I exercise a lot. I am a member of my council leisure services. I get it half price because I work for them. I think it is good for me to support the council services, presumably the more people who support it, the cheaper it is and the more options there will be for people.
I go to the gym and i go to various classes - step, aerobics, bums tums & thighs, spinning.
Where is this going? What is the environmental link? Both good questions.
I also go running. I am not so good at running. I do like it for more than one reason though, even if i don't particularly actually like running itself! I like that it is free (although under my current leisure subscription it actually doesn't cost me any extra to do any additional activities in their facilities, i pay monthly) and it also is zero impact, ecological impact (unless you are running across wildflower fields, or panda mating grounds or something).
This leads me to feel bad when I run on the gym in the treadmill. They use so much power, and I am in a room with heating/air conditioning (sometimes both! Stupid council facilities), lights, fans, music, TVs etc. Plus the new gen treadmills have built in TVs with little, well reasonably sized actually, monitors in. I don't even WANT the monitor, I want just to see my times and things, but that has to be displayed through a screen that probably uses as much power as 10 light bulbs or somehting. At least though i am actually using the info displayed on the screen, I am trying to improve my times, checking my pace etc. Then I see people who are in the gym WALKING on the treadmill. OHMYGOSH what a waste of electricity. But who am I to judge? Everyone has their reasons, and I am only found on the zero-ecological-impact route once or maybe twice a week, compared with the electricity overload of the gym/classes which I attend at least three times a week.
My classes aren't as bad as the gym. Just the heating/air conditioning death match of doom, plus one CD player and amp, and one microphone headset. But that is split between 10-15 people. I think for the variety of exercise and the motivational benefit I can let that one go.
Now, just the other day I saw the music player you power with human running power and it got me thinking...
In spinning (cycling exercise class which simulates hills, corners and stuff) i think they should capitalise on this idea, and wire the bikes up to the lights (they have disco lights in spinning) and music. Not only would this be great as it would be enviro-friendly electricity, but it would also be a great motivator to exercise... if it all went dark and the music was slowing down, we would all have to peddle harder. Green electricity and a better work out, what more could you ask for?
Monday 30 November 2009
Saturday 28 November 2009
ARGH! My hair is not sustainable!!
I have been in a quandary for a while about my hair, which isn't currently, but often is synthetic dreadlocks. At the moment it is woven in human hair dreadlocks. Each has its pros and cons.
The main problem with synthetic dreads lies in the name.... synthetic. As in man made, as in plastic. I avoid plastic where possible, I try to buy natural fibres (although I get guilt over non-organic cotton and the would-be vegan in me has to be squashed every time i buy wool - is there no simple answer?), so why do I have PLASTIC hair?
I feel that my hair is a small drop in the ocean... I maybe use 4 packets of hair per year, each pack is 3oz i think, so not a huge concern. Although it is Chinese produced which throws in more questions and doesn't give any answers, and it comes in packaging, plastic packaging. I do rewear my hair, and i keep it all or sell it, it never goes in landfill.
I do a lot of green things and think that this one little luxury should be OK.
Then I read George Monbiot's blog about how small actions allow people to overlook the bigger ones/. Obviously i am aware of this. When I went on my holiday by international rail last year I was met with criticism from many who fly who told me I did all my recycling and the like. As if my recycling could possibly cancel out hauling a 440 tonne hunk of metal into the sky spilling out jet fuel as it goes. This is what people think though. "Oh I took my own bag to the shop, I can go in my 4x4 and it will all cancel out". They do it with everything, "Oh I walked to work this morning, aren't I healthy, I can have fish and chips for tea and it will all cancel out.... In fact I even took the stairs instead of the lift, I'll have a donut to boot". Um... no.
I don't want to be one of these people though, I try to be more mindful of these things. Now, I don't think my hair could be worse than all the things I do do (except of course if we consider the many pit falls I may accidentally have fallen into), but I also don;t want to be merely neutral. If my hair has cancelled out all the good I do then my foot print is not reduced.
Part of me wants to ignore the issue here and assume my hair has minimal impact (well, I assume it has a big impact else I wouldn't bother, but y'know, minimal environmental impact) but I'm not sure how well the brush-it-under-the-carpet approach suits me. What do you think?
