I’ve decided to take the plunge & set up my first datafeedr affiliate store, on The Green Directory, bringing together the product feeds of many eco-stores & fair trade suppliers. I’m still fine-tuning the exact settings but the whole process was pretty straightforward, the only issue so far being that as per usual with merchant datafeeds, sometimes the actual data is incorrect. For example, I’ve noticed that Adili have a lot of products in their feed, with a price of £0.00!  I’ve written to them, but who knows how long it could take to be corrected.

Datafeedr is a system which enables you to create & embed an affiliate store into your WordPress blog WITHOUT touching any clunky datafeed files, learning a programming language or hiring expensive programmers. I found the actual datafeedr shop “factory” very easy to use & enquiries have been answered within 24 hours on the support forum, which is an excellent response time. There are excellent video tutorials to help you through using the factory, integrating your shop into your WordPress blog & more.

I’m just looking into the Drip Feature which enables you to automatically post products to your blog, something that I’ve tried to do manually with my other sites. However, I also plan to add my own posts as well, rather than rely on the system, but it’s a great idea for those times when you might just be too busy with other things to post as much as you should. Just need to get it configured properly.

The one store I’ve set up initially costs $27 per month, but once this store is set up & functioning, I may upgrade to the next plan, which allows the creation of up to 5 different stores. I really want to use it on My Travel Extras to offer a decent travel accessories store, to set up the seperate ticket sales websites, for which I bought the domains www.buyeventtickets.co.uk, www.buyeventickets.co.uk, www.cheapeventtickets.co.uk & www.cheapeventickets.co.uk & to get www.webtraveloffers.com & www.scifigoodies.co.uk domains up & running. The five site plan costs $47, so hopefully, I can get enough sales to cover the costs!

It’s summer – if we can dare call it that – it’s a time for holidays, for relaxing, having fun, and forgetting about work, about everything…

If you’re about to go off on holiday or to a summer festival, in the UK or abroad, try to travel by train and public transport where you can, sample the local produce, walk or bike around when you get there, and think about what you do with your waste. You might also want to take some eco products with you – they’ll help to make your travels a whole lot more convenient, and greener.

Get 10% off your holiday essentials at Nigel’s Eco Store, just enter the code ECOHOLS at the checkout. Offer lasts until 30th July.

Natural Sun Protection

These award winning natural sun screens and creams for adults and children by Green People, are free from nasty chemicals, and provide great UV protection. They come in high and medium factor for adults, and strong and gentle for children.

Wind Up MP3 Player

Forget the latest iPod. This beauty is perfect for taking on holiday – it has 1GB memory, one minute winding gives 15 to 20 minutes play time, and fully charged it’ll play for 4 hours. No batteries required and best of all is the price!

Wind Up LED Torches

Essential holiday item No. 52: A torch for finding your way in the dark. Even better, one that needs no batteries, provides a strong beam and is sturdy and light. We have a few different ones, check them out here.

Biodegradable Flip Flops

You’ll love these flip flops. Not only are they very comfortable and look cool, but they are Fair Trade, and biodegradable to boot, (or to flip?). Puts other flip flops into the shade.

Solar Chargers

Don’t let a flat battery on your digital camera or mobile phone ruin your holiday. Make sure you have a solar powered charger handy to charge it up again. The FreeLoader is great for all budgets. For something more powerful, try the Power Monkey!

For more Summer Holiday ideas, check out the holiday range on our website.

Stay fresh and eco

Recycling’s a great thing but you have to get it right. So that’s why I’m really pleased to be able to stock recycled aluminium foil. It might not sound like the most glamorous of products but it’s a great example of why recycling is so important.

It’s not just about landfill. Aluminium is made from bauxite which turns up in soil in loads of places all over the world. It’s produced by strip mining.

Most signficantly, to turn bauxite into aluminium you have to melt it, then pass humungous currents of electricity through it to separate the oxygen from the ore.

Recycled aluminium is much, much cleaner. Manufacturing it uses only a tiny 5% of the energy of the non-recycled metal. That’s a massive carbon footprint saving. One source estimates that a single recycled drinks can saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours!!!!

Available at Nigel’s Eco Store from £3.20+p&p

Nigel’s Eco Store is offering an award-winning range of household eco cleaning products… Read on!

10% off Earth Friendly Cleaning

From washing up liquid to furniture polish, from drain unblocker to toilet cleaner the Earth Friendly award-winning range of concentrated green cleaning products are entirely natural – and truly free of petrochemicals and carcinogenic formaldehyde.

They regularly come out top of consumer tests in magazines, beating Ecover, and matching Persil and Fairy amongst others.

