Our dishwasher is rubbish so I hardly use it, but if it did work better I'd use it all the time. And it got me thinking about the environmental impact of dishwashers compared to washing up, and also the Eco wash compared to normal.
This article by The Guardian has it all, and it's quite surprising! It claims that a dishwasher can actually have a lower carbon footprint than washing up. The main reason being that "most people (in the UK do their manual washing up using hot water heated by a gas-fired boiler, whereas dishwashers heat water from cold using electricity. A modern boiler can capture more than 90% of the energy in the gas, whereas most of the energy in the fuel used to generate electricity is wasted in generation and transmission, which gives handwashing an obvious head start."
And to clarify the Eco vs Normal, obviously Eco is better than standard setting, but not by a lot - 220g of Co2 per load. The difference in result unfortunately was huge, Eco just didn't come close to giving me a clean load, so I had to then re-wash everything up by hand, defeating the whole purpose!
The best choice is to be conservative with water use, even using cold water where possible, and not use copious amounts of hot water, which I'll make an effort to do. But at least I know when I do use the dishwasher i don't need to feel guilty.
Saturday, 5 March 2016
Day 15: Write to your favourite brands who need to change ingredients
After the weekend's discovery of Microbeads and Palm Oil in pretty much everything I consume & use, I was left a bit bewildered as to my next step. I have decided to break it down into single products.
Monday came and I went to get my usual lunch, a Glorious Soup. I was waiting for it to heat up and reading the back when I saw 'Palm oil' listed as an ingredient! I know there are sustainable sources of Palm Oil so I dont just put them on the 'bad list', I decided to email to them instead and find out where they sourced their Palm Oil from. Unfortunately they didn't reply, they haven't replied all week. I am really disappointed that such a seemingly great product would have an ingredient like that in, and I'm still hopeful to hear that it's not the case, but sadly the lack of reply does make me wonder if they just don't know what to say back to me.
I'm going to write them a letter, and see if they can clarify their source of Palm Oil as being sustainable. I'll update this post if I get a reply.
Monday came and I went to get my usual lunch, a Glorious Soup. I was waiting for it to heat up and reading the back when I saw 'Palm oil' listed as an ingredient! I know there are sustainable sources of Palm Oil so I dont just put them on the 'bad list', I decided to email to them instead and find out where they sourced their Palm Oil from. Unfortunately they didn't reply, they haven't replied all week. I am really disappointed that such a seemingly great product would have an ingredient like that in, and I'm still hopeful to hear that it's not the case, but sadly the lack of reply does make me wonder if they just don't know what to say back to me.
I'm going to write them a letter, and see if they can clarify their source of Palm Oil as being sustainable. I'll update this post if I get a reply.
Sunday, 28 February 2016
Day 14: Reducing waste, cooking up leftovers
Just a small post to conclude week 2. We had some left over mangoes and apples from the Ocado fruit boxes we've been getting, as lovely as mangoes are we don't really get through them so they were about to go in the bin, as were a few apples that had gone soft.
It seems such a waste to chuck them away considering the effort it had taken to get those mangoes to the UK, so I have made some mango chutney out of them! If it tastes nice, I might even make some as Christmas presents...
I've just done a little research on the Carbon footprint of delivering mangoes to the UK - it seems that they are actually transported by sea, which is good for carbon emissions (but i'm sure there's some other environmental impact yet to be explored). Here's some more reading on it.
Cooking up leftovers definitely feels like a positive step, perhaps portion size is another area I can improve in the future.
It seems such a waste to chuck them away considering the effort it had taken to get those mangoes to the UK, so I have made some mango chutney out of them! If it tastes nice, I might even make some as Christmas presents...
I've just done a little research on the Carbon footprint of delivering mangoes to the UK - it seems that they are actually transported by sea, which is good for carbon emissions (but i'm sure there's some other environmental impact yet to be explored). Here's some more reading on it.
Cooking up leftovers definitely feels like a positive step, perhaps portion size is another area I can improve in the future.
Day 13: Getting the bus instead of car. (Disaster).
My car is kaput. It has been for a week, and I've not got round to taking it to the garage, so it got to Saturday and I had no transport to get me into Bristol for a party. The perfect opportunity to switch to the bus and reduce my carbon footprint.
The distance I needed to travel was 14 miles, 28 return. Based on the calculations from Day 4, I would have used 1.5 gallons of petrol to drive 30 miles, which produces around 30 lbs of Co2. Looking at my bubble picture again (thanks www.carbonvisuals.com), i would have created 7-8 of those bubbles, just by myself.
