Eco Friendly House And Garden

Reusable bags are all around us these days – but what are the pro’s and cons?

I myself use several types of different bags for different occasions – but my friend thinks that they are the worst thing ever! Why are there so many types and why wouldn’t you like them?

Their Purpose In Life:
After listening to my friend discussing why he didn’t like my reusable bags – I asked him why they were invented in the first place. He went for the eco friendly angle – but in reality, they are just a replacement for a plastic carrier bag.

photo credit: Rachel Medina

Now I really don’t like plastic bags from supermarkets as they have no real shape, they are noisy, they tear easily, they are painful to carry if heavy and you can’t put them over your shoulder to carry. However, my reusable bags are the opposite to all this.

Bulky Jute Bag:
My bulky jute bag has great shape to it, even when set on the floor. The handles are soft and wide and just long enough to sit over my shoulder if I want to shift the weight.

It is larger than A4 so I can keep books and notes in it, and being open-topped I can easily get things out and find things as and when needed.

It does have its downsides though; firstly this open-topped feature means that security is low when I am in a crowd or when I take a rest and place my bag on the floor, and if I don’t have anything in the bag (like on the way to the library) you can’t fold it up and it tends to flap about in the wind.

Flimsy Cotton Bag:
I have several flimsy white cotton bags with various different companies advertising on the side – but all are basically the same shape and size. They are very easy to shove into my rucksac or other bags so that when finding something extra to carry they can flap open and be filled with goodies.

They are a light as a feather and so I can take all 4 out with me without them becoming a nuisance – and I am not too bothered if I carry them around all day and don’t use them.

And they can be washed.

Their downside is that they have no structure whatsoever and loading them up 1-handed can be a bit of a pain sometimes. With the extra long and thin handles (perfect for over the shoulder action) they can get all tangled up when trying to unfold and carrying them by your side is impossible – as they drag along the floor.

The Result?
Well, I just love my reusable bags (including the fact that nearly all of them were free with a promotion) and although they each have their uses – they are a zillion times better than plastic carriers – and much easier to use than a bulky rucsack with zips (and the fact that it is on your back!).

I mean, if you get them any bigger, they would just be holdalls – which are of course – reusable bags too!

I think that small reusable bags have filled a niche that needed filling – with or without their perfect eco credentials – and I would be just as happy to use a non-organic material reusable bag over a carrier anyday.

photo credit: New Internationalist

Ordering your food shopping online just acquired a great eco planning tool!

Online shopping always worked for clothes and furniture as what you see is what you get – you order a red top in size 10; you got a red top in size 10.

However food shopping had an extra variable – all food is different.

We all know how long we spend choosing the right pack of tomatoes or bananas – are they too ripe, too big, too small or too squished! I’ve seen people not happy with the whole top tray of melons and then heaving off the top tray and start to look underneath instead.

photo credit: edkohler

How Long Will It Last?
And what about the shelf life of the product? Surely we want the longest shelf life for most products – or at least enough time to eat them before they ‘go off’. I mean cakes or crisps for a birthday party next month will need to have a date at least that long to be worth buying.

And we really don’t like wasting food in our eco kitchens – so could you ever really trust your store to give you the best produce on your order?

I mean, it is in their best interest to give you the food with the shortest date on it, isn’t it? They don’t want everyone to leave the short-dated food on the shelf – as then they lose the money.

That’s why shops rotate their produce to sell the short-dated stuff first. And by short-dated, it doesn’t mean that it is any less nutritious or healthy than food with a longer date – it just means that they can’t sell it after that date – even though you can still eat it.

In an ideal eco world – we would all buy the food with the shortest dates on it anyway, and plan to eat it within that time.

Not only does this save on wasted food in the stores – it inadvertantly allows people who aren’t quite so eco conscious to have the longer dated foods in their cupboards and so are more likely to eat it instead of throwing it away – well they do need help to ‘do the right thing’.

Along Came Waitrose!
So imagine my delight when I found an advertisment for a UK supermarket chain who promised to only deliver food to you that had a decent shelf life in the first place.

