Eco Friendly House And Garden

Can working in your local bakers be just as eco friendly as saving whales in the Pacific?

Yes, of course it can!  Just because you aren’t out there on the front line fighting deforestation and humanitarian crimes – doesn’t mean you aren’t making the best choices for your environment.

Don’t get ‘ethical’ issues confused with ‘environmental’ issues – the latter being active for the planet – and the people and communities benefiting from the ethical side of things.

How Can You Help?
Well, working closer to home is an easy one for starters.  Why travel miles to work if you can get a job within walking distance of your front door.  I mean, there will be people driving past you as they work in the offices or stores near your home, and you spend the day working close to their home!

It’s not always working for an eco friendly business that makes your individual job more eco friendly either.  I mean travelling 20 or more miles a day in your car to get to an eco friendly workplace by no means compares to someone who walks 5 minutes to work in a local bakers – even if the baker doesn’t use the most eco friendly equipment! Over a year the difference is more obvious.

And if you are eco minded – then you could help to implement changes to your workplace to make them more eco-friendly in themselves.  I mean if you could work locally to promote eco friendly practices in a locally run family business in your own community – what could be more eco friendly!

Look At Yourself Now:
Even if you aren’t planning on changing jobs – there are plenty of things you could look at in your current role and help to change.  And with the shortage of truly ‘green’ jobs about – you are probably better to become a mini activist in your current role!

However, it’s not all the same green!  Just because the charity you work for helps wildlife conservation – it doesn’t mean that everything else is a given.  For example, if you are working in a retail outlet on behalf or the many charities out there – is that really green at all?

Retail stores are a massive polluter and creator of waste – I mean you only need to look out the back of a store to see the tonnes of waste cardboard and other packaging being used.  All the pricing, stock holding and transportation add up to something huge – so can you really call this an ‘eco friendly’ job?

Ideas For The Future:
Start to think about everyday things in your job as well – rather than the large sweeping achievements of the great big companies.

I like to think that the people who are working for their community are making as much of a difference as those campaigners on the other side of the world.  It’s the people who just plod along day after day thinking of all the things they could do – but not doing them!

I know now isn’t the time to be giving up your job on a whim – but you could start to work through all those little things that have been nagging you.  Find out about local funding for certain projects that might apply to your business.  Promote communication methods that save energy and canteen options that can reduce food miles.

And, trying to find an eco friendly business improvement that can save your company money will always go down well with the boss – so try to find an cost effective eco friendly angle for everything!

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…..