Unfortunately the bus failed to turn up, and it's an hourly service, which meant I had no choice but to not go at all. I suppose that still achieved the same result, but it's not what I was hoping for! I think for people who live in a place where buses are regular and dependable it's an obvious choice, but for me I'm going to still need to use my car from time to time, just when I need to (and can't cycle).
Day 12: Sick day. Watching movies that matter - Blackfish & Cowspiracy
I'd been fighting off some sort of cough/sore throat thing all week, and Friday i woke up with such a scratchy throat I could hardly speak so I decided to give myself the day off and spend it in bed recovering, eating soup.
I would normally take an opportunity like this to watch 80s films or catch up on some box set, but I decided that instead i'd watch some documentaries. I'd been recommended quite a few following my viewing of the The Cove, Racing Extinction, and Earthlings and decided to go for Cowspiracy and Blackfish.
If I was to recommend one film to watch out of all the above I'd suggest Cowspiracy. I'll warn you it's graphic at times, but it very clearly lays out the facts about Co2 emissions. The most shocking part in the whole film is the realisation that the only thing that is really going to make a difference to Co2 emissions is reducing animal agriculture. Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation. Here's an infographic from the website to help demonstrate the facts:
There's so much to take in from the film, but it does make it clear that we should all be eating less meat. If everyone in the US stopped eating meat for just 1 day a week for a year, it's the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road (source: Environmental Working Group). If we all stopped eating meat it's said that we'd essentially stop world hunger, have enough land for the growing population, reduce antibiotic resistance, reduce all animal suffering, and in the UK - reduce the strain on the NHS. So y'know, just a few things. (source - Independent). We'll never, ever stop eating meat altogether, but we could definitely all go meat free for 1 day. Suddenly i'm realising why so many people are going Vegan. It's made me think quite seriously about my diet. I'm considering going vegetarian for a week as part of this whole thing I'm doing here, it would be interesting to see how I get on and how I feel at the end.
Blackfish - The story about the Killer Whale Tilikum who was brutally stolen from his mother, taken to a water park and trained to be a performing Orca. Out of frustration/mental disorder/depression Tilikum killed a trainer. He was then transferred to SeaWorld who knew full well what had happened, but bought him to reproduce, and to continue to perform. He was kept in a tiny area for 2/3rds of his life, was socially damaged and bullied by the other whales. He went on to kill another trainer. It's a very tragic, horrific story of abuse, corporate exploitation and unnecessary death. Many people boycott and demonstrate against SeaWorld, and all animal water parks. In November 2015 SeaWorld announced that they'll be phasing out using Orcas for performances, and they're recently had a change of management, but the very latest news shows that their latest strategy is to infiltrate animal-rights groups to spy on their strategy, so cover-ups and underhand tactics seems to still be company policy.
As i'm trying to take this in tiny steps, just watching the film is my step in the right direction. But an obvious action is to never, ever go to a Animal Water Park and to discourage those that would. Even without seeing this film i'd never consider it, it's not entertainment in my eyes, but people still attend these parks all the time, not knowing anything about what's really going on, and that is a troubling thought.
I would normally take an opportunity like this to watch 80s films or catch up on some box set, but I decided that instead i'd watch some documentaries. I'd been recommended quite a few following my viewing of the The Cove, Racing Extinction, and Earthlings and decided to go for Cowspiracy and Blackfish.
If I was to recommend one film to watch out of all the above I'd suggest Cowspiracy. I'll warn you it's graphic at times, but it very clearly lays out the facts about Co2 emissions. The most shocking part in the whole film is the realisation that the only thing that is really going to make a difference to Co2 emissions is reducing animal agriculture. Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation. Here's an infographic from the website to help demonstrate the facts:
There's so much to take in from the film, but it does make it clear that we should all be eating less meat. If everyone in the US stopped eating meat for just 1 day a week for a year, it's the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road (source: Environmental Working Group). If we all stopped eating meat it's said that we'd essentially stop world hunger, have enough land for the growing population, reduce antibiotic resistance, reduce all animal suffering, and in the UK - reduce the strain on the NHS. So y'know, just a few things. (source - Independent). We'll never, ever stop eating meat altogether, but we could definitely all go meat free for 1 day. Suddenly i'm realising why so many people are going Vegan. It's made me think quite seriously about my diet. I'm considering going vegetarian for a week as part of this whole thing I'm doing here, it would be interesting to see how I get on and how I feel at the end.
