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...
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
Day 9: reducing paper waste from marketing companies
Every single day I check the post box, there's a flyer in there, and more often than not a letter from Virgin trying to get me to switch to their services (how many times do I have to tell them we can't have it in our street?!). It drives me mad. I'm not condemning all paper-based marketing activities, I work in marketing and I know it can be a great way to get a message out. But there are some companies guilty of over-doing it, they're wasting paper and adding to landfill.
In this digital age there's so many other options to carry out cheap and effective marketing, most of it is more targeted too. For instance, Dominos flyer us every week, but the 'local' deals on the flyer are exactly the same as those on the app that knows my location and previous orders, and as the app is my preferred method of ordering, this medium is sufficient to give me more info, without the need for a tree to be cut down.
Virgin should frankly know better. Every week they send me glossy A4 invitations all the time, sometimes to me personally, sometimes to the previous tenants, sometimes just to the 'homeowner'. I write on these letters - return to sender and remove me from mailing list' but it doesn't get me anywhere. I don't even understand the purpose, lets forget for a moment that I actually tried to have it installed but found it 'wasn't in my area yet', I have been living here for months, information they should surely know, so I clearly have made my decision on tv viewing and am not looking to swap mid-contract with another supplier?
Inefficient marketing online is their business. But inefficient mountains of paper that I have to constantly recycle is another matter.
I want to research the scale of impact of flyering, or the percentage of companies who use recycled paper for their materials, or even the impact of colour prints into our water system, but for now I've carried out three actions. 1. I've put a 'no commercial leaflets' sign on our mailbox, (you can order a sticker from here -StopJunkMail.org for £0.85) and 2. I've added our details on Royal Mail's Mail Preference Service. 3. I've registered on the DMAs Mail Preference Service. Let's wait and see what happens!
Monday, 22 February 2016
Day 8: Joining campaigns & showing support
It's been a long, hard day today, I actually finished off all the chocolate ice-cream this evening, that's how full on it's been.
So I need a quick and easy step for today, and when I think of quick and easy I immediately think of online petitions. It is a very passive and perhaps lazy thing to do to sign a petition and forget about it, but if I look at it positively, I'll be one more person helping to get a message heard.
If you want to really know the state of the world, go to change.org and just look at all the causes. I had no idea half of this stuff was going on! I've gone with a selection of UK and American ones:
- Dunkin Donuts stop using Styrofoam cups. DD sell 1.5bn cups of coffee every year in styrofoam cups. A chemical used in making styrofoam called hydrofluorocarbons that can trap up to 1,000 times more heat than CO2. And if there are too many hydrofluorocarbons in the sky, global warming will be a bigger problem. It also takes up 25% of landfill space.
- Supporting limits on climate pollution from oil & gas companies. No surprises that oil and gas companies argue that there's no need for imposing limits as they'll voluntarily lower dangerous greenhouse emissions. The truth is, fewer than one percent of producers have participated in the EPA's voluntary climate pollution reduction program for oil & gas. We need a national limit.
- stop the unnecessary death of 50,000 sea turtles every year from shrimp nets.Turtle Excluder Devices installed on fishermen's trawlers have proved to be 97% effective. Simply make them compulsory!
- Take a stand against illegal fishing. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing of creatures such as sharks, tuna and sea turtles is a key driver of global overfishing. It threatens both marine ecosystems as well as food and regional security.
That's all I have time for tonight but there are so many more worthy causes out there!
So I need a quick and easy step for today, and when I think of quick and easy I immediately think of online petitions. It is a very passive and perhaps lazy thing to do to sign a petition and forget about it, but if I look at it positively, I'll be one more person helping to get a message heard.
If you want to really know the state of the world, go to change.org and just look at all the causes. I had no idea half of this stuff was going on! I've gone with a selection of UK and American ones:
- Dunkin Donuts stop using Styrofoam cups. DD sell 1.5bn cups of coffee every year in styrofoam cups. A chemical used in making styrofoam called hydrofluorocarbons that can trap up to 1,000 times more heat than CO2. And if there are too many hydrofluorocarbons in the sky, global warming will be a bigger problem. It also takes up 25% of landfill space.
