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

Local or Organic?

As a vegetarian I eat a reasonable amount of vegetables. I buy most of these from the local greengrocer, who sources as much stock as possible from local farmers, but not all. I buy top-ups from asda. I also buy bits and bobs from waitrose. We do a big shop either by going to Tesco, or more frequently these days from ocado online (we are going up in the world!), and will always get some veg in that shop too.

I have some thoughts - don't we all? - about supermarkets. Most of them negative ones. I have some thoughts about supermarkets specific to fruit and veg too. A friend of mine's dad is a farmer and he was telling me about some of the things that supermarkets do to farmers. One such example was that they over-fruit and then insist the farmers buy back the rotting stock that didn't sell. Of course they buy it at ridiculously cheap prices to start with. Farmers are in lose-lose. Leo Hickman's ethical auditors said anyone trying to live more ethically should avoid supermarkets. He switched to an organic veg box scheme.

We have been considering an organic veg box scheme for a while, but weren't sure we wanted to take money away from the local greengrocer. However, they used to deliver to us, but were a bit useless at it, now they don't do it at all. We have to remember to go and get things from them, and they aren't just "over the road" like they used to be. I find I am increasingly buying things from supermarkets and this somewhat distresses me. The supermarket though is more convenient (for me, if not the planet). Leo Hickman's ethical auditors (in his book "My Life Stripped Bare") say that anyone trying to live more ethically should try to reduce their supermarket shopping. I have some friends who manage to not go to the supermarket, except waitrose. So I feel I should try.

Looking into box schemes I read a story about a farmer who was given a large rush order by a supermarket, and he paid people to pick and pack his lettuces, and just as they were ready for delivery he got a call from the supermarket saying they no longer wanted them, they had overestimated. Now picked the lettuces would go off (except this story has a happy ending - the box scheme people bought them all, and presumably they won't make him buy any rotting ones back again, so he won on that one).

Add to this that the supermarkets insist on certain cosmetic characteristics for their veg, they also charge a premium for organic foods thereby making them less available to lower income people. I haven't even touched on the packaging they use, or the even higher amounts of packaging they use on their loose fruit and veg...

So, I have had to weigh up buying locally from a very small business to buying organic from a larger business, but one which does support smaller local farmers, reduces packaging, and has zero air miles.

It will be a big change, harder to plan meals in advance, having to eat seasonally, but a step that feels like the next logical step. We can cancel if we find it isn't working, but I feel like it is really my duty to make it work. I think we will go with Abel & Cole. They also sell milk, bread, ecover washing products, toilet roll, tofu, beer, wine etc etc etc. There is almost no need to ever go in a supermarket again.

I have veg for this week, so I think I will start it next week. I am really looking forward to it.

we had a white christmas, and a green christmas!

It snowed on christmas day, for maybe the first time in my entire life! We already had snow on the ground, then it snowed just past midnight, we were still up and saw it, and so we had the snow in the garden, and about a quarter of an inch of fresh snow. Apparently bookies paid out on bets of white christmas in nottingham.

So one colour was fixed, what about the other? Green?

Of course the ultimate green christmas would have been sitting in the dark without a christmas tree eating food foraged or gained freganistically meditating or something.

Obviously I didn't take things that far, but I made some green choices where I could.

• we ate vegetarian (as I always do, but some of the other 7 wouldn't normally)


• I home cooked a vegan loaf to reduce a) animal products and b) packaging and processing costs


• I bought all veg british and where possible locally grown


• I have already talked about the ethical dilemma I had with the christmas tree and how i resolved this (I bought a real tree in a pot which I intend to keep for next year and beyond)


• all my decorations are made of natural materials, no plastic whatsoever (although to be fair, at least part of this is aesthetics!)


• I didn't buy a single card or piece of wrapping paper - I made cards (although I did use new card, but hopefully people will like them and treasure them), and I used pre-used paper

I bought people ethical gifts where possible -

• my husband got a recycled bicycle tyre belt and


• some recycled computer keyboard cufflinks!


• My mum got a fair trade afghan blown glass wine glass

People also know I like these things too, and I received a ring made from a teaspoon handle, and some table mats and coasters made from recycled fireman's hose.

I also received Leo Hickman's book - A Life Stripped Bare, Anthony Gidden's Politics of Climate Change and Time Out's Great Train Journey's of the World. I did a train holiday this year and believe this is without a doubt the ultimate way forward.

To improve my green christmas for next year i need to:

• reduce produced items such as real eat roast


• buy fairtrade crackers (if I had known about these before I bought mine I would have bought them, but I already had some. Of course some people say that crackers are a terrible bane for the environmentalist, this is somehting I shall have to think about. I did put all the recyclables in the recycling though)


• more green presents for others


• less electric lighting and more candles


• cards made from recycled materials


• reuse this year's tree

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