I have not the answers. I like to look good, feeling positive about myself leads me to be more proactive about the other things I care about. It's a complex web. But I am not a fly and don't have to be caught in it. I could find some fo' sure enviornmentally friendly hair. I don't know what that is though... human hair extensions have the potential to have a high social cost (that would be for another blog), natural hair has more washing and styling in it, which uses more water, more product and more electricity. I could go completely au-naturel, but tbh that isn't going to be an option. The web gets stickier and I can see the spider approaching me and I haven't even begun to find the answer.
There is wool, but again the would-be vegan in me debates which is better.
I haven't even talked about dye yet!,
The main problem with synthetic dreads lies in the name.... synthetic. As in man made, as in plastic. I avoid plastic where possible, I try to buy natural fibres (although I get guilt over non-organic cotton and the would-be vegan in me has to be squashed every time i buy wool - is there no simple answer?), so why do I have PLASTIC hair?
I feel that my hair is a small drop in the ocean... I maybe use 4 packets of hair per year, each pack is 3oz i think, so not a huge concern. Although it is Chinese produced which throws in more questions and doesn't give any answers, and it comes in packaging, plastic packaging. I do rewear my hair, and i keep it all or sell it, it never goes in landfill.
I do a lot of green things and think that this one little luxury should be OK.
Then I read George Monbiot's blog about how small actions allow people to overlook the bigger ones/. Obviously i am aware of this. When I went on my holiday by international rail last year I was met with criticism from many who fly who told me I did all my recycling and the like. As if my recycling could possibly cancel out hauling a 440 tonne hunk of metal into the sky spilling out jet fuel as it goes. This is what people think though. "Oh I took my own bag to the shop, I can go in my 4x4 and it will all cancel out". They do it with everything, "Oh I walked to work this morning, aren't I healthy, I can have fish and chips for tea and it will all cancel out.... In fact I even took the stairs instead of the lift, I'll have a donut to boot". Um... no.
I don't want to be one of these people though, I try to be more mindful of these things. Now, I don't think my hair could be worse than all the things I do do (except of course if we consider the many pit falls I may accidentally have fallen into), but I also don;t want to be merely neutral. If my hair has cancelled out all the good I do then my foot print is not reduced.
Part of me wants to ignore the issue here and assume my hair has minimal impact (well, I assume it has a big impact else I wouldn't bother, but y'know, minimal environmental impact) but I'm not sure how well the brush-it-under-the-carpet approach suits me. What do you think?
I have not the answers. I like to look good, feeling positive about myself leads me to be more proactive about the other things I care about. It's a complex web. But I am not a fly and don't have to be caught in it. I could find some fo' sure enviornmentally friendly hair. I don't know what that is though... human hair extensions have the potential to have a high social cost (that would be for another blog), natural hair has more washing and styling in it, which uses more water, more product and more electricity. I could go completely au-naturel, but tbh that isn't going to be an option. The web gets stickier and I can see the spider approaching me and I haven't even begun to find the answer.
There is wool, but again the would-be vegan in me debates which is better.
I haven't even talked about dye yet!,
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Little Fluffy Clouds
OK, maybe not, but today I have made fluffy clouds at work (I have a dead serious job) out of cotton wool balls. I did however say to some people that we would have to buy some as I don't have nay at home. They were curious as to why and what I used instead.
To answer this with the long story here goes! A while ago I decided I would like to minimise my disposable cosmetics paraphenalia. I realise it would be greener still not to use it at all, but hey ho, I like to look nice, and i try to do it in the most responsible and sustainable way possible, so I am not going to feel bad about that at this point in time. I switched away from traditional make-up remover which comes in plastic bottles and started using baby face by my favourite shop!. I then removed it using a muslin cloth which i was given with some Liz Earle products i was given for a birthday pressie. As this worked well I bought some organic cotton muslin and now have a collection of muslin squares for make-up removal (we only do washing when there is a full load, so things can hang around a bit, so i needed a stack of them).
