January was my "buy nothing new" month. I did actually fail a bit - I "accidentally" bought an umbrella. That said not having bought it wouldn't have done much because I did need one, so not buying it for the whole of January would only have delayed me buying it til february, and then I may not have seen the charity umbrella that I ended up buying. There were also several other things I needed which I put off buying until February (for instance a new eyebrow pencil, the good shopping guide etc). Most of these I have actually still not bought, but I don't think the challenge will reduce my consumption of those things, I have not been using my eyebrow pencil any less for instance, so buying one in january would just have meant i had it ready to start using sooner. There were a few items I probably would have bought if it hadn't been the challenge, which I have now forgotten about and no longer want, so the challenge was successful with those things.

Talking of things which haven't been bought and therefore have slipped from the mind, hence I didn't really want.... I wonder how many of the possessions in my own home are actually category instances of that that just managed to get past the first filter. Which of the things in my home would I not have missed had I never bought them? Time to find those things and get them out, free up the house and mind, and try not to fill it with these things again!

I think a challenge is a good way to focus the mind. Obviously I was already aware that everything I buy has a carbon and a waste value associated with it, both post consumer and in production. In fact production is something that has been bothering me more and more of late, but I think i will leave that barely touched upon for now, and will come back to that issue another time.

So even though I knew all that, and do think about it when I buy things I think sometimes I push it to the back of my mind, whereas the challenge brought it to the front of my mind (most of the time, except when I was in tescos and bought the umbrella). So, even though I am not continuing with the challenge this month, I am still thinking about all new purchases and trying to decide how necessary they are. I am trying to buy predominantly used where possible, or not at all. Most of the things we buy we were living perfectly happily without for many years before, we don't really need them at all. Of course part of being a human is having some things we don't need, but do like, and I am happy with that. I try to make these things things which make me feel happy, and if possible fair trade and sustainable. Where this isn't possible I am not going to beat myself up for tiny things. I am on a journey and doing the best I can, and doing better over time.

Nothing New there then!

So, since January 1st 2010 I have been on a self-set challenge to buy nothing new. However if you read my last update on this challenge you will be aware that I did rather intentionally buy somehting new (some fairtrade christmas crackers for next year) and somewhat accidentally and without thinking about it a bottle of water, although this remains arguably within the rules as I didn't state anything about water consumption. I do however have some vaguely coherent internal rules about buying bottled water, and such a purchase would normally be one I would try to limit, however on that particular day I had forgotten to take a bottle of water with me, and I did need a drink, so is it better or worse to buy a bottle of water or a bottle of fizzy pop? There weren't a great deal of highly ethical options in the motorway services shop.

It is also rather dolefully that I admit to accidentally buying an umbrella. I know, I know, how can one accidentally buy an umbrella? Well, my umbrella has been around for a good few years and has been half way round the world with me and back again, it has been well loved and well used for some time now, but is also broken. One of the arms/spokes? won;t extend. It catches in my hair, and drips onto my neck, and the taggy bit then hangs in my face, trying it the other way round seemed far worse in terms of how dry i was keeping, or rather how wet I was getting. This I have been putting up with, but now it is getting tempramental in whether it will actually let me open it up and stay opened. The mechanism seems to be gone. It's a shame because it has been good for not turning itself inside out in the wind, it also folds up really small making it not only a great companion for travelling, but also an easy addition to my bag.

So, I saw this teensy umbrella reduced in (argh, dare I say it? I am reducing the amount i go there) Tesco, it was perfect. I left it on the shelf thinking of my (not ethically related) new year's resolution of having a budget per month, and thinking an umbrella was a particularly unsexy way to spend my limited budget. Then at the cash desk I decided that I do in fact need an umbrella and so should get it. Proceeds to Marie Curie too (although I do know that it's probably about 10p they got). It was only on the way home that I realised my mistake.

Still, I was going to buy a replacement umbrella soon enough, resisting buying it wouldn't have really changed anything about the world, just ever-so slightly delayed it.

There are some things on my want list though, they will have to wait til February though. 12 days to go until I can have:
-a glass drinking straw from http://www.glassdharma.com/straws.html
-the good shopping guide. This year I want to get a lot better at avoiding products from unethical companies

Go paperless?