Cos they’re new and they like them so much, they’re offering 10% off the whole Earth Friendly range to newsletter readers only – to claim the discount just sign-up. Offer valid until 1st December.

Remember, they offer FREE delivery on all orders over £75, and 30-day money back guarantee on everything.

It’s Festival Season & with several hundred festivals lined up till September, there is likely to be a rush for the number one festival accessory – a pair of wellies! But I believe eco friendly products should have a firm place at the top of the list of things to take too. Especially when festival organizers, typically faced with the chore of clearing up acres of beer cups, broken tents and God knows what else, are pledging to make music festivals more green.

That’s why I love the idea behind Myhab – an eco friendly alternative to a normal tent – inspired by the thousands of tents, left behind every year, that end up on landfills somewhere. If you fancy hiring Myhab, check out their website www.myhab.com for more info, and enjoy festivals in eco style. But remember to add eco products to your festival packing list, to make your festival experience even greener.

By packing products such as solar powered chargers, battery free torches, wind up and solar powered radios, you’ll reduce your need for batteries, and make sure that a painful moment like the juice running out on your digital camera, when your favourite band is on, is not going to happen.

With that in mind, I have put together a list of green products that I think would make your festival experience a whole lot greener.

Battery free radio

Baylis Mini Eco Radio
This little gem of a radio plays wherever you are, come rain or shine. Ultra small and shockproof, this rugged AM/FM wind up and solar powered radio comes with integrated LED torch, red LED map reading light and a built in phone charger. A bit like a swiss army knife I should think!

Make a flat battery a thing of the past

FreeLoader solar charger
Don’t let a flat battery on your digital camera ruin your festival weekend! Make sure you have a solar powered charger handy should things go wrong. The FreeLoader is a portable solar charger that takes power from its solar panels or via a supplied charge cable that plugs into USB. Supplied in a tough aluminium body, FreeLoader can take the knocks of every day life so it’s perfect for camping.

Battery free torches

Waterproof Solar Torch
Forget battery powered torches, they are so last season! This solar charging torch with an LED bulb is a brilliant eco alternative. Fully waterproof and UV-proof, this torch is a great all-weather gadget. It charges in approximately 4 to 5 hours if left in direct sunlight.

Nighthawk Wind Up Torch
And for the weather sceptic in you, invest in a wind up LED torch like this one. Nighthawk uses the latest LED technology to produce a really powerful beam of light. It has 2 settings so you can choose how bright it shines. This torch also comes standard with a Nokia cable to so you can charge your mobile phone by using wind up power – it’ll give you up to 8 minutes talk time for 60 seconds winding.

Cut down on paper cups

I am Not a Paper Cup
Who says that cutting down the amount of coffee cups given away could be a challenge? Not when this witty, eco friendly alternative is around! For your morning fix after a night’s dancing around, enjoy it from this reusable, double walled, thermal ceramic mug that comes with a resealable silicon lid and reduce your need for paper cups – your coffee or tea will taste so much better.

Ditch disposables to enjoy a green shave

Solar Powered Electric Shaver
If you feel like having a clean shave, choose this eco alternative to throw away razors. The solar powered electric shaver is great for travelling and being away from mains power is no reason to compromise on the way you look. Slim and compact, the razor’s power comes from the integrated solar panel, so remember to leave it in the sun to charge first!

Staying green on return no brainer with EcoBalls

Eco balls
And when you come back from your travels, EcoBalls will wash your clothes sparkling clean. The great thing about them is that they last up to 1,000 washes, saving about 50 boxes of washing powder. Each EcoBall contains mineral salts that produce ionized oxygen, penetrating deep into clothing, lifting dirt and grime away. They are hypoallergenic and the kit includes free refill pellets and a stain remover.

The Ego Electric Street Scoota could be the answer to many of our transport/fuel cost problems.

There are many scooters on city roads, but they still all run on petrol which is currently rising so quickly in price that even scooterers are suffering. So, what’s the answer? The battery-powered Ego Street Scoota!!!

It looks like a standard, twist-and-go commuter scooter – and it is – but this fully road legal bike is also 100% electric. No fumes, no noise, no emissions and no visits to the petrol station. Your road tax is FREE, there is no congestion charge in London and even parking is free in a lot of cities. You can even make use of bus lanes to avoid sitting in jams!!! Incredible, especially seeing as the Street Scoota costs under £1000!!!!!!

With a top speed of 30mph, the Street Scoota is nigh on as nippy as a 50cc petrol-driven bike & can manage up to 40 miles on an 8 hour charge, costing about 8p! A 3 hour charge will be enough to get you to the shops & back.

