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It's not often I grovel to the blogging platform I use, but I'd like to extend a public and belated thank you to Typepad for featuring me last week. I was so busy with launching SmartPlanet (my day job), that I entirely missed being Typepad's featured site of the day.
A disclaimer first: this is a shameless self-promotion post. Yesterday myself and the team over at CNET Networks UK formally launched SmartPlanet (you can get the offical press release here). The basic gist is news and reviews of anything green or ethical. Plus a bit of humour. And a lot of research. If you've ever wondered whether an energy-saving gadget, organic beauty product or so-called green car are as good as the hype proclaims, the site should be up your street. In a personal capacity, I'm going to find it really useful, since a lot of these 'conscientious' products are only available online and you're basically buying blind when shopping at ecotailers. One of the ideas behind SmartPlanet is too take the guesswork out of that, as we'll have checked out the eco and ethical creds, done our research and actually sampled or tested the product hands-on. Like any site, it's a work in progress -- so please let me know what you love or hate in the comments. I know everyone says it, but I'd genuinely like as much feedback as possible.
Meet my hallway. This photo shows how we inherited it a year ago, replete with four typical IKEA halogen bulbs, each sucking up 80W every time I came home. While I swapped out the rest of the house's lighting for low energy alternatives, I procrastinated with these ones because they have those pointy MR16 fittings and I couldn't find any compatible mini-sized CFLs (what we all tend to call energy-saving bulbs). I then had a look for the other green alternative: LEDs. After some laborious searching, I ended up ordering some £4.49 ones from the ever-useful energy-saving site, REUK.
Continue reading "Swapping MR16 halogens for greener LEDs" »