It's what all the eco-types are doing, and what all the big businesses are doing to greenwash the rest of the shady practices, encouraging you to go "paperless". I have gone paperless with my bank accounts, credit cards and several utility bills.

Then I started thinking about reducing other paper products... I currently use kitchen roll (for holding my boiled eggs, cleaning up spills in the kitchen, wiping the grease off my hands if we have a take away, and as the first absorption layer when pressing tofu) and of course, toilet roll.

I was reading Fake Plastic Fish and Beth was recommending some cloth alternatives to kitchen roll. The particular ones she recommended were totally natural (no plastic hiding in them like most cloths and cloth wipes) and biodegradable/compostable when the end of their life is reached, and come in minimal card packaging. Unfortunately they only seem to be available in the US. I am sure there must be some sort of equivalent product in the UK, I need to do some research to find it, but I wanted those, I liked the look of them.

Then I was thinking about the bog roll (I would never say that out loud, I call it "loo paper" normally!) and actually said to someone, "don't worry we won't be getting rid of that" (except I probably shouldn't have said it out loud because experience has taught me that many of the things I now do, think and like are things I have previously said "never" to). I actually didn't really even think anyone (except in countries where bidets are the norm, or people are very poor) didn't use it.

We buy 100% recycled paper. But then I was reading on Crunchy Chicken about her cloth wipe challenge. Strange I would read this at the same time I have been thinking about it. She and her family use cloth for "#1s" and paper for "#2s" but plenty of people apparently use wash and wipe even for number 2s. This would be very impractical for us as throne room is quite distinct from the washroom, so to speak.

Anyways, for the time being I don't think I will be making that change, and I doubt I ever will, but as I say, I used to say I hated dreads, thought washable menstrual wear was a bridge too far and wouldn't want my lip pierced, I didn't like soya milk and thought it was ok to fly.

I used to think paper wasn't that bad... it biodegrades over time, it comes from sustainably managed forests or it is recycled. Then I learned that it degrades anaerobically in landfill and produces greenhouse gases, so I stopped throwing any paper away at all. For many years now it has all gone in the recycling, been used up, or gone in the compost. Then I stopped buying paper that wasn't recycled as far as reasonably possible because of the higher energy costs in virgin production as compared with recycling. But of course the energy costs of recycling are far higher than not using it at all.

Crunchy Chicken states that on average US citizens use 8.6 sheets of paper per trip to the toilet, which she equates to 57 sheets per day, which I calculate to be 6.63 toilet trips per day. Much as I love her blog, really? US citizens go to the toilet more than 6 times a day? Using 8.6 sheets even just for a wee? Maybe that is single ply figures so really it is 4.3 of our usual 2 ply, but even that sounds like a lot, even for an average across #1s and #2s. Some people must be using hella toilet paper!

Anyway, an effort to reduce toilet paper consumption for the sake of the paper, the waste, and the costs of cleaning the water seem like a good thing all round.

TMI? I have used 7 sheets so far today. I haven't been trying to use a minimal amount. I thought I would just see, for curiosity's sake how much I use in a day, and then maybe try to reduce. How much do you use each day?

The buy-nothing new challenge....

Half way through... I meant to update weekly, but life kind of got in the way of things.

My challenge to myself was to buy nothing new for the whole of January. My self-set rules allow me to buy used second-hand.

15 days into January, what have I bought? Have I bought anything new? How is the challenge going?

Well, disappointedly I tell you I did in fact buy something new only 4 days into the challenge. I was in Oxfam, and saw the fairtrade crackers I wished I had known about before I had bought non-fairtrade ones for christmas just gone, but also kind of pleased I hadn't known about, cause if I had have done I would have bought them, and at twice the price for half as many it would have been 4 times as expensive. So there they were in the January sale at half price! So, 2 boxes in hand ready for christmas coming which I will no doubt be hosting (hopefully with a BabyOrganik) I remembered my challenge. I left the queue to put them back. Then decidedly stepped back into the queue. I thought that if there is a BabyOrganik at christmas I may decide not to spend the extra cash and so no fairtrade crackers would get bought, I also thought I didn't want them to go to waste and wanted Oxfam to sell them. I basically decided on the spur of the moment that fairtrade of somehting you actually *want* to buy beats self-set challenge.

