Readings' Green

Thanks to all those who came down and helped celebrate the Merri Creek Bridging Communities Festival on Sunday 13th. The Merri Creek Management Committee and Friends of the Merri Creek did a lot of hard work to make it a fun day along with planting a variety of local species to help build a corridor between two wetlands near Clifton Hill.
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There was music, basketweaving and the Connies shared their knowledge of local and Australian wildlife.
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Oh, yeah, and we did some planting...

Keep an eye on this page for future activities.
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Our environment committee is thrilled that Readings has achieved Sustainability Victoria's Waste Wise accreditation. Over the last eighteen months Readings has been through an assessment process that established our levels of waste output and defined a policy and action plan to reduce our waste to landfill. Some of the changes we have made include: using recycled sugarcane paper, improved recycling of both paper and cardboard, using cloth instead of paper towels in the kitchen and bathrooms and encouraging use of reusable coffee mugs for that all-important morning takeaway. We hope to continue to reduce our environmental impact by raising awareness and encouraging the book industry and our suppliers to get involved.

Congratulations to Nadia Wheatley, Ken Searle and the sixteen primary children who were involved in the creation of Going Bush, the winners of the 2008 Wilderness Society Environment Award for Children's Books.

Going Bush demonstrates the rich abundance of life that can be discovered in a patch of inner-city bush. It provides an inspirational and practical model for getting to know your local habitat, with the essential message of living in harmony with the land and with other people.

The Environment Award for Children's Literature is intended to promote books which inspire a sense of wonder and a sense of caring for the natural world and has been running since 1994. Have a look at the Wilderness Society's website for more details.

hand World Environment Day is Thursday 5th June and it's also the opening day for the Going Green Expo at Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

The expo runs over the weekend and showcases the latest products and sustainable ideas for both individuals and business. Take the time to learn how to reduce your environmental footprint in areas such as waste management, transport, ethical investments, using natural and organic products and carbon trading.

Check out the Going Green website at www.goinggreenexpo.com.au

As part of our commitment to a sustainable future for Australia, Readings is offering free freight to any customers purchasing titles online from our World Environment Day collection between the 5th and 30th of June. Be a part of it.

There are ever-increasing concerns about environmental issues across the board. We are seeing more books in all genres, from the sciences, to the arts, politics, fiction and children’s books as well as music and films that have environmental messages, or are produced in more environmentally friendly ways. Take a look at some of the titles we have on offer.

Green Issues

The 100-Mile Diet
Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon

$34.95 (Trade paperback / Text Publishing )

After scrounging a meal in their remote mountain holiday shack in British Columbia, James and Alisa start to think about the journeys that the foods they eat have taken around the world and the environmental cost of all those food miles. (North America: food travels an average of 1500-3000 miles from farm to plate and the distances are increasing.) They decide to eat only food grown in a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver home for one year.

They know there are certain staples and favourites they'll have to do without, but they gear themselves for the challenge. Taking alternate chapters through the book Alisa and James each tell the story of their year. Each chapter has a recipe, details of the foods they sourced, how they cooked them as well as the experiences of hunting out the foods and...