This worked well for ages, but I was still plagued by the notion that i was using toner on cotton wool. Yes, I had reduced the impact, but not eliminated it. Then I started using reusable menstrual wear and started to think that i could use reusable cotton wool pads. So, I now don't keep cotton wool pads/balls/roll etc at home. I have a few sets of reusable pads for make up removal, some organic cotton, some polyester cotton mix, and some hemp, and maybe some bamboo. I haven't tried them all so I can't contrast them.
This throws it's own dilemmas at me:
1) is it better for the environment to wash and reuse or dispose of somehting small and biodegradable?
I think in my case it is most definitely better to wash and reuse, as i stated we only wash when the load is full, we use soapnuts or occasionally ecover, we wash at 30 degrees, we don't tumble dry
2) even though cotton production is highly unethical in many respects, for the people that produce it it is better that someone buys it than no-one, not buying it doesn;t help the farmers really. Social cost vs environmental cost
3) I had nothing to use to keep my eyes cleansed separately when i had an eye infection! (this is small fry!)
4) i bought some nail varnish remover pads in a plastic pot. I am suspecting this is worse than me having some cotton wool and a bottle of nail varnish remover? Is plastic waste worse than cotton? The ethical dilemmas abound!
To answer this with the long story here goes! A while ago I decided I would like to minimise my disposable cosmetics paraphenalia. I realise it would be greener still not to use it at all, but hey ho, I like to look nice, and i try to do it in the most responsible and sustainable way possible, so I am not going to feel bad about that at this point in time. I switched away from traditional make-up remover which comes in plastic bottles and started using baby face by my favourite shop!. I then removed it using a muslin cloth which i was given with some Liz Earle products i was given for a birthday pressie. As this worked well I bought some organic cotton muslin and now have a collection of muslin squares for make-up removal (we only do washing when there is a full load, so things can hang around a bit, so i needed a stack of them).
This worked well for ages, but I was still plagued by the notion that i was using toner on cotton wool. Yes, I had reduced the impact, but not eliminated it. Then I started using reusable menstrual wear and started to think that i could use reusable cotton wool pads. So, I now don't keep cotton wool pads/balls/roll etc at home. I have a few sets of reusable pads for make up removal, some organic cotton, some polyester cotton mix, and some hemp, and maybe some bamboo. I haven't tried them all so I can't contrast them.
This throws it's own dilemmas at me:
1) is it better for the environment to wash and reuse or dispose of somehting small and biodegradable?
I think in my case it is most definitely better to wash and reuse, as i stated we only wash when the load is full, we use soapnuts or occasionally ecover, we wash at 30 degrees, we don't tumble dry
2) even though cotton production is highly unethical in many respects, for the people that produce it it is better that someone buys it than no-one, not buying it doesn;t help the farmers really. Social cost vs environmental cost
3) I had nothing to use to keep my eyes cleansed separately when i had an eye infection! (this is small fry!)
4) i bought some nail varnish remover pads in a plastic pot. I am suspecting this is worse than me having some cotton wool and a bottle of nail varnish remover? Is plastic waste worse than cotton? The ethical dilemmas abound!
Sunday 22 November 2009
Sustainable Art?
When we went to the Deep in Hull they had an exhibition by Martin Waters.
I found this work to be not only beautiful but also to highlight the effects of living in a disposable society. Much of his work is made from remnants of things he has collected from the beach. There was a collection of plastic forks, a collection of toy guns/water pistols that sort of thing, there were others arranged by colour.
I would like to try my hand at these, but with city waste. I would like to try it with the children but I am concerned about the health and safety aspects of that. I think I need to build up my collection of junk and then I too can make a disposed of montage.
Watch this space for green-eyed's environmental art.
I found this work to be not only beautiful but also to highlight the effects of living in a disposable society. Much of his work is made from remnants of things he has collected from the beach. There was a collection of plastic forks, a collection of toy guns/water pistols that sort of thing, there were others arranged by colour.
I would like to try my hand at these, but with city waste. I would like to try it with the children but I am concerned about the health and safety aspects of that. I think I need to build up my collection of junk and then I too can make a disposed of montage.
Watch this space for green-eyed's environmental art.
Plastic-Free Lent - The results!
The previous post contains the bulk of last year's plastic-free lent experiment, this post contains the results.
