This week on Earth Beat: producers pick stories from the past year that made an impact on their lives. From forgoing the dryer to gaining weight, from cancelling plane tickets to being left with heaps of potatoes, hear how Earth Beat stories affect the people who produce them.

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PLASTIC FANTASTIC
To start off, intern Desiree Buitenbos calls to mind Earth Beat’s show on plastic, in which she learned that taking the caps and labels off plastic bottles makes them far more likely to be recycled. And she brings back Omer Kutluoglu of 2K Manufacturing, who says plastic is fantastic - it's our way of using it that's not.
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NO PLASTIC WEEK
Producer Fiona Campbell had the formidable task of going a week without creating plastic waste. She talks about the lessons learned and tells us how that exercise changed her ways.
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CLEAN, GREEN AIR
Inspired by an Earth Beat interview with Patrick Blanc, pioneer of the vertical gardens, editor Michele Ernsting upped the green factor in the Radio Netherlands office and her own home, with immediate results.
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GREEN IS GOOD
Apparently just being around the colour green is good for your health, quantifiably so. Earlier in the year Dr Yolanda Maas presented a thesis on the good health effects of green. She took a walk with Earth Beat reporter Thijs Westerbeek along the green lawns around the Dutch health institute in Bilthoven.
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CHEAP, ABUNDANT FOOD
So far we’ve heard about stories that changed the way people on our programme think and act. But stories can linger in a much more physical way, as producer Jan Huisman found after visiting a farmer who sells his food by the metre.
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FORGET THE DRYER
Producer Michel Walraven was intent on spending his bonus on a brand new dryer. But after working on a segment about the upcoming documentary Drying for Freedom, the money went to a New Zealand vacation instead.
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SUGAR, NOT SWEETENER
Host Marnie Chesterton blames one story from this past year on any recent weight gain. After learning from German scientist Frank Thomas Lange about how artificial sweeteners don’t break down in the body and end up polluting lakes and rivers, she now just takes sugar in her tea.
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CANCEL THOSE TICKETS
Producer Anik See rethought her travel plans as a result of an item she heard in the program. Australian poet John Kinsella and British poet Melanie Challenger decided to stop flying, inspiring Anik to cancel plane tickets and take the train to London instead.
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NEXT WEEK ON EARTH BEAT: We consider New Year’s resolutions. Planting trees to offset carbon emissions from a long place trip seems like a good idea, but it can have some surprising repercussions.
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