Blackfish - The story about the Killer Whale Tilikum who was brutally stolen from his mother, taken to a water park and trained to be a performing Orca. Out of frustration/mental disorder/depression Tilikum killed a trainer. He was then transferred to SeaWorld who knew full well what had happened, but bought him to reproduce, and to continue to perform. He was kept in a tiny area for 2/3rds of his life, was socially damaged and bullied by the other whales. He went on to kill another trainer. It's a very tragic, horrific story of abuse, corporate exploitation and unnecessary death. Many people boycott and demonstrate against SeaWorld, and all animal water parks. In November 2015 SeaWorld announced that they'll be phasing out using Orcas for performances, and they're recently had a change of management, but the very latest news shows that their latest strategy is to infiltrate animal-rights groups to spy on their strategy, so cover-ups and underhand tactics seems to still be company policy.
As i'm trying to take this in tiny steps, just watching the film is my step in the right direction. But an obvious action is to never, ever go to a Animal Water Park and to discourage those that would. Even without seeing this film i'd never consider it, it's not entertainment in my eyes, but people still attend these parks all the time, not knowing anything about what's really going on, and that is a troubling thought.
Saturday, 27 February 2016
Day 11: Choosing the right beauty products - no microbeads and palm oil
I've been trying to use up all my cosmetics and health products that I have lying around the house, and I have finally got to a point which I need to buy a lot of new things. I did this so that I can take some time to think about my choice of brands and investigate my products more thoroughly.
So the things i'm focusing on for each brand is microbeads, and palm oil inclusion. I also want to make sure they're not tested on animals and uses recycled materials in packaging if possible. The microbeads and palm oil are the two factors that have a huge impact on the environment, so let's investigate both of those.
Microbeads.
It does feel like Microbeads is a new issue as i can't say that i've heard about it until lately (the last year). But the film RacingXtinction focused a bit on this issue, and so it's become more front of mind now. Most of my research has come from www.beatthemicrobead.org which is a great resource, and explains the issue in short like this:
"Tiny particles of plastic have been added to possibly thousands of personal care products sold around the world. These microbeads, hardly visible to the naked eye, flow straight from the bathroom drain into the sewer system. Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to filter out microbeads and that is the main reason why, ultimately, they contribute to the Plastic Soup swirling around the world’s oceans. Sea creatures absorb or eat microbeads. These microbeads are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we are also absorbing microbeads from the food we eat. Microbeads are not biodegradable and once they enter the marine environment, they are impossible to remove."
Palm Oil
The reason why we shouldn't be using Palm Oil? This from WWF: "Palm oil grows in tropical rainforests, and the uncontrolled clearing of these forests for conventional palm oil plantations has led to widespread loss of these irreplaceable and biodiverse rich forests. Plantations have also been connected to the destruction of habitat of endangered species, including orang-utans, tigers, elephants and rhinos."
I've actually seen the impact of palm oil plantation first hand because I've been to Borneo, and to the orang-utan sanctuary there. The animals are being displaced from their natural home. They're being segregated from each other which affects reproduction, it reduces the area they can search for food, affecting their normally very diverse diet and therefore their health, basically the knock-on affect is almost insurmountable.
But the Orang-utans in Borneo is just scratching the surface. The clearing of the forests for plantations is increasingly affecting Co2 emissions by the burning of the trees and Co2 rich peatlands the forests are built on, not to mention the impact on the indigenous communities, child labour etc. People have been campaigning for the removal of palm oil for years but i have to admit i'm out of touch with where the campaign is and which companies have changed their policies as a result. So, let's take a look at the latest list. Prepared to be shocked:
Warburtons
Hovis
Cadbury Dairy Milk,
Kingsmill
Persil
Flora Spreads
Galaxy
Youngs Frozen Fish
Kit Kat
Bold*
Mr Kipling Cakes
Wrigley’s Extra
Ariel*
Pringles*
Birds Eye Poultry
Maltesers
Mars
Kellogg's Special K
Ginsters
Fairy Laundry,*
Fairy Liquid*
McVitie’s Digestives
Comfort
Goodfella’s Pizza
Lenor
Daz
McCoys
Haribo
Bisto Gravy
BM Cooked Meat
Quality Street
Richmond Sausages
CrunchyNut Cornflakes
Magnum
Bessies Potatoes
Chicago Town Pizza
Cadbury Cakes
Young’s Chilled Fish
Cadbury Roses
Pot Noodles
Aero, Nestle
Surf, Unilever
Clover Spreads
Sources: Sales statistics: AC Nielsen. Palm oil: The Independent - Full article here
* Procter & Gamble, which uses palm oil in a wide variety of products, will not disclose its use in individual brands
So the things i'm focusing on for each brand is microbeads, and palm oil inclusion. I also want to make sure they're not tested on animals and uses recycled materials in packaging if possible. The microbeads and palm oil are the two factors that have a huge impact on the environment, so let's investigate both of those.