Here is the grand total of all the plastic I bought or had to take, the plastic bag is not included, I had that in the house already!:
Then this is what it looks like all laid out:
That one above includes the bread bags which I did allow in the initial rules, but not the milk. I didn't buy much soya milk anyway as I had a few cartons in already, so this is what it looks like minus the "allowed" items:
On the left there is a bag from some potatoes that my greengrocers insisted we have (they seemed to think it was hilarious and refused to sell us the unbagged potatoes), there are 3 tags from some spring onions, some painkillers (I was quite ill!), a straw which I picked up without even thinking on the first weekend of lent. A packet from some veg, I forget what, it turned up in plastic from the greengrocers in their delivery, a packet surrounding some burgers inside a card box. I'm sure they never used to be wrapped in plastic as well. There's a plastic cup I got half way round a 9 mile race. There is a plastic plate and cup I got when I was on a conference and hadn't thought about lunch before going, I could have taken my own plate and cup had I thought. Anyway, decided I would take them and not go hungry, but I took them home, washed them and took them back the next day so I didn't use a second plate and cup! There is also a packet from some biscuits and one of those things for taking tea bags out with, this one is really silly - I carefully selected a paper cup not a plastic one, had fruit tea so I wouldn't need the milk in the plastic thing, and then stoppped thinking and took my tea bag out and ate some biscuits, then realised :oops:
So as you can see, more stupidity and lack of forward thinking than anything else. That said I have run out of everything and am ready to go to the shops and get some replacements! Also, it would not have been possible if we hadn't already had some things in the house. Like we already had some long life pate for our sandwiches, and a block of cheese. It was certainly inconvenient though.
I don't know as I would do it exactly like this again just due to some of the ethical dilemmas (some of which I picked up on in the previous post). In general I would like to see plastic and packaging reduced, but not at the expense of something else, and I worry that this might be what would happen, and is already happening in some places where they make it appear they are being greener. I would want to know and understand some of the issues in more depth, which I don't think is all that possible unless you are a journalist or a scientist or somehting and you actually have paid time to find out!
That said, obviously I try to make greener choices, and this is why I chose this for lent (and why indeed I have this blog). It has made me think more about things, and there are some things which I will take away from this as everyday things. So, I will never put my fruit and veg in those plastic bags in the supermarket anymore, I will take in my own paper bags, which are given to me by the greengrocer and I can compost at the end of their natural life.
Ultimately I would like to lead the most natural life possible, but I think we have to be careful that some things that appear more natural may actually be worse for the environment.
I wish it wasn't so difficult to know what to do.
I also think I may start taking my own straw out with me. It sounds daft and it's only a straw which is small, but I like drinking my drinks through a straw, but if we reduced straw consumption I imagine that would be a fair amount of plastic reduced. You can use about 10 or more straws per night out. If I take my own I will only use 1, and could rinse and re-use as well.
Those 2 things are really very trivial in the grand scheme of things though.
I do try to do things which have a wider impact on the environment too though - we get our electricity from http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/, I try to walk and take the bus/train instead of the car. We only own one car between us and purposefully bought an energy efficient model (and plan on a hybrid when we need a new one, although I am now not sure about this as I heard they are very bad for the environment). Hardly ever have the heating on. I'm vegetarian and restrict dairy. I pretty much never fly.
I also feel that even with all that (and a bit more that would sound like a self-righteous monologue if I went through it all), I am only making the tiniest difference, and mostly only to my own conscience. And it is all wiped out and more the minute Gordon Brown builds a new runway, or a new coal fired power station.
I think I am going to start going to climate camp and doing more campaigning for political change. I think individuals have a small personal responsibility but ultimately I think it is political change we need. Of course individual responsibility extends to voting for a party that will make a difference. And if there isn't one then voting for a party that wants to change the system and make it more likely that there will be more real options for which party will govern the country.
