it sorted....or are you now kitless?

I remember some years ago seeing vast numbers of plastic bags blowing from the Cardiff landfill (Lamby Way if anyone is interested) and into the Rhymney river estuary. I photographed it and wrote to Cardiff Council telling them, but I am sure it happens a lot. This particular landfill site is in a very exposed spot right next to an estuary. With the best will in the world, every day thousands upon thousands of little bits of plastic are going to get tipped there, and if it is blowing a gale many will end up in the sea. I have just checked and this particular site was closed last year thankfully. Now all Cardiff's waste is incinerated, so look out everybody East of Cardiff who likes to breathe clean air! We in the developed world are not so innocent.

Anyone breathing in plastic today? Well apparently we all are. I am referring to the revelation in the recent BBC TV programs that even inside our homes the air is full of tiny plastic particles. Not seen the programs? They were called "War on Plastic" and were very well presented by Hugh Fernley-Wasisname and Anita Rani. They did talk about the plastic in our oceans as highlighted by the Blue Planet documentaries last year, but they showed that pollution in the seas is only part of the story. Please watch if you care about our planet. I thought I was well informed of the plastic problem, but I was still taken aback by some of the images of what happens to our so-called recycling and waste. If you watch the program and are still happy buying plastic products you are very different to me. And never again will I allow my children to have a Macdonalds Happy Meal toy.

Mick Dempsey is being a little unfair but he is not totally wrong. It does have a value but you have to find a specialist small scale miller who is willing to mill oversize stems with possible nails etc, like me or Rough Hewn. Let us know where the stem is and proper dimensions so volume can be calculated and I will give you a value. We need diameter at each end and length. If you are near South East Wales I might even be interested. It would be a shame for it to be chopped up for firewood. Cedar of Leb is not even great firewood, but would be very stable amazing wide slabs, although probably with some annoying shakes.

Don’t forget some types of grit are very dangerous and must be treated with great caution. Sand is best avoided unless you want silicosis. Hopefully you knew this anyway. What type of grit do you have?

I am looking forward to safer driving too. Tesla cars all have driverless capability, the world just needs to catch up. After more than a century of letting humans be at the wheel one thing we do know is they are unsafe, unpredictable, unreliable, in fact down right dangerous. High time we let a computer take charge.

How is it going to be charged? This is rather important as if it is firewood size there is lots of room for different calculations. For this reason it is more usually sold by the ton. How seasoned is it? I would estimate three quarters of a ton per cubic metre in which case £33 per cubic metre is OK and if dry then less drying for you to do.

How is it going to be charged? This is rather important as if it is firewood size there is lots of room for different calculations. For this reason it is more usually sold by the ton. How seasoned is it? I would estimate three quarters of a ton per cubic metre in which case £33 per cubic metre is OK and if dry then less drying for you to do.

Very nice indeed. Western Red Cedar ends?

Clive Francis of Abergavenny is a good guy, you will find him on t’internet. Or Ben Daniels also knows his stuff. I would start with them, but I know more if you need them.

I live in Newport. I am not an expert but I could recommend a couple of local people who would be able to give you competent advice. I can PM you names if you like.