The Week That Was

It's been quite a week, hasn't it? I weren't badly effected by the gales on Tuesday and Thursday. I was lucky that I didn't have to work until things had calmed down a bit on Tuesday and Thursday I had no reason to go out. The downside was that between the weather and returning to work I haven't been out walking much, although I do walk around the library, especially when shelving.

This weekend hubby and decided to enjoy the sunshine on Saturday by taking a walk on St Martha's hill, somewhere we haven't been for a couple of years. It is on the route of the ancient Pilgrims' Way and has a little church, St Martha's on the top, although it is thought it may once have been called Saints and Martyrs Hill. I'm not sure which came first, the church or the name of the hill. The church is thought to have been built in the 13th century, but much of it has been restored as it had become a ruin.

Today we walked around the RHS gardens at Wisley. We were greeted near the entrance by a robin singing his heart out and there were flowering plants such as snowdrops, primroses, camellias and rhododendrons here and there. There was also the hot house with some very colourful specimens.

On the ground level there was a fascinating display about roots. Apparently there is a strangler fig that grows in rainforests which grows around a tree blocking it's light and sucking up all the nutrients out of the soil until the tree is just a hollow shell.  The mesquite tree can grow in arid areas because it's roots can go down 30, and sometimes even 50, metres into the ground until they find water.  Then there is the mangrove, which can move up to a metre a year to find more light. The mangrove swamps in parts of Asia are important to prevent flooding, but the lure of cash from tiger prawns has resulted in some of the mangrove trees being chopped down, leaving the surrounding areas more vulnerable to flooding.

What is the Best Bin Liner for the Planet?

Are you as confused as I am about how to line your kitchen bin?

If yours is like mine it probably has a plastic bucket inside it's metal exterior and we could just wash it out regularly and not line it at all, but if you are like me you probably don't have the time to wash it out more than once every week or two, and at this time of year when there isn't much sunshine to dry it but the heating isn't on indoors it could be tricky drying the bin.

So should we line our bins with regular bin liners or degradable bin liners, or should we use one of those thin carrier bags in which we brought our shopping home from the supermarket?  What if you don't take bags from the supermarket but use your own reusable bags and no one else in your house brings them home either?  Could there be an alternative to plastic even?

Well the answer to the first part of the question is, that buying regular bin liners means you are using precious fossil fuels merely to dump them straight into landfill. You are perfectly entitled to do that, but it isn't great for the planet.

What about degradable bin liners?

Well, it seems they don't degrade when packed tight in a landfill site where they aren't reached by air or sunlight, so they aren't such a good idea either.  I've been hearing this from various reliable sources for some time, so I'm as sure as I can be that it's true.

According to 'Science Man' the best sort of plastic bag to use is one containing at least 55% recycled content:

"In fact, if every household in the US replaced just one package of 20 count tall kitchen trash bags made from virgin plastic with trash bags that have 55% recycled content 720,000 cubic feet of landfill space (equal to 1,100 full garbage trucks) would be saved."

I'm sure it would make a sizeable impact in this country, too.

Of course, it will also help if people take all the carrier bags they won't reuse to a carrier bag recycling point, which most supermarkets around here seem to have.

If you are like me and you find that most of your rubbish is plastic bags that once contained rice, raisins or loo roll etc, then sometimes you can put other rubbish in these, or use a large one to stuff all the smaller ones into.

I presume our grandparents wrapped messy things in newspaper before they had plastic bags.

My supply of supermarket plastic bags is coming to an end as my son goes off to university and I've nearly finished the packet of degradable bin liners I bought in a misguided moment some months ago - at least I've made them last quite well. In a few more weeks it will just be me and hubby, so I shall see if we can create a lot less rubbish than we did with the kids around and if we can avoid using plastic bags.


What do you line your bin with?

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Interview with 'No Impact Man'

I've just heard an interview with 'No Impact Man' aka Colin Beavan on You and Yours.  It lasted about 10 minutes and Colin came across as just as thoughtful as he did in his book.

The interview was intended to promote the fact that the film 'No Impact Man' is now being screened at selected cinemas around the UK.  I felt Peter White didn't make this as clear as he could have done, though.

You can listen here.

