Don’t miss these green reads:

When you’re picking your way through a furniture sale – what’s perfect for renovation? Here are ten good suggestions, based on years of experience!

Another ten – this time, America’s top 10 walkable cities, from The Daily Green. We’re all for rediscovering our legs – and other time-honored ways of using them, like walking buses.

So, we have this word "garbage", and we associate it with the word "useless". Problem. Take these 20 works of garbage art over at Weburbanist, for example – or this garbage mirror. We need a new word.

Urban tumbleweed, begone! Sprawling Los Angeles is the latest city to show this plastic plague the door (after 2010). And good riddance, too.

You may be enjoying American oysters over the Pond, but here in Europe the industry is in crisis. In just a few days, the entire 2009 crop of 1-year-old oysters has been wiped out – perhaps a direct or knock-on effect of rising sea temperatures. Read the full story in The Independent here (and a 2003 article from The Times, showing how dramatic this turnaround is).

Also at The Daily Green, a handy list of 6 plants that will grow anywhere – perfect for those agricultural skyscrapers!

Blaine Brownell wants to tell us about the latest in sustainable building materials – and he’s doing so in a video here. (Thanks to Sew Green for finding this one). 

We need to conserve our planet’s natural habitats, land and sea – because they’re helping keep a lid on runaway global warming. Wetlands are amongst the most important places on earth – they hold 20% of the world’s carbon, and if threatened they could act as "carbon bombs".

If we hadn’t made clear by now our dislike of manufactured antibacterial cleaners, this Scientific American article from July last year nicely covers the science side of our argument (via Green SAHM).

Lastly, a little psychology: the sneaky tricks that retailers use to make shoppers part with their money – courtesy of Robert Roy Britt for LiveScience.

Image: Javier Kohen