On the day before that I also bought some things, but I don't think they can count - I bought screenwash and deionised water for the car... as I had been driving along at 70mph I got a load of snow on the windscreen, so went to clear it and smeared muddy slush all across the windscreen hampering visibility. Pulled the wash stick to squirt it and nothing happened. Cue mega anxiety and semi-immediate (as soon as safely possible) stoppage to resolve the issue, hence screenwash and water. Surely safety also beats self-set challenge? Stop me if you think I am just talking myself out of all my purchases and therefore rendering my challenge void.

What probably wasn't okay was the bottle of drinking water I bought at the same time to try and cure the anxiety induced dry mouth I was suffering from. I didn't specify at any point to what level foods and drinks would count.

I have made a few other purchases this month, but they have all been used items, or experiences, or consumables - a used purple cord skirt, 2 cinema tickets, a drink in a bar, a used white stuff gilet, that's all I think. Although, now I come to think of it, one of the cinema tickets was for Avatar 3d and I had to purchase 3d spectacles. I think that probably counts. That only just occurred to me.

So, now we know the mistakes I have made, has it made any difference at all? Have I avoided buying anything or are these the only things I would have bought anyway?

Well, I said "no" to curry at from the take away across from work today, partly based on the excess packaging issue, although that isn't strictly in this challenge. I have avoided bidding on ebay on a few things I actually would have quite liked - a pink spotty cord skirt, some ethnic style leggings and a pair of fairtrade gloves as a present for Mr Organik. I really need a new measuring jug, but for now I am making do with guestimating multiples and fractions of tea mugs! I also nearly bought a replacement for my waning eyebrow pencil, until I remembered. I will have to eke that one out!

So half way through and my fails are as follows:

• 2 boxes of oxfam fairtrade crackers


• bottle of drinking water


• 3d glasses at cinema

A time for reflection

A new year seems to be a good time to reflect upon what it is I already do, and where I would ultimately like to go, or maybe what the next steps are.

My ethical journey all began about 13 years ago I guess, when I turned vegetarian. Well, I suppose it probably began before that as I first turned vegetarian when I was 11, some 19 years ago now. It didn't last long. I used to sneak things made of meat as though it mattered whether anyone else knew, not whether I knew. My mum at that time said she wasn't prepared to cook two different meals. At that point I don't think I even really knew why I thought it was wrong to eat meat. I went back to eating it properly and kind of pushed the idea to the back of my mind until I was 17 when I decided I could no longer carry on doing what I thought was wrong. I then knew why I didn't want to eat animals any more and from that point on I haven't. From there I went to university and I don't know as ethics figured much in my life.

Then there are other things that I have always just done I suppose, energy saving light bulbs, recycling glass and drinks cans and washing at 40 degrees. I guess the rest of the journey started about 2 and a half-ish years ago, when I started to think I was into ethical living but didn't know much about it. I then bought flights to Amsterdam for a friend's birthday at new year, rather ashamedly I admit I didn't even think there was an alternative. Then that Christmas I received the Rough Guide to Ethical Living, which was the starting point for many of the subsequent changes in my life. Including the guilt I felt for taking that flight to get to Amsterdam, which is where I was when I read that book.

So, what do I do?

House and Garden

• electricity from 100% renewable supplier Good energy


• Insulation in roof was increased this year


• Energy saving light bulbs used throughout and in lamps


• Heating used sparingly (we only use it in the evening, and daytime at weekends, never in the morning, and only once there is a real need, this year we didn't have it on at all until the last week in November for 1 day, and then not until December)


• We only flush the toilet when necessary


• No hosepipe used


• Garden in semi-wild state to encourage wildlife (OK this has come about more through inactivity than plan, but I do prefer it, it just needs a little more planning to introduce wild flowers and such)

The bad or the to-do

• we only have single glazing so that leads to some heat loss, Mr Brown-eyes wants uPVC, but I don't, but I would like some sort of secondary glazing, and some better curtains


