Surf, spend and save the planet

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Surf, spend and save the planet

It's daft, yet oddly reassuring that you can save the planet by flashing plastic, but consumer power is now one of the main tools of environmental sustainability. You can harness your retail therapy to benefit outfits like WWF, which works to promote sustainable development and the conservation of biodiversity.

The more you spend, the more good you'll do, but small amounts from lots of people accumulate into a generous amount, to paraphrase the singing bankers in Mary Poppins. We've divided your choices into cost categories rather than whether they're gifts for your parents, kids, partner and so on.

A lot of your options are listed online, so grab your mouse and let's go.

Any amount

www.ecoMiles.com:
The ecoMiles system works a bit like a loyalty card, but with one major difference: each time you spend money with a participating outlet - everyone from Netflorist to The Body Shop - a portion is donated to an environmental cause of your choice. The list of partners is growing, so it's getting easier, not harder, to harness your virtual buck.

Partners include Marks & Spencer, American Express, Kalahari.net, Ford, Nokia, British Airways, Barnes & Noble, Dell, Toshiba, Hotwire, Cheaptickets, Expedia, Travelocity, Cingular, National Geographic, Discovery Channel and eBay.

R50 to R200

Plush toys
From keyring-sized seahorses to benign gorillas roughly as big as a zeppelin on steroids, WWF's plush toys are undeniably cute. As you'd expect, many of the items are aimed at youngsters, but few adults will resist the urge to stroke a lynx when it's as soft as cream and there's no danger of losing a finger. See www.plushco.co.za for examples of the range.

Biodiversity in Wine
Winemakers increasingly recognize the need to limit their environmental impact and are adopting a range of measures to preserve biodiversity in their operations. One example is interspersing their vineyards with patches of indigenous bush. Support them by drinking their wine - how difficult can that be? See www.bwi.co.za for a list of winemakers who conform or are working towards it. (Also see www.iqhilika.co.za for enviro-friendly mead)

Sassi
Seafood has never been more popular with diners - it's healthy, versatile and perfect for al fresco summer evenings. But some fish that's on your menu is endangered or illegal, and your fishmonger or waiter might not know or might not tell you.

The Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative is an easy way to check whether it's okay to eat what's on offer. You don't need to be a marine biologist to know either: Sassi has a booklet as well as a nifty wallet card which is available online at www.wwf.org.za/sassi. It divides fish into three categories: green, which can be freely eaten, orange, which is best avoided because the species is in decline or because the fishing techniques used to catch it damage the environment, and red, which may not be sold. This ought to be simple enough for restaurateurs and even gel-haired, 17-year-old waiters named Dylan, but refer to the wallet card anyway.

R200 R400

Natural wonders
As any tourist from Belgium or Nebraska will tell you, each of South Africa's provinces has more geographic and biological diversity than many countries. Getting to see many of these natural wonders won't cost you your bonus either. Spending time in any of the 20 national parks and dozens of nature reserves and botanical gardens is good for the soul and the money you spend there goes toward their upkeep. Chances are you've only experienced a fraction of what's available to you. See www.nbi.co.za, and www.sanparks.org for options.

Be card sharp
From R170 you can buy a WildCard, a smart way to pay for entry to national parks and nature reserves. It's tiered, so you pay less for access to say, nature reserves just in the Cape Town area than you do for entry to all the reserves in the country. See www.wildinafrica.com. Loyalty cards are plentiful nowadays, but we don't know of any others that offer as much access to the variety of natural life SA has. Essentially, using the card a couple of times entitles you to free access to places with fresh, fragrant air and natural light for as often as you like each year. Much the same principle applies to facilities like the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town at www.aquarium.co.za and uShaka Marine World in Durban at www.ushakamarineworld.co.za

R7 000 upwards

Twist your throttle
Scooters and road bikes were once the preserve of teenagers needing to get to school or meet up with their pals at the, like, mall. Ironically, that's also the primary destination of most people driving double-cab monsters the size of zeppelins on steroids, with chrome bullbars, a metre of ground clearance and a snorkel exhaust.

Increasing numbers of adults are using scooters to by-pass the agony of their daily commute. It may take you four months of standing in a queue of people with body odour and halitosis to get a booking for a learner's licence test, but once that's done, a few thousand rands gets you a 125cc two-wheeler that uses about 2.5 litres/100km. Your 4X4-driving friends' laughter will ring hollow as they idle on one of the national roads and you use the extra time at the office or smugly sipping a latte somewhere.

R15 000 upwards

Living in one of the world's sunniest countries means we're crazy not to harness some of that free power. Investing in an irrigation and solar heating system for your home can add to its resale value as well as cutting your monthly bills. See www.biolytix.co.za for an explanation of how most of the water used in your home can be reused in your garden. See www.energy.sourceguides.com for a list of solar heating suppliers.

R200 000 upwards

Unless you count golf carts, the Toyota Prius is the only electric hybrid vehicle on the local market at the moment. That's likely to change in 2006, with the Honda Insight, Ford Escape, Lexus RX, Toyota Highlander due to become available. - WWF-SA

More information:

See WWF-SA - www.panda.org.za