Here is the grand total of all the plastic I bought or had to take, the plastic bag is not included, I had that in the house already!:
Then this is what it looks like all laid out:
That one above includes the bread bags which I did allow in the initial rules, but not the milk. I didn't buy much soya milk anyway as I had a few cartons in already, so this is what it looks like minus the "allowed" items:
On the left there is a bag from some potatoes that my greengrocers insisted we have (they seemed to think it was hilarious and refused to sell us the unbagged potatoes), there are 3 tags from some spring onions, some painkillers (I was quite ill!), a straw which I picked up without even thinking on the first weekend of lent. A packet from some veg, I forget what, it turned up in plastic from the greengrocers in their delivery, a packet surrounding some burgers inside a card box. I'm sure they never used to be wrapped in plastic as well. There's a plastic cup I got half way round a 9 mile race. There is a plastic plate and cup I got when I was on a conference and hadn't thought about lunch before going, I could have taken my own plate and cup had I thought. Anyway, decided I would take them and not go hungry, but I took them home, washed them and took them back the next day so I didn't use a second plate and cup! There is also a packet from some biscuits and one of those things for taking tea bags out with, this one is really silly - I carefully selected a paper cup not a plastic one, had fruit tea so I wouldn't need the milk in the plastic thing, and then stoppped thinking and took my tea bag out and ate some biscuits, then realised :oops:
So as you can see, more stupidity and lack of forward thinking than anything else. That said I have run out of everything and am ready to go to the shops and get some replacements! Also, it would not have been possible if we hadn't already had some things in the house. Like we already had some long life pate for our sandwiches, and a block of cheese. It was certainly inconvenient though.
I don't know as I would do it exactly like this again just due to some of the ethical dilemmas (some of which I picked up on in the previous post). In general I would like to see plastic and packaging reduced, but not at the expense of something else, and I worry that this might be what would happen, and is already happening in some places where they make it appear they are being greener. I would want to know and understand some of the issues in more depth, which I don't think is all that possible unless you are a journalist or a scientist or somehting and you actually have paid time to find out!
That said, obviously I try to make greener choices, and this is why I chose this for lent (and why indeed I have this blog). It has made me think more about things, and there are some things which I will take away from this as everyday things. So, I will never put my fruit and veg in those plastic bags in the supermarket anymore, I will take in my own paper bags, which are given to me by the greengrocer and I can compost at the end of their natural life.
Ultimately I would like to lead the most natural life possible, but I think we have to be careful that some things that appear more natural may actually be worse for the environment.
I wish it wasn't so difficult to know what to do.
I also think I may start taking my own straw out with me. It sounds daft and it's only a straw which is small, but I like drinking my drinks through a straw, but if we reduced straw consumption I imagine that would be a fair amount of plastic reduced. You can use about 10 or more straws per night out. If I take my own I will only use 1, and could rinse and re-use as well.
Those 2 things are really very trivial in the grand scheme of things though.
I do try to do things which have a wider impact on the environment too though - we get our electricity from http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/, I try to walk and take the bus/train instead of the car. We only own one car between us and purposefully bought an energy efficient model (and plan on a hybrid when we need a new one, although I am now not sure about this as I heard they are very bad for the environment). Hardly ever have the heating on. I'm vegetarian and restrict dairy. I pretty much never fly.
I also feel that even with all that (and a bit more that would sound like a self-righteous monologue if I went through it all), I am only making the tiniest difference, and mostly only to my own conscience. And it is all wiped out and more the minute Gordon Brown builds a new runway, or a new coal fired power station.
I think I am going to start going to climate camp and doing more campaigning for political change. I think individuals have a small personal responsibility but ultimately I think it is political change we need. Of course individual responsibility extends to voting for a party that will make a difference. And if there isn't one then voting for a party that wants to change the system and make it more likely that there will be more real options for which party will govern the country.
Plastic-Free Lent
As this is a fairly new blog I have some past things I would like to add retrospectively, and this is one of them. This is a 6 week experiment condensed into one single-serve backdated blog!
Last year we (Mr Organik and myself) jointly gave up plastic for lent. Well, kind of. Some friends of ours gave us the idea talking about some friends of theirs who did it last year, but apparently they stockpiled before lent! Well, we didn't stockpile as we only decided to do it the day before lent began (plus that would have been a real cheat and totally missed the point of what we were trying to achieve), but we did have a fair amount of stuff with plastic in and on in the house already (as we bulk buy a lot of produce going out of date). So we gave up the acquisition of plastic. As far as possible. The more we thought about it the harder we realised it would be - no crisps, chocolate, bought sandwiches, no bottles of water, no wrapped vegetables, no bags of salad, no yoghurts, no cheese... almost everything comes wrapped in plastic.