• I used dulux paint last time I decorated, and I have half the paint for the next time, so I will do then too, but after that I want to use an eco-paint company


• Sort out the garden to keep it tidy, but increase wildlife, particularly bees


• would like a new boiler and heating system with thermostatic control

Cleaning and Laundry

• We wash at 30 degrees and never use the tumble dryer


• we use soap nuts to wash in, no softener


• we use ecover toilet cleaner, parsley kitchen cleaner and some sort of natural bathroom cleaner


• we use all recycled paper products - toilet roll, kitchen roll etc

The bad and the to-do

• I have a fair few less environmentally friendly cleaners, although to be fair, that Mr Muscle oven cleaner has been under the sink (well this sink and the last) for the past 8.5 years, I don't use much of it!


• I plan to buy no more bad cleaning products, but I don't really know what to do with the ones I already have... Just use them up I suppose and not replace them. Throwing them away would cause harmful chemicals to leech into landfill, is this better or worse than very slowly putting them into the water supply? I just want them gone from under my sink, but I find myself looking at them and not using them. I could give them away to someone who uses those sorts of products, thereby ever-so slightly reducing the number of them that they would buy, hmmm....


• I would like to get into making my own home cleaners. I do use vinegar occasionally (I actually don't clean very often!) but have not used bicarb or borax for cleaning ever!


• Get some heat retaining curtains


• Only use environmentally friendly paint after I have used the paint I already have and for the jobs already planned for with that paint


• reduce paper products - I have seen some cloth alternatives to kitchen roll


• switch to sustainable cleaning cloths and brushes - no plastic, biodegradable


• There is still a bottle of fairy and a bottle of anti-bac soap - no more fairy, no more anti-bac, no more liquid soap (sure Mr Brown-eyes will agree with this)

Travel

• We own one small energy-efficient car which I only use on longer journeys


• I walk to work and get the bus for short journeys


• I get the train where possible and almost always for journeys where I am a sole traveller. I do this even when it costs more and is more inconvenient


• I limit flying

The bad and the to-do

• would like to travel by train more, I just wish the train companies did not make this so hard, for instance to do the 42 mile journey I wanted to do tomorrow would cost us about £9 for the round trip between the 2 of us, door to door. To get the train would cost us £31 EACH, plus the bus tickets to the train station, plus it takes longer, and we could only leave here at 12.39 or later and we wanted to get there in the morning. It doesn't make the train a very viable choice a lot of the time. I don't know the way around this. In the example I have just given we are simply not travelling, but this isn't always an option


• I would like to say I will never fly again, but that is probably unfeasable. I would definitely like to say as well that I will never fly again in Europe. We aren't too bad with this... in 9 years I have taken 5 short haul return flights and a single long haul flight. Some of those were before I started trying to restrict flying. I want to take my holidays by train from now on. I started this year with the train to China (yes, train all the way to China, then the ferry to Japan. We went all the way to Japan without stepping on a plane, unfortunately this is where the single long haul flight came in for the return journey)

Food and drink

• I am vegetarian


• I am committed to reducing dairy


• I try to buy local and reduce supermarket shopping, shopping mainly with ocado


• I try to cook food from basic first ingredients


• I buy some things organic


• bananas, tea, coffee and sugar are all fair trade


• I partially switched to fair trade only chocolate and supported some traffikfree events which have resulted in more major brands being traffic free

The bad and the to do

• Start using an organic box scheme


• ALL dairy to be organic, or non-dairy, if that makes any sense!


• Less supermarket shopping


• Eating out in small businesses only


• ALL chocolate to be fair trade


• I want to grow some of my own veg

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• We recycle all doorstep stuff which includes certain plastics, paper and card, glass and metals


• We save our tetrapaks to take to the nearest tetrapak recycler when we go


• I take our vegetable waste to work to put in the compost bin


• I compost brown card and paper, except some of the paper bags which I keep to take to the supermarket to put veg in


• We have reusable bags, and should we accept any bags we keep them and reuse


• I buy recycled, upcycled and second hand goods


• I save all wrapping paper and packaging to reuse


• We have some dynamo powered electrical products


• I would like my own compost bin, and water butt

The bad and the to-do

• The biggest thing for me is that I buy too much. I like to look nice and have a passion for clothes and shoes. I do need to reduce this though if I am to stop hidden waste from production and transportation. This is biggie for me.


