Thousand reasons to go green

A GREEN volunteer who recycles, grows her own veg, buys local produce and makes gifts from waste paper and cloth has been crowned the UK's "Sustainability Star".

Juliet Wilson, 44, won a 1000 national competition, inspired by 1970s sitcom The Good Life, to find someone living a modern-day equivalent of the self- sufficient lifestyle of characters Barbara and Tom Good.

She said: "I try to do everything I possibly can to be environmentally friendly. We recycle everything, we compost our food waste, we try to source food locally, and if not locally then organic and free trade.

"We grow some of our own food, but living in a tenement in Edinburgh, that's a challenge. But our back green is part of the Edinburgh Backgreens initiative. We've grown potatoes and salad there, and I've also worked in a place where there was a workplace allotment, so there I grew rhubarb and carrots and beans."

Ms Wilson, who lives with her partner Bob Bryson in Dalry, also treats her friends to gifts made from recycled fabric and paper, rather than throwing it in the bin.

She said: "I give a lot of things to second-hand shops, but if things aren't good enough quality I'll make something out of them - I'm making pot pourri bags at the moment, I've made a draft excluder, greeting cards. I'm starting to think of selling them. At the moment I only ever give them away."

She also volunteers with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust and leads walks along the river and bird-watching walks.

She runs her own blog - craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com - which combines her love of the environment and poetry, and teaches classes on environmental writing for Edinburgh University's office of lifelong learning.

Ms Wilson said she had been surprised to win the competition, as many of her friends live similarly green lifestyles, and she thought it was relatively easy to live a sustainable life in the Capital.

She said: "I think a lot of people I know are already doing quite a lot themselves. I think Edinburgh's a relatively environmentally-conscious city. It's easy to recycle here, and public transport is pretty good, it's easy to not have a car in Edinburgh."

She won 1000 to spend on furthering her green lifestyle, which she plans to spend on making her home more energy-efficient. She will also become an ambassador for competition organiser, the wholefood company Whole Earth. Zoe Howe, spokeswoman for the company, said: "When judging the entries we found Juliet's passion and dedication stimulating; her interest in showing people how to live ethically makes her the ideal Whole Earth good life ambassador.

"We hope that her efforts inspire others to try and make a difference to the world around them."