Microbeads.
It does feel like Microbeads is a new issue as i can't say that i've heard about it until lately (the last year). But the film RacingXtinction focused a bit on this issue, and so it's become more front of mind now. Most of my research has come from www.beatthemicrobead.org which is a great resource, and explains the issue in short like this:
"Tiny particles of plastic have been added to possibly thousands of personal care products sold around the world. These microbeads, hardly visible to the naked eye, flow straight from the bathroom drain into the sewer system. Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to filter out microbeads and that is the main reason why, ultimately, they contribute to the Plastic Soup swirling around the world’s oceans. Sea creatures absorb or eat microbeads. These microbeads are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we are also absorbing microbeads from the food we eat. Microbeads are not biodegradable and once they enter the marine environment, they are impossible to remove."
They've got an app which allows you to scan the barcode of each product to see if it contains microbeads, I wish i'd known about it before I'd been shopping, I had to try and Google everything... You can download their app here - still needs some work as most products I scanned weren't on the database but you can also help by adding products to their database. To see a current list of products that are free of microbeads, take a look at this PDF. Microbeads can be called a variety of things, so check the back to see if contains any of these things: Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Polyethylene Terphthalate, Polymethylmethacrylate or Nylon.
Palm Oil
Palm oil is in so many products that we use everyday. Shampoos, lipstick, icecream, detergent, margarine, chocolate, soap, even bread. It's not even like we can check on the back of the product to see if it contains palm oil, as it can be labelled under loads of different names: Vegetable Oil, Vegetable Fat, Palm Kernel, Palm Kernel Oil, Palm Fruit Oil, Palmate, Palmitate, Palmolein, Glyceryl, Stearate, Stearic Acid, Elaeis Guineensis, Palmitic Acid, Palm Stearine, Palmitoyl Oxostearamide, Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-3, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Kernelate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Lauryl Lactylate/Sulphate, Hyrated Palm Glycerides, Etyl Palmitate, Octyl Palmitate, Palmityl Alcohol (list thanks to worldwildlife.org).
I've actually seen the impact of palm oil plantation first hand because I've been to Borneo, and to the orang-utan sanctuary there. The animals are being displaced from their natural home. They're being segregated from each other which affects reproduction, it reduces the area they can search for food, affecting their normally very diverse diet and therefore their health, basically the knock-on affect is almost insurmountable.
Hovis
Cadbury Dairy Milk,
Kingsmill
Persil
Flora Spreads
Galaxy
Youngs Frozen Fish
Kit Kat
Bold*
Mr Kipling Cakes
Wrigley’s Extra
Ariel*
Pringles*
Birds Eye Poultry
Maltesers
Mars
Kellogg's Special K
Ginsters
Fairy Laundry,*
Fairy Liquid*
McVitie’s Digestives
Comfort
Goodfella’s Pizza
Lenor
Daz
McCoys
Haribo
Bisto Gravy
BM Cooked Meat
Quality Street
Richmond Sausages
CrunchyNut Cornflakes
Magnum
Bessies Potatoes
Chicago Town Pizza
Cadbury Cakes
Young’s Chilled Fish
Cadbury Roses
Pot Noodles
Aero, Nestle
Surf, Unilever
Clover Spreads
Sources: Sales statistics: AC Nielsen. Palm oil: The Independent - Full article here
* Procter & Gamble, which uses palm oil in a wide variety of products, will not disclose its use in individual brands
This is a bit overwhelming, I use a lot of products on this list. I'm going to have to digest this information and break it down into mini actions.
To conclude today's step, these are the products that I bought that I *think* are both palm oil free and microbead free:
Arm & Hammer Enamel Pro Repair Sensitive Toothpaste
Ogx Beauty Sunkissed Blonde Lemon Highlights Conditioner
Ogx Hydrate + Defrizz Kukui Oil Conditioner (balls! Bought two conditioners and no shampoo!)