• Find somewhere to recycle broken plastic bags, batteries (which are currently saved in a pot in the kitchen) and foil (which I have just started saving even though I don't know who will recycle it!)


• There are still too many plastic bags in my house. They should be used up and then eradicated completely. To be fair though many of the bags are years old though!


• Too many of the products we use have too much packaging, I should stop using these and write to the manufacturers to tell them why. Unseen packaging is however a concern for me


• switch all battery powered products to rechargable batteries

Health, Hygiene and Beauty

• Switched to the Mooncup ages ago and have never looked back; health, environment, waste, finances, it's a winner all round!


• started using cloth pads, my favourite sort being Luna Wolf, I also like that buying these generally supports small female run businesses


• switched all cleansers, soaps, moistursers, toners and deodorants to Lush


• All cosmetics are non-animal tested - Bnever, Urban Decay and Barry M
  
• switched to zero packaging shampoo, deodorant, and make up remover all from Lush


• switched to washable cloths and pads in place of cotton wool for make-up removal


• Some natural remedies for hayfever, insect bites, headaches etc


• I take showers not baths

The bad and the to-do

• My hair - is made from plastic and dyed with chemicals. I tried to use henna but it didn't do anything. I don't really know how to resolve this situation, but it is top of my priorities to find a solution for


• There are still a few disposable menstrual products, want to not use these at all


• Stop using shower gel as much, even though it is from Lush, to reduce packaging, see it as a treat only


• Nail varnish and nail varnish remover - I don't know of an ethical nail varnish remover, except chipping it off, which is what I do frequently resort to!


• Reduce cosmetics I suppose.... argh

I think this post got very long and complicated, far more so than I had ever envisaged. I suspect I have forgotten many things. My main targets beyond those set above are:

• To become more involved in activism


• to ensure that if and when a baby green-eyes comes along that we maintain what we have already started

This post is not attempting to be a pat-on-the-back congratulatory post, more of view of where I have come from, where I am going to, and what there is to do to get going in that direction.

(no tags because it will only let me have 200 characters which isn't enough for all the tags and i can't decide which to include, I shall just tag it challenge, because overall it is a challenge to improve)

My buy nothing new challenge

I had been debating having a "green" new year's resolution, but couldn't think of one that I thought was meaningful, or significantly challenging or worthwhile for this year at least.

I decided on something quite separate for an entirely different reason. I made two:
1) look after the house and garden more
2) live more frugally.

It is the second which is or interest to this particular post. So, I have already decided I am to live more frugally. As I say this is not for green purposes, but does come after the consideration and rejection of some similar green style resolutions:
-buy no more new clothes, only second hand
-buy less
-only buy basic clothing etc

I dismissed these for various reasons.

Then today I was reading about the compact whose aim is to buy nothing new. I don't want to permanently go down this route since lots of the new things i buy are fair trade which will directly impact on the lives of others if I stop buying them (don't worry I am not deluding myself by how much it will or won't help - but it certainly won't help people in poor communities if people in rich communities all stop buying their products and instead start living off the waste products of other rich people). Mr Green-Eyed also tells me that we have to consume more in order for the world to carry on turning pretty much. Which I accept, but I actually think that world economics is wrong and we should switch to a non-growth economy. Either way, I don't believe in excess consumption, but I don't think just switching to buying other people's waste is the answer either. The reason there are such good "waste" products in charity shops and on ebay is because people are consuming more new things, so a reduction in consumption in general would be more my speed.

However, I like a challenge, even one riddled with ethical nightmares such as this!

So, my January challenge is to buy nothing new. Nothing new for one month.

Things I am allowed to buy:
-used second hand items
-food and drinks
-food and drinks which come with free gifts so long as the food or drink item would have been bought regardless of the gift.