We gave ourselves 2 exceptions, one being bread which we didn't think we could get without plastic and I had never made bread and didn't think this was a good time to learn. And milk, because I drink soya milk we couldn't even get it delivered in glass bottles (if they even still do them) from the milkman anyway. But everything else was a no-go. At least we decided to see how long we lasted without having to buy plastic anyway!
Part way through the experience I found this experiment:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/monthwithoutplastic/2008/08/goodbye_plastic.html
She set herself similar rules to us, but being a journalist and that was effectively her job she was able to take it a bit more seriously than us.
I was challenged by someone saying that I could have bought paper wrapped bread from a bakery had I so chosen, which is indeed true, but here is the reasoning behind why we didn't do that:
-usually bread like that only lasts a couple of days at most. We wouldn't get through it all in a couple of days, so this would be an extra cost and an extra wastage (we keep our sliced bread in the freezer and just take out a slice or two as we need it)
-I couldn't really get to a greggs/bakery section etc every couple of days anyway. My hours are already pretty long, and I walk to and from work and don't go past any of those things. I wouldn't want to drive anywhere, that would defeat the environmentalist side of things.
-so yeah, I *could* get bread in a paper bag (not from asda though, their bakery stuff is in plastic!) but I would have a huge impact on my life, so I have written that one off from the start.
Mr Organik made some errors early on though, he ate some packaged biscuits in a meeting, and didn't realise till he ate them. He also had a coffee from one of those machines that uses a sachet thing because he hadn't taken a drink with him to work and was in meetings all day (hmmm!)
I turned down a cheap pot of lush gorgeous because it was in plastic. I didn't go for curry with people from work cause they put it in polystyrene. I also didn't buy the yoghurts in cardboard pots because they had plastic film lids.
I have come to the conclusion that this definitely wouldn't be sustainable long term, we were just curious really to see whether it's even possible, lent is only 6 weeks, just over.
Followers of my experiment were concerned about various things from washing up liquid to loo roll, detergent to moisturiser and butter to what on earth I put my vegetables in (most came from the local greengrocer who use paper, and the ones from the supermarket went in paper bags I took with me to put them in). The paper bags go in the compost bin once they have reached the end of their natural life.
On our first supermarket trip after lent began we were excited to find squash/cordial in glass bottles. I had hoped there might be, and I knew ribena used to come in glass, but there was actually quite a selection, and all sounded very exciting. They were clearly luxury items though, and priced as such, so we just bought 2 had to see squash as a luxury, having water the rest of the time (which we frequently do anyway).
I was also expecting cheese to be off the list because it invariably comes wrapped in plastic, but found one that was wax covered, and 2 in waxed paper and one camembert wrapped in waxed paper in a wooden box. Again, more expensive than the cheese we would normally have bought, but we had to consider it more of a luxury.
We bought 2 things that were made of plastic - one a birthday card with plastic wrap round it and one a gingerbread man kit which was in plastic as a present for the person the card is for. As these are to give away we decided it wasn't ideal, but didn't want to penalise our friend for our lent.
We found ourselves looking at all sorts of random things, "ooo, look you can get so and so in a tin" and that sort of thing just because they weren't in plastic, then wondering why as they were things that we didn't even want! We saw several boxes of pasta but they all had plastic windows in, so no pasta for the next month. We also saw a "no plastic in here" easter egg, and wondered whether it was a calling! We didn't buy it though
There was only one lot of toilet roll wrapped in paper - andrex 2 rolls, and there was only 1 packet left, luckily that was enough to last til easter!!
I did buy some pain killers. I was quite ill and decided lent would have to take a backseat to that!
It's a tricky issue. To rid ourselves entirely of plastic isn't necessarily the way forward anyway. For instance, the squash/cordial I bought in glass bottles required extra fuel compared with a plastic equivalent to get it to the shop because it is heavier. Yes it can be recycled, but so can plastic squash bottles. Which uses more energy to recycle? I don't know. I know we have an issue with glass recyclng in this country (UK) in general though which is most of the glass we take to be recycled is green (from wine bottles) and most of the glass we use here is white, so the green has to get shipped somewhere else. All very complicated.