St Ives Facescrub
Original Source Coconut & Shea Butter
Superdrug Naturally Radiant Moisturiser and Serum
A lot more research to be done in the next few weeks...
Thursday, 25 February 2016
Day 10: Online Shopping & give back bags
We've been online shopping for a while now, so I can't claim that it was a change I made in my little campaign. However it made me think about many things that we get from Online shopping that we didnt get from visiting the supermarket, many of them have a positive environmental impact.
1. The Carbon Footprint. This one is obvious, it's the same principle as using the bus - only have one van on the road instead of all of us individually in our cars, and we'll collectively reduce our carbon footprint from petrol consumption.
2. The choice of foods. We have started getting fruit and veg boxes from Ocado. They select the fruit & veg for us, we don't have any say in it. We did it at Christmas the first time ever, we had no idea what veg we would be having on Christmas day until the box arrived and it was surprisingly exciting! It means they can manage supply and demand better, pick seasonal items and help us make a better, more environmentally friendly choice. They always deliver the essentials - potatoes and onions and a variety of carrots (I love that i get purple and yellow carrots to add with the orange), and then we get a variety of green veg that shapes our meals for the week, it makes us quite inventive!
3. Easy access/awareness of last minute deals. Via the app that we order through, if they have items that are about to go out of date they remind us just before check out. They do this with impulse deals too, but ignoring them, it gives us the opportunity to choose meat, fish and vegetables that would otherwise have been put in the bin at a reduced rate. Saves us money, and lower's their wastage.
4. No bags. This is the bit that makes this my step of the day. When they deliver, they ask if we have any plastic bags to return. Today I enquired as to which bags they wanted, just their own? They said no, they'd take ALL bags. My mouth dropped, I told the man to wait a moment for me to sweep up bags of bags, many, many bags full of bags that we've collected over the years from various supermarkets, and gave them all to him. And the best bit is that they give us 5p per bag. That's right, they give us money for making the right choice. Woohoo!
P.s. In case you're wondering if it's more expensive to get online delivery, it's not in our case.On one occasion Ocado failed to deliver our shop at all and we couldn't rebook for 2 days because all the slots had gone (major downside!), so I had no choice but to go up to Tesco. I used it as an experiment, I compared every item on our list with Tesco and at the end of the shop it was at least £20 more expensive at Tesco. It made me forgive Ocado for the delivery hassle...
1. The Carbon Footprint. This one is obvious, it's the same principle as using the bus - only have one van on the road instead of all of us individually in our cars, and we'll collectively reduce our carbon footprint from petrol consumption.
2. The choice of foods. We have started getting fruit and veg boxes from Ocado. They select the fruit & veg for us, we don't have any say in it. We did it at Christmas the first time ever, we had no idea what veg we would be having on Christmas day until the box arrived and it was surprisingly exciting! It means they can manage supply and demand better, pick seasonal items and help us make a better, more environmentally friendly choice. They always deliver the essentials - potatoes and onions and a variety of carrots (I love that i get purple and yellow carrots to add with the orange), and then we get a variety of green veg that shapes our meals for the week, it makes us quite inventive!
3. Easy access/awareness of last minute deals. Via the app that we order through, if they have items that are about to go out of date they remind us just before check out. They do this with impulse deals too, but ignoring them, it gives us the opportunity to choose meat, fish and vegetables that would otherwise have been put in the bin at a reduced rate. Saves us money, and lower's their wastage.
4. No bags. This is the bit that makes this my step of the day. When they deliver, they ask if we have any plastic bags to return. Today I enquired as to which bags they wanted, just their own? They said no, they'd take ALL bags. My mouth dropped, I told the man to wait a moment for me to sweep up bags of bags, many, many bags full of bags that we've collected over the years from various supermarkets, and gave them all to him. And the best bit is that they give us 5p per bag. That's right, they give us money for making the right choice. Woohoo!
P.s. In case you're wondering if it's more expensive to get online delivery, it's not in our case.On one occasion Ocado failed to deliver our shop at all and we couldn't rebook for 2 days because all the slots had gone (major downside!), so I had no choice but to go up to Tesco. I used it as an experiment, I compared every item on our list with Tesco and at the end of the shop it was at least £20 more expensive at Tesco. It made me forgive Ocado for the delivery hassle...
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