They also say that they will print out your receipt for your online delivery with all the ‘Best Before’ or Use By’ dates clearly shown on it.

This could make your life so much more eco friendly and easier too!

It means that you don’t have to spend ages looking for all the dates on your fresh foods when they arrive to make sure nothing is short-dated.

You also don’t need to write yourself a list of the dates to help plan your eating – it is all done for you! Just stick the receipt on your fridge or pin board and you can refer to it whenever – and better plan your eco dinners.

It almost helps you to say goodbye to wasted food completely and make better use of your money; I mean by reducing wasted food, you are leaving your money in the bank!

I think planning in your eco kitchen just took a giant leap forward!

Your choice of festive gift could mean the difference between survival or big changes!

But in this case – both choices can have huge effects down the line – I mean do you choose between losing local services or losing the fight against poverty, animal cruelty and climate change?

It needn’t be that huge a choice – but we already know that buying off the Internet can have a negative effect on the high street and local stores as they are losing customers – but what about shopping for ‘invisible gifts’ instead?

By this I mean the ‘keep giving’ gifts like a one-off donation to a child overseas, the gift of a farm animal to an African farmer, sponsorship of an endangered animal or annual membership to a conservation society.

The recipient of the gift doesn’t get the gift itself – they just get proof of this great donation from you.  They will know that the money you have spent on their behalf will be invested in the future and help whichever cause that was chosen.

photo credit: Effervescing Elephant

I have received and given many such gifts myself over the years: I was given sponsorship for Mr Crusty the donkey last year – (and he is doing fine!) and joined up my niece and nephews to the RSPB as well.

What About The High Street?
As you can imagine these types of gift don’t involve shops on the high street – you mainly buy them online or direct from the charity or organisation.

But then the gifts available in the stores could be said to be less eco friendly in the sense that they have an eco footprint.  They are manufactured somewhere and transported to your stores.

Yes, you can choose only those gifts made locally, out of sustainable materials or eco friendly related for the home or garden – but they are still gifts in the sense that they need to be made, used and then disposed of at some point.

However, the very act of going into Town can be locally supportive.  The carpark fee, train fares, bus tickets – they all go towards supporting local businesses as well as the fact that you might stop for a coffee while you are there – and hopefully buy things to boot!

Supportive Gifts:
When you sponsor a child or donkey – it’s all done online in a few seconds.  No need to travel anywhere.

You still use up paperwork and postage with these gifts for the confirmation letter, but no need to travel into town, or wrap things up with bows and labels!

I mean, these gifts really are the ethical and the more eco friendly when compared to games, ornaments and ‘silly’ presents that we seem to see in the stores – as these types of gifts are those most likely to need batteries, have excess packaging and be thrown away after a few months use.

But when you think about helping local business people or distant wildlife or habitats – the line isn’t quite as clear.

I must admit that I feel a bit better about myself when I support distant projects such as rainforests, tigers with WWF and cross river gorillas with FFI as they seem ‘more important’ in the sense that they are the last of their kind on the edge of extinction - whereas you can open a new shop in 2 years time.

However, if the stores aren’t there to sell me gifts – will they be there to sell me other things when I need them?  I’m getting a bit sick of giant out-of-town superstores these days – so I need the high street to stay competitive and still stock everything I need all year round.

I think this one is stil undecided!

When you visit you local stores – you aren’t just saving petrol these days!

There are many, many reasons to shop in your local stores, but supporting small businesses rather than national and international ‘brands’ is also a key factor in keeping your community intact and offering a wide variety of choice and prices to suit all budgets and households!

Take a look at the following list to get some idea of the difference you can make as an individual.

You Help Keep Money In The Local Economy:
The first and most important thing you do is to make sure that your lovely stores are re-investing their money in local services and your community.  Shop-keepers have a huge amount of ‘sway’ in the high street and your local community, with committees funding new ideas and urban improvements.

You Help Generate New Money:
By making your stores and your community a ‘place for shopping and eating’ as well as clean and organised, you will be attracting people from outside in to your environment who will bring money with them – fuelling further improvements.