Another example could be carrier bags. Plastic bags take a very long time to degrade in landfill, and are made from oil, and are only recycled in limited places. But if we were to replace all the plastic bags with paper bags that would be bad because paper in landfill decomposes anaerobically which produces methane which is a worse green house gas that carbon dioxide. So paper is only better if you compost it. And it's heavier, so again, more fuel to transport it, plus plastic bags take up less space in the dust cart/dustbin van so less vehicles are required, and they take up less space in landfill. I use cloth/hemp/jute bags for my shopping but then what if the person who made them didn't get paid a living wage? AAAARRRGGGH!!! It makes my head hurt!
Hence why in general I try to live the least waste route, but was just keen to try the not buying plastics thing for lent, just as a test to see how hard it was really. In general I would like to see less unnecessary plastics, but I am not sure whether ridding ourselves entirely of plastic is the answer either, not at the moment anyway. I would like to see easily recyclable plastics which can recycled energy efficiently. I also wish that the ethical conundrums were less clouded, I don't think even some of the top scientists could answer of the questions about which thing it is better to buy! How is the average man on the street supposed to know?!
Apparently "loose" fruit and veg at the supermarket actually have 4 times more packaging associated with them than packaged fruit. Even when you think you are doing the right thing you might not be. I think they like to keep us in the dark
I was also questioned about "ladies" products, but that will deserve a post all of its own. Rest assured though I do not use plastic in my feminine wear.
See the next post for the results of the plstic-free lent experiment
Last year we (Mr Organik and myself) jointly gave up plastic for lent. Well, kind of. Some friends of ours gave us the idea talking about some friends of theirs who did it last year, but apparently they stockpiled before lent! Well, we didn't stockpile as we only decided to do it the day before lent began (plus that would have been a real cheat and totally missed the point of what we were trying to achieve), but we did have a fair amount of stuff with plastic in and on in the house already (as we bulk buy a lot of produce going out of date). So we gave up the acquisition of plastic. As far as possible. The more we thought about it the harder we realised it would be - no crisps, chocolate, bought sandwiches, no bottles of water, no wrapped vegetables, no bags of salad, no yoghurts, no cheese... almost everything comes wrapped in plastic.
We gave ourselves 2 exceptions, one being bread which we didn't think we could get without plastic and I had never made bread and didn't think this was a good time to learn. And milk, because I drink soya milk we couldn't even get it delivered in glass bottles (if they even still do them) from the milkman anyway. But everything else was a no-go. At least we decided to see how long we lasted without having to buy plastic anyway!
Part way through the experience I found this experiment:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/monthwithoutplastic/2008/08/goodbye_plastic.html
She set herself similar rules to us, but being a journalist and that was effectively her job she was able to take it a bit more seriously than us.
I was challenged by someone saying that I could have bought paper wrapped bread from a bakery had I so chosen, which is indeed true, but here is the reasoning behind why we didn't do that:
-usually bread like that only lasts a couple of days at most. We wouldn't get through it all in a couple of days, so this would be an extra cost and an extra wastage (we keep our sliced bread in the freezer and just take out a slice or two as we need it)
-I couldn't really get to a greggs/bakery section etc every couple of days anyway. My hours are already pretty long, and I walk to and from work and don't go past any of those things. I wouldn't want to drive anywhere, that would defeat the environmentalist side of things.
-so yeah, I *could* get bread in a paper bag (not from asda though, their bakery stuff is in plastic!) but I would have a huge impact on my life, so I have written that one off from the start.
Mr Organik made some errors early on though, he ate some packaged biscuits in a meeting, and didn't realise till he ate them. He also had a coffee from one of those machines that uses a sachet thing because he hadn't taken a drink with him to work and was in meetings all day (hmmm!)
I turned down a cheap pot of lush gorgeous because it was in plastic. I didn't go for curry with people from work cause they put it in polystyrene. I also didn't buy the yoghurts in cardboard pots because they had plastic film lids.
I have come to the conclusion that this definitely wouldn't be sustainable long term, we were just curious really to see whether it's even possible, lent is only 6 weeks, just over.