Bearing in mind that many car journeys are of no more than a few miles & the average speed of a car in London is just 7mph, you will get to your destination much quicker & much more cheaply, without any environmentally damaging emissions!

During an average one-hour commute a driver in central London will cover just 6.8 miles during rush hour. In Cardiff, the average standstill time for a motorist is a whopping 30 minutes, half of the one-hour commute time. Drivers in Birmingham, Manchester and Norwich can expect to be at a standstill for over 20 minutes, and even in the least congested city, Edinburgh, almost 18 minutes were spent stationary.

Last November, the then Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, announced plans to explore potential congestion charging zones in Durham, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Tyne and Wear, Shrewsbury, Cambridgeshire and Bristol.

Bearing all this in mind, the Ego Electric Street Scoota may take over our cities in the next few years!!!

The BBC revealed yesterday, that household energy bills could increase by as much as 40% this winter, due to oil and wholesale gas prices hitting record highs!

These increases could mean households paying £400 more a year on average for their gas and electricity, senior industry sources have said, which is much more than had been previously predicted, hitting a population already struggling with higher food and fuel costs.

The prediction from senior sources in the energy industry is the highest yet but because of the size of the rises they are likely to be increased in stages.

Last month, Centrica – which owns the UK’s biggest energy provider, British Gas – signalled that gas prices for customers could increase again in 2008, as it was being squeezed by rising wholesale prices which have risen 74% since the start of the year, with gas to be supplied this winter hitting a record high last week.

So, it seems times ahead are going to be expensive where energy is concerned; what can you do to cut back & reduce consumption, bearing in mind that reduced energy usage is not only good for your pocket, it will be good for the environment too?!!!

You can cut your energy usage & wastage, by using more efficient products, or those that use alternative (FREE) sources of energy, instead of just plugging into the mains! It only takes a slight change in your patterns of behaviour & you could reduce the amount spent on expensive electricity!

Take a look at our eco stores, which offer products which put less strain on the environment by using less resource for the same effect as standard products and also products which help to change mind sets.

The stores provide ethical products & those that are good for the environment, but if you are looking specifically for power saving products, check out

Big Green Smile Energy Saving products

Nigel’s Eco Store Energy Saving products

Ethical Superstore Energy Saving products

You can save power & reduce your electricity costs using some of the following products:

Standby Buster is a remote controlled electrical socket that lets you switch appliances off completely so that they use no electricity.

Dryerballs – Reduce drying time by 25% and have soft clothes naturally without fabric softeners.

My name is Wattson. I show you how much electricity your home is using, I make energy saving easy and I am gorgeous. I was also voted number 8 in Stuff Magazine’s Top 10 Gadgets 2007.

Energy efficient appliances and renewable energy devices that will save you money and help cut your CO2 emissions. Browse our selection of solar powered chargers, or go completely off grid with the best wind up radios from trusted brands like Freeplay and Trevor Baylis. Discover home energy monitors that promote energy conservation and find power saving devices that automatically switch off televisions that have been left on standby.

Solar Panels
Solar Chargers
Household Products
Standby Solutions

Standby Saver kits make it easy to switch off appliances when not in use, and can save about £40 per year. The Savaplug reduces fridge and freezer energy use and running costs, and can save £20 per year. Whilst One Click Power is great for turning off computer peripherals, and the Power Safer stops TV standby waste. The Radiator Booster can help to cut your heating bills and make your home warmer. To keep tabs on it all, the power saving meter shows you exactly how much electricity you’re using at any one time. And don’t forget our range of energy saving lightbulbs.

Fuel saving products for your car:

MagnoFuel – Improves fuel consumption by up to 15%. Suitable for petrol and diesel engines.

Donating directly to registered charities is one way to help those in need & make big differences in helping people survive & help themselves throughout the world. UK Online Charities allows you to make one off or regular contributions to many of the well known & maybe not so well known charities that accept donations online.

But we all live on this one small planet & for many, concern about the environment & climate change is just as important as helping those in need. Helping people build futures for themselves now won’t be much use if our planet is destroyed by climate change and we are in the best position to take an active role in changing our patterns of behaviour to do all we can to prevent this disaster!

For anyone that wants to do their bit to make a change to the world we live in, by being more ecologically responsible, I have developed an Eco Stores section to ukcharitiesonline.com, which promotes eco stores & ethical products. Making small changes to your shopping behaviour & utilising the useful tips and products offered by these companies, can help you do your bit to help fight climate change.

The first stores added to the site are the BigGreenSmile, envirofone, Nigel’s Eco Store & the Ethical Superstore. I’ll be adding more ethical stores & fairtrade retailers as I find them.