You Help Improve Public Services And Transport:
By attracting all these people in to your community, you make sure that the services they – and you – need are there.  These include better public transport, clean toilets, public seating, better parking, cleaner streets and more events and activities being organised. 

Compare travelling through London on the Tube with a shop on every corner to arriving at a village train station in Norfolk with no buses, toilets or even a restaurant that takes credit cards! (and I only went there a couple of months ago!).

Creating Local Jobs & Keeping Local People:
By creating a healthy employment market in your town, you are attracting families to move in therefore keeping the housing market (and house prices) at a steady rate – as well as promoting healthy competition between schools with the influx of children – thus making education a priority.

This also includes making sure that elderly residents don’t have to travel some distance to get their shopping.  If you make sure that a variety of shops remain on the high street, then this gived those less mobile the opportunity to visit individual stores for their goods – rather than having to travel to out-of-town superstores all the time.

Support New Ideas And Entrepreneurs:
People who want to try something new can’t always get their foot in the door of larger companies, so want to start out alone – and your high street is the perfect place for them.  By visiting them and buying just one little thing can be the difference between them surviving the next few months!

You must remember the high streets a few months ago after we lost some big name shops – we need to help fill the gaps back up and see some new stores popping up.  They won’t move in unless they know you will support them.

Be Unique:
Unique things are what we love – think of the Brighton Lanes or London’s Covent Garden – we wouldn’t be without them.  Their individuality allows our homes to be unique too!  With a thousand different scarves to choose from – you can be just you!  Imagine if everyone had the same curtains, same ornament over the fireplace or 1 of only 3 types of fruit bowl in the world!

So grab your purse and your cotton bag – and head into town!

Here are some quite simple steps to help you keep on the green road…….

If you are having trouble starting your year as green as you had hoped, then take a quick peep at the things listed below and get back into the swing of it!

1) Find Your Nearest Store:
Don’t drive miles to a store to get the cheapest prices on a few main things – visit a store you can walk to and just grab your essentials.

If you do a little shop every so often in your closest store, not only will it be there when you need it, but you will get to talk to your neighbours and maybe find some new products you never see in a larger store.

2) Find Your Nearest Products:
Apples are apples at the end of the day – but were they brought from down the road or from the other side of the world? 

If they were from a local farm, then in buying them you are helping to keep parts of your local area free from urban development and new roads – keeping wildlife close to your own homes.

3) Take A Little Less:
Always buy a bit less than you normally would of the fresh items, as we never eat everything we buy before it goes rotten!  So the less you buy in the first place, the more chance you have of eating it all when it is still nice and fresh!

It may be cheaper to buy bulk and save on packaging when ordering the larger pack sizes, but the cost of transporting and throwing away our food is just as costly!

4) Expect A Bit More:
Make sure you choose the products that are wrapped in compostable packaging.  There is no reason why vegetables these days are not packaged in compostable tray and wrapping.

If one vegetable can be presented and stored effectively using compostable wrapping, then so can nearly all others!  Make your choice right in the aisles.

If you tell the store what products you want to take home by buying them over others, then you don’t have to write in or attend meetings to get your point across.

5) Be Nosy:
Make sure you go up every aisle at least every month or so – allowing you too see new products and make new choices.  Don’t be put off by everything else in that area as you may find some tasty treasures and some eco friendly ideas.

There is more than 1 way to create the same meal – so check out frozen vegetables and canned fruit, pizza base mix and organic alternatives!  You never know what you can find hidden amongst the huge number of products in your local stores.

Going, going green…..

The RGS are hosting a fantastic EcoFair on the 5th and 6th of December in London.

They are bringing together some fantastic international eco friendly companies and charities to fill your day with excitement and fill your bags with great goodies!

Stalls include some of the old favourites like the RSPB selling wildlife gifts, memberships and information for your gardens and great days out and the CO-OP will be promoting their eco friendly and fair trade clothing ranges.

There are also products available from around the world, with alpaca clothing from Peru, ethical accessories from Nepal, hand-made silks from Cambodia and Luxury fabrics from India.