Followers of my experiment were concerned about various things from washing up liquid to loo roll, detergent to moisturiser and butter to what on earth I put my vegetables in (most came from the local greengrocer who use paper, and the ones from the supermarket went in paper bags I took with me to put them in). The paper bags go in the compost bin once they have reached the end of their natural life.
On our first supermarket trip after lent began we were excited to find squash/cordial in glass bottles. I had hoped there might be, and I knew ribena used to come in glass, but there was actually quite a selection, and all sounded very exciting. They were clearly luxury items though, and priced as such, so we just bought 2 had to see squash as a luxury, having water the rest of the time (which we frequently do anyway).
I was also expecting cheese to be off the list because it invariably comes wrapped in plastic, but found one that was wax covered, and 2 in waxed paper and one camembert wrapped in waxed paper in a wooden box. Again, more expensive than the cheese we would normally have bought, but we had to consider it more of a luxury.
We bought 2 things that were made of plastic - one a birthday card with plastic wrap round it and one a gingerbread man kit which was in plastic as a present for the person the card is for. As these are to give away we decided it wasn't ideal, but didn't want to penalise our friend for our lent.
We found ourselves looking at all sorts of random things, "ooo, look you can get so and so in a tin" and that sort of thing just because they weren't in plastic, then wondering why as they were things that we didn't even want! We saw several boxes of pasta but they all had plastic windows in, so no pasta for the next month. We also saw a "no plastic in here" easter egg, and wondered whether it was a calling! We didn't buy it though
There was only one lot of toilet roll wrapped in paper - andrex 2 rolls, and there was only 1 packet left, luckily that was enough to last til easter!!
I did buy some pain killers. I was quite ill and decided lent would have to take a backseat to that!
It's a tricky issue. To rid ourselves entirely of plastic isn't necessarily the way forward anyway. For instance, the squash/cordial I bought in glass bottles required extra fuel compared with a plastic equivalent to get it to the shop because it is heavier. Yes it can be recycled, but so can plastic squash bottles. Which uses more energy to recycle? I don't know. I know we have an issue with glass recyclng in this country (UK) in general though which is most of the glass we take to be recycled is green (from wine bottles) and most of the glass we use here is white, so the green has to get shipped somewhere else. All very complicated.
Another example could be carrier bags. Plastic bags take a very long time to degrade in landfill, and are made from oil, and are only recycled in limited places. But if we were to replace all the plastic bags with paper bags that would be bad because paper in landfill decomposes anaerobically which produces methane which is a worse green house gas that carbon dioxide. So paper is only better if you compost it. And it's heavier, so again, more fuel to transport it, plus plastic bags take up less space in the dust cart/dustbin van so less vehicles are required, and they take up less space in landfill. I use cloth/hemp/jute bags for my shopping but then what if the person who made them didn't get paid a living wage? AAAARRRGGGH!!! It makes my head hurt!
Hence why in general I try to live the least waste route, but was just keen to try the not buying plastics thing for lent, just as a test to see how hard it was really. In general I would like to see less unnecessary plastics, but I am not sure whether ridding ourselves entirely of plastic is the answer either, not at the moment anyway. I would like to see easily recyclable plastics which can recycled energy efficiently. I also wish that the ethical conundrums were less clouded, I don't think even some of the top scientists could answer of the questions about which thing it is better to buy! How is the average man on the street supposed to know?!
Apparently "loose" fruit and veg at the supermarket actually have 4 times more packaging associated with them than packaged fruit. Even when you think you are doing the right thing you might not be. I think they like to keep us in the dark
I was also questioned about "ladies" products, but that will deserve a post all of its own. Rest assured though I do not use plastic in my feminine wear.
See the next post for the results of the plstic-free lent experiment
Welcome to green-eyed's new blog
Here it is, the first post in my new blog. This blog is to be the journal of my thoughts and experiences as I attempt to make my life a little more ethical, a little more sustainable and a smaller tread on mother earth.
This journey began some time ago, but as this becomes a bigger feature in my own life the more I have an urge to share my thoughts with others, and hopefully learn from others along the way as well.
With some luck it might be an interesting read too!
This journey began some time ago, but as this becomes a bigger feature in my own life the more I have an urge to share my thoughts with others, and hopefully learn from others along the way as well.
With some luck it might be an interesting read too!
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