(Jewish) New Year, New Start

Happy New Year to you, if you are Jewish.  If you are not Jewish, then you might like to know that today is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

I found that out when listening to Good Morning Sunday at the weekend.  One of the guests was Rabbi Pete Tobias, who explained that originally the new year was the time when the Jewish community apologised to God, as he put it, so he wouldn't be angry with them, because they wanted him to bless their harvest and the new crops they were sowing and planting for the year ahead.

Traditionally the word the Bible uses rather than apologise, is repent, which I've been told means to change direction.

It seems to me that now would be a good time for all of us, whether Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Atheist or whatever to repent of all the things we're doing to upset the balance of our beautiful, life-sustaining planet and change direction to a new way of doing things that means we tread much more lightly on the Earth and do what we can to avoid harming others.

Something I read this morning could help us to change the way we think about the food we eat:

'We have to look deeply to see how we grow our food, so we can eat in ways that preserve our collective well-being, minimize our suffering and the suffering of other species, and allow the earth to continue to be a source of life for all of us.  If, while we eat, we destroy living beings or the environment, we are eating the flesh of our own sons and daughters*.  We need to look deeply together and discuss how to eat, what to eat and what to resist."

* This is a reference to an allegorical story the Buddha is said to have told, known as 'Discourse on the Son's Flesh'. The meaning is that we are thoughtlessly consuming our children's future, or at least the resources they will need to live well, and maybe to live at all.

From 'The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching' by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Organic Fortnight

Organic Fortnight starts today and runs until 17th September. The Soil Association have a variety of suggestions for things you could do from visiting an organic farm to trying some organic beauty products. 

They even have some tips for how to buy organic on a budget.

Why not try out a new organic product each time you go shopping, whether it's fruit or veg, an item of clothing, a new lipstick or shower gel.

Take a look and see how many organic items you can find in your local supermarket or take a trip to a Farmers' Market near you, where you will probably find all sorts of organic goodies for sale.

Traidcraft have a wide range of mostly edible products that are organic as well as fairly traded.  Bishopston Trading Company, Greenfibres, Gossypium and Liv have an even wider range of clothing and household items. 

I've been using organic toiletries and cosmetics for several years. I use lovely organic cleansers and moisturisers from Weleda as well as their deodorising sprays.  I've been pleased with mascara from Alva or Lavera, which both have staying power and give good coverage. I've been pleased with eye-shadows from both companies as well as from Dr Hauschka whose lipsticks keep lips well moisturised. I've found that the Dr Haushka deodorants work well, too.

Herb Garden at Ryton Organic

If you are anywhere near Warwick I'd  recommend a day out at Ryton Organic, which is a large garden with lots of sections demonstrating all sorts of ways you can grow things organically.  There is an excellent organic restaurant as well as a cafe, plants for sale and a shop selling gardening products and a range of planet-friendly goods from Ecover washing up liquid to Infinity Foods.




See another angle on Organic Fortnight at My Zero Waste.

Do you have any tips about buying organic?  Perhaps you have a favourite product or producer, in which case let us know.  It would also be interesting to hear if you are blogging about Organic Fortnight yourself.

Green Your Cleaning (1)

Our CO2 emissions are not the only aspect of our lifestyle that has a negative impact on our environment. So much of what we do can damage the environment in other ways if we are not careful.

When we wash ourselves or our clothes, or do the washing up with a regular product we are probably sending phosphates into the water system and these can upset the balance of life in our rivers and streams as too many phosphates cause an algae bloom that can smother the surface and reduce the oxygen in the water, so causing the death of fish and other creatures living in the water.  Excessive phosphates caused the Great Lakes of America to suffer an ecological disaster in the 1960's and 1970's.  Perhaps this was the cause of the stinking mass of rotting fish in Lake Ontario, which I experienced first hand as a child in the mid '60's. This and similar problems with water pollution caused manufacturers to change the types of detergent they used, in Britain at least.

Some additives in regular detergents are potentially hazardous to the environment while others can cause people irritation and allergic reactions. These include enzymes, optical bleaches, foaming agents and synthetic colourings and perfumes

To make sure we are causing as little pollution as possible when we clean up, it is best to choose plant-based products, which are as natural as possible such as washing up liquid, dishwasher detergent, washing powder and laundry liquid made by companies like Bio-D, Clear Spring from Faith in Nature, Earth Friendly (sold by Green Brands in the UK), Ecoleaf, or Ecover.



This is a very straight forward thing to do, which should not involve much effort. True, the green detergents may cost you a little bit more financially, but to calculate the total cost of any product it's impact on the environment and our own health has to be taken into account as well.

