Q I live in a city. Should I burn smokeless coal instead of wood?

A Your council, and the interactive map on uksmokecontrolareas.co.uk , will be able to tell you. The chances are that you are in a smoke-control area and therefore denied the pleasure of a wood fire.

After a series of Clean Air Acts were passed during the past century to clear up urban smog, many city councils restricted burning wood or conventional coal in homes. So if it’s flickering flames you’re after, you may have to track down smokeless coal.

It’s a shame, as burning wood is superior in the green stakes. Despite its worthy name and its impact on air pollution, smokeless coal is no better than any other nonrenewable fossil fuel that produces carbon dioxide when you burn it. Wood, on the other hand, is a renewable, carbon-neutral material, because the carbon dioxide released equals what the tree has used during its life.

So long as you track down a sustainable source, such as BioRegional’s HomeGrown Firewood and Kindling, available from B&Q (diy.com ), or waste wood from your nearest waste wood recycling project (communitywoodrecycling.org.uk ), it is an acceptable way to heat your home – although an eco-obsessive would say that it doesn’t do a very good job of it. It is not efficient to use either wood or smokeless coal to heat your home because as much as 80 per cent of the heat disappears up the chimney.

If fires warm a house at all, it is the area immediately in front of the hearth that gets toasty. But that’s not really the point, is it? It’s an atmosphere thing and I’m not so much of a killjoy that I would forbid anyone from attempting to create cosiness in their living room.

Q Should I boycott cotton garments from Uzbekistan?

A A pertinent question. I’m glad to see EcoWorrier readers are abreast of the latest ethical scandals.

Two weeks ago, the BBC’s Newsnight exposed the use of child labour in Uzbekistan by filming children as young as 9 being forced to work in cotton fields.

For two and a half months every year, it found that schools were shut down so that children could work the fields. This hard labour – as well as adding to the country’s notoriously poor human rights record – enables it to be the second largest exporter of cotton in the world (the largest exporter is China).

Should you boycott the fruits of this slave labour? Definitely. The problem is finding them. You may well be wearing Uzbek cotton right now. On clothes labels, the country where the garment is stitched together is given – it will say Made in Bangladesh, for example – but not the source of the raw material.

In a global marketplace, retailers claim that tracing this information is tricky. An easy way to shrug off responsibility, says the Environmental Justice Foundation, which runs a campaign to encourage consumers and retailers, is to ask more questions about cotton in the UK ( ejfoundation.org ).

George at Asda, having been exposed for using Uzbek cotton, has called on retailers and the UK Government to encourage the authorities in Uzbekistan to take urgent action to improve working conditions in the cotton industry. Until it does, one of the best things you can do is to ask retailers what their policy is on Uzbek cotton.

If you’re not satisfied with the answer, flounce straight off to the Fairtrade cotton clothes in M&S or online to the fetching winter range unveiled by People Tree ( peopletree.co.uk ).

Itimesonline.co.uk/ ecoworrier

Read Anna’s Eco-Blog

From the blog

A flood of e-mails arrived after I asked how many Tesco car parks had the facilities to recycle Tetra Pak cartons. Earlier this year, when the supermarket promised to be operating more than 100 recycling banks by September, I raised an ethical eyebrow. But judging by all the places that you’ve found to take Tetra Pak (at Tesco and elsewhere), I may have to eat, or drink, my words.

Barbara says that rather than recycling Tetra Pak, it would be better not to buy items packaged in it in the first place. She seeks out orange juice in reusable glass bottles or, failing that, the sort that comes in recyclable plastic bottles. David makes himself feel better by sticking with bottles of squash. “You get through a bottle slower, so you create less plastic waste,” he writes.

The solution, according to Sarah, is to ask for a juicer for Christmas. “Fresh juice, straight from the fruit, without a glimmer of plastic in sight,” she writes. But “remember to take an old plastic bag to the fruit stall.” Finally, thanks to those of you who pointed out that Tetra Pak has an interactive map on its website that can direct you to your nearest recycling bank ( tetrapakrecycling.co.uk). GREENIE POINTS

DO IT

Encourage your local shop to follow the example of Unpackaged, an organic grocery store that opened this week in Islington, North London. It sells wholesome foods such as rice, cereals and vegetables loose, encouraging customers to bring their own packaging and refill containers. The idea is to promote the concept of refilling and reusing. Come on, retailers, who’s next? CLICK IT

Sign up for the green rewards card Carbon Cred ( carboncred.it ) and you will earn greenie points when you buy something from a participating online store. More than 1,000 retailers have signed up, including Boots, M&S, John Lewis and Argos. Similar to the Boots card scheme, once you have collected carbon credits, you can choose a green product for free. Collect 40 credits and you can opt for an EyeMax Wind Up and Solar Powered Radio; save 1,000 and you can cash them in for a wind turbine.

SKIP IT

The Apple iPhone (above) is set to be a Christmas star. Apple’s partner company O2 predicts that 200,000 phones will be sold by the new year. But the nifty device, which is a phone, internet browser and MP3 player, has disappointed green campaigners. Greenpeace worries about their use of toxic chemicals, such as flame retardants. Apple says that these will be banned from new products by the end of next year. So hold off until next Christmas.

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