The proof is in the pudding.

I've even recycled this page from my old clunky web-site.

I live on a 7-acre block with composting toilets, grey-water reticulation and the burning of scrap timber as the major source of heating.  We grow organic vegetables and harvest our own water.  But, as I said, there’s a balance. I actually work within 2 km of the CBD of Australia's biggest city, in a warehouse which we've refurbished with 80% by value re-used or recycled materials, including the shopfittings, and lit with low-wattage bulbs.

I join issue with the inner-city greenies in their houses with  cushions made of organic cotton but dyed with regular mordant-based dye (which in large quantities is carcinogenic).   I visited a mate who lives in one last week, who’s just had a kid. 

She’s been buying organic babywear, nontoxic toys and for herself, organic clothing, including underwear.  The packing slip for the babywear said : "Walking in the park, even on the cloudiest of afternoons, can still do potentially lethal damage to your skin, and studies show that sun lotions are toxic."

She reckons you're basically buggered either way.

(we by the way recommend India Flint's low-impact dye technologies).

I don't follow the green consumerism - that's getting you to buy more. Instead, I promote new and existing technologies which will reduce your carbon footprint, reduce your use of new resources, and may well give our unemployed jobs in re-working the existing materials. In effect, you use less.

If there's a reasonable way of re-using or re-working an old product - whether metal, wood, rubber, maybe a computer consumable - I'll find it and I'll do it.

For example, getting local long-term unemployed to denail hardwood or wire-brush old steel shelving as a way of earning income empowers them - they learn to do something, and gain the self-esteem of independence from welfare or begging.  And old materials have an advantage over newer stuff - they were usually made to last, so it's easier to repair or re-use because it's made cheaply.