Ecover products are available widely in supermarkets, while the other makes tend to be sold in Health Food shops. Some people prefer to avoid Ecover products since they carried out tests on water fleas a few years ago as this is a form of animal testing. It seems they may also have carried out tests on the blood of farmed rabbits.  According to their list of ingredients their washing up liquids, laundry liquids and possibly other products contain Sodium Laureth Sulfate, a detergent derived from petroleum based products, which can be an irritant and may be harmful in other ways.

Currently I use Bio-D washing-up liquid  as the company is based in the UK as well as filling all the other criteria I require. For washing my clothes I use Ecoleaf laundry liquid as it dissolves well and I like the smell, which is not milky like some. This is a relatively new product from the Suma Co-op.

It is possible to buy many of these products in 5 litre containers from which you can refill the bottle you keep by the sink and some Health Food shops provide a refill service so you could take a re-usable container of your choice along.

If you are trying to avoid using plastic bottles at all you can use soap nuts instead of your usual laundry liquid or soap powder Soap nuts are the pods from the Sapindus Mukorossi, a tropical tree native to India and southern China. These pods contain a high level of saponin, which is a natural detergent.

You can also make a kind of washing up liquid from them. According to the soap pod website you can make washing up liquid from them in the following way:

Put 15 whole Soap pods or equivalent
and 2 litres of water
in a heavy bottom pan and bring to the boil. Be careful, as they will boil over like milk! Put a lid on and simmer very gently for 10-20 mins. Leave overnight. This is enough for a normal liquid for cars and floors etc.

For all other cleaning you need to make a stronger concentration, so the next day repeat the same; bring to the boil then simmer for 10-20 mins. The liquid should then be deep golden colour.

When cool strain well through sieve in to a jug and decant into plastic bottles.
The liquid will keep 4-8 weeks depending on how much light and heat gets to it so try to store out of sunlight.

If you wish your the liquid to have a smell you can add a few drops of an essential oil such as orange or lemon grass.

This is something I've been meaning to try, but haven't got round to yet.  I bought my soap nuts from Summer Naturals, but there seem to be a number of outlets on-line.

Switch it off

I expect you have heard about 'Climate Change'. Sometimes people also talk about 'Global Warming', but this is not an accurate name for what is happening to our planet's climate. The most accurate name for it might be 'Climate Chaos' as basically the weather patterns all over the world are becoming more disrupted by increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere, so we see more droughts in one part of the world and torrential rain causing flooding in another with more frequent hurricanes in yet another.

You may not be sure that any of this is really happening, but weather reports from around the world don't leave much room for doubt. The only thing we can't be 100% sure about is why it is happening but, whatever some people say, the evidence seems to point to human beings having a lot to do with it as the film 'An Inconvenient Truth' (available as a DVD from some libraries) explains very clearly. You can see a trailer of dramatic highlights on YouTube. There is also a book available.

As the way you and I live is almost certainly causing a lot of problems for a lot of people and could soon (in our lifetime) bring about even more extreme weather conditions in the UK, I want to do what I can to reduce my impact on the climate and if enough people do the same before it's too late, then perhaps things won't turn out as badly as some people fear. Perhaps in time we can even reverse some of the worse effects of climate change – if we make a real effort before it's too late.

Even if you're not convinced what you do will make much difference to the world, saving energy will make a difference to your bank balance, as saving energy saves money at the same time.

One really simple thing we can do,to save energy and money, is to turn off the lights when we leave a room, assuming that we aren't leaving someone else in the dark and we aren't just popping out to make a cup of tea and coming back in a few minutes.
 
Switching lights off once we've finished using them can save us £10* a year.

However, switching light bulbs on and off too often shortens their life, which is why I suggest you make sure that neither you nor anyone else wants to go back to that room for a reasonable length of time such as 10 to 15 minutes. 

Likewise switching off all our electrical appliances, including mobile phone, shaver and battery chargers when we are not using them will also save us money as well as reducing our carbon footprint.

Switching off items such as televisions and computers rather than leaving them on standby for hours on end could save you a further £30 a year.*

Don't worry if you forget more often than you remember to start with, it takes time to get into new habits.  I've found many of these things are second nature now, but it took a while to develop these new habits.



* According to figures on the Energy Saving Trust website.