I will keep you updated :)

Turkelicious... Or, On being vegetarian

The other day I heard a group of people bemoaning their Christmas poultry. Turkeys, they say, are dry. They would rather not eat them, but that is what they are given. They talk about how they leave them on the plate, or how they endure them with no satisfaction. Yet still they eat them.

As they are defiling the bird does the thought never cross their mind that before being on their plate causing such offence and displeasure it was actually a living, breathing creature? I shouldn't think the turkey much wants to be eaten, never mind being eaten by people who actually don't even like it.

I found the whole conversation offensive. I have actually been vegetarian for 13 years now (with a brief period of pescetarianism, which has long since passed, save for a very short fish eating holiday whilst in Japan, it didn't make me feel big or clever, and was only ever a foray). A few years ago I started to only eat organic dairy and eggs (except for some local eggs from a local farmer who only keeps a small colony and doesn't debeak - so essentially organic except for the feed, organic in terms of welfare) due to living conditions. The deal breaker with the eggs was when i found out that free range egg-laying chickens are frequently debeaked.

About 18 months ago though a realisation, that I think I had been suppressing, came to the forefront of my mind like a thunder clap, and it's hung around like a bad smell since, if it's OK to mix metaphors like minestrone soup. I realised that my whole moral position was invalid.

I became vegetarian after learning about the conditions in which meat animals are kept and killed. Not so much that they are actually killed, more the way in which they were. With time I felt less strongly about this, and more about the health benefits of limiting (to zero in this case) meat intake and increasing plant based foods. Now my position is a mixture of both of those and also more strongly the eco argument. I think it would be fair to say I was an environmental vegetarian.

I haven't actually read that article but in short I believe it is very inefficient in terms of food, water and fuel to eat a meat based diet. I also believe the meat industry to be more polluting, and in some cases toxic. I understand there is a book I need to read called The Vegetarian Myth which deals with whether this is actually the case. At this stage I will state that I have always said that if we were to go back to traditional farming methods and crop rotations and as such we needed animals for manure that I would not really know where I stood. Although I don't see why we would need to eat the animals until they died of natural causes anyway, and at that point there wouldn't be enough for everyone to eat... Anyway, I digress.

So, environmental vegetarian, yes? Yep. Except that then, as I was saying before, I realised my entire moral view fell down. What about the food, water, fuel and pollution associated with the egg and dairy industry? What about the young cockerels and the young calves condemned to death by those same industries? Wasn't I just supporting those? Oh dear. So I toyed with becoming vegan, and this is where I think the morality lies. It's just such a lifestyle change that I don't think I can be bothered. What a weak argument. It guilts me to think that thought let alone say it out loud or blog about it!

I decided to become a "social vegetarian", that is akin to a social smoker where one is a non-smoker except in social situations. I would be a non-vegetarian except in social situations (people's houses, restaurants etc). I would not want to use the word vegan and water down the tremendous will power and effort put in by people who do eliminate ALL animals products from their lives. I did very well for about 7 months - I did still eat eggs, but stopped drinking cows milk, only rarely ate cheese, bought soya alternatives etc. I don't eat a dairy marg anyway. I don't really know what happened with all that. I think I will start it up again. In fact I see a challenge coming on - vegan for a week, how do I do? Then I can try a month etc.

I was having a conversation with a fellow vegetarian last night, I was saying I should grow some backbone and give up eggs and dairy, and he was agreeing, saying he was from a hindu family and that he believed the hindu diet to be the most moral. Then some other people joined in, a couple, where one would like to be vegetarian and one wouldn't, and the one that would feels she can't because of the one that won't. Then someone else joined in saying, "There is no such thing as vegetarian anyway, only carnivores and vegans".

What a crock of shit. What am I then? A carnivore? Hrmmm. I mean, I know she is making my argument (with a thai chicken curry on her plate, mind), but I do believe that anything you do is better than doing nothing.

Of course even what seems to be such a simple line of reasoning such as this does throw open conundrums... Packing, storage and transportation of vegan products may be less energy efficient for starters.

Soya has its own anti-arguments, but there are other alternatives to soya. Not Tiger White though, my god, that substance sounds like the answer, but tastes like the devil! I am a firm believer that you can make yourself like anything if you just keep eating it. Anything except Tiger White.

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.

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