There are also creations from the UK, including recycled household goods, hand-made bespoke jewelry, fair trade organic babywear and luxurious oils and soaps.

There is also a free puppet show being performed at the show just after lunch time – called the Forest of Fables, and is performed using Japanese style puppets (made from recycled materials) to African music depicting well known Greek fables!

In addition, there is even a puppet making session beforehand – so your children can make their own recycled puppet like those from the show and learn how the show is put together – including a sneak preview at some of the songs – and they get to keep their puppet!

The whole show is free entry to all – with free fairtrade wine for all RGS members and guests – see the RGS website for more details……..

Is Your Favorite Supermarket Pulling It’s Eco Weight?

This month (August 2009) BBC Wildlife Magazine reviewed certain aspects of our favorite shops and rated them on the same criteria – and it made an interesting read.

For example- all 6 stores were rated on 8 hot environmental issues – giving them the chance to earn a total of 40 points.  The highest scoring store only got 29 of them – so that means that even the best performing eco friendly store was missing about 27% of the points – not so good really.

But then we sort of already know that supermarkets can’t ever really be ‘green’ anyway.

The Criteria:
There were 8 ways in which the stores were offered up to 5 points, these ranged from Air Miles through Fair Trade and on to highly contentious Palm Oil.

I will summarise each catagory mentioning the best and worst stores as judged by BBC Wildlife.

Air Miles:
Sainsbury’s came out worse here with only 2/5 as although they do source local food where possible they don’t label air-freighted foods.  However M&S do label their products – plus they also source all their in-season vegetables from farms in the UK.

Animal Welfare:
An issue we all have an opinion on, but did you know that Asda and Tesco still sell eggs from battery-caged hens!  After all this time – people are still buying them from 2 of our largest stores – and they are still supplying them!

Climate Change:
When asked if they have specific targets for reducing carbon emissions M&S said that they are due to become carbon neutral by 2012 and has 4 eco-factories that currently save 50% of the standard energy needed elsewhere.  Asda however has said that they will try to cut their emissions by 10% but have set no dates at all!

Fair Trade:
Co-Op wins here as they were one of the first stores ever to convert to Fair Trade products in many different areas and are still one of the market leaders and currently has over 260 Fair Trade lines in their stores.  Morrisons however have just 10 Fair Trade Lines in their huge stores – and none of them are own-label!

Sustainable Fish:
Carrying a huge 56 lines of MSC labelled fish is Sainsbury’s who stock their own brands of MSC labelled foods – but Tesco filed to provide full details of MSC products, apart from the fact that their own-brand foods are not labelled as MSC certified.

GM Feeds:
Whether cattle are being fed GM feeds is also an area that concerns consumers, and as a result the M&S have made sure that all their own label meat and dairy is GM free – although they haven’t been labelled as such.  Generally all the other stores use GM feeds forr their meat and dairy products unless they are certified as Organic (meaning that they legally can’t be).

Organic Foods:
Over 70% of fruit and vegetables in M&S have an organic alternative as opposed to only 5% organic products in the Co-Op (only 22 lines).  How can we be making changes to our shopping habits if we aren’t being offered a suitable alternative?

Use Of Pesticides:
Asda & Morrisons declined to mention whether they still used hazardous chemicals to treat their food or areas in which food was stored – whereas the other stores have put limits or bans in place for some well known chemicals.

Palm Oil:
A hot topic at the moment – although Asda and Sainsbury’s are the only ones that have actually done something about it that they are advertising.  Morrisons says some products are but won’t tell consumers which products they are, M&S use 7 lines that should get certification soon but so far are not listed as sustainable and Tesco and Co-Op are ‘looking to switch’ but not for another 5 years or so!

Frightening stuff really – that we aren’t really pushing hard enough for these obvious changes to occur in our favorite stores.

We aren’t creating the demand needed to get a reaction out of these large companies.  Whether we are making the wrong choices in our shopping – or we are making incorrect decisions based on little or misleading information – something isn’t working.

So either we need to start paying more attention to our shopping habits and the effect they are having on the animals and countryside around us or we may as well waste all the effort that has gone into the changes that people have brought around already!