- Supporting limits on climate pollution from oil & gas companies. No surprises that oil and gas companies argue that there's no need for imposing limits as they'll voluntarily lower dangerous greenhouse emissions. The truth is, fewer than one percent of producers have participated in the EPA's voluntary climate pollution reduction program for oil & gas. We need a national limit.
- stop the unnecessary death of 50,000 sea turtles every year from shrimp nets.Turtle Excluder Devices installed on fishermen's trawlers have proved to be 97% effective. Simply make them compulsory!
That's all I have time for tonight but there are so many more worthy causes out there!
Day 7: Reduce landfill, recycle bras
Sunday saw a big clean up and sort out of the house. We moved in nearly 9 months ago now but we just dumped clothes in drawers and haven't had a chance to sort through! I was astonished to discover that I had nearly 9 bras I didnt want. You can't really give your smalls to charity shops, although they would probably recycle them, but I remembered reading about a charity that asks for second hand bras for Africa.
The website is called www.smallsforall.org and actually prefers us to buy new bras and pants for them to send, but will also take our second hand smalls to recycle to make some cash for the charity. I'm only sending my package to Livingston, and i hope that the carbon footprint of their delivery has been considered given that they'll bulk ship the items over.
The address to send smalls to is:
Smalls For All
108 Buchanan Crescent,
Eliburn, Livingston, EH54 7EF.
I think that all my bras fit into the 'gently worn' category so will just get passed directly on to those who need them. Glad to think that they'll get a new lease of life somewhere!
Day 6: Improving energy efficiency in the home
When I'd spoken to my dad last week about energy efficiency in the home, he said that many buildings in the UK just weren't set up to retain heat - ours definitely fits into that category. We live in a Victorian house with sash windows. The windows to the front of the building aren't double glazed, and you can feel the chill blowing through if you sit near it, as such we tend to shut it off from the rest of the house most of the time and in the evenings just close the curtains and wrap up in blankets.
The silly thing is that the radiator is right underneath the window and so for those times that the radiator is on (the thermostat is in the warmest part of the house, so it's not on for too long) the heat is almost immediately lost. My dad suggested we try that heat retaining cling film you can get, but I was sceptical.
I bought it for around £7.99, and found it was relatively easy to fit. If you're planning on doing it to your windows take note that it pays to clean your windows first - if I placed the tape on dirty parts of the frame it wouldn't stick.
I painstakingly taped up all the panes individually and then magically shrunk the wrap so that it was almost clear and tight across each pain. As they're sash windows the breeze was also getting in through the joints, so I carefully filled all holes with tissue, so that you couldn't see it at all. I can't now open my window but we wouldn't want to until the summer.
The difference that glaze has made is incredible. I actually managed to heat up the lounge and not cover in a blanket all evening. I even went on to do the bedroom and my boyfriend complained it was too hot in there! Success!
Looking at our energy efficiency certificate our house is in band D, with the potential to be in C if we insulated the floors and walls. It also suggests that we could replace all lighting with low energy and save ourselves £51 over a year. It's not our house so we're not able to do much to improve this, but we can physically feel the difference from the film.
This is the product we went for - Stormguard Insulating Film. Unfortunately the website doesn't give any indication of the level of percentage reductions it can make to heat loss, it just states that it saves money, saves energy and saves the environment., so i'm not able to calculate any further. But the proof will be in the heating bill in a few month's time...
The silly thing is that the radiator is right underneath the window and so for those times that the radiator is on (the thermostat is in the warmest part of the house, so it's not on for too long) the heat is almost immediately lost. My dad suggested we try that heat retaining cling film you can get, but I was sceptical.
I bought it for around £7.99, and found it was relatively easy to fit. If you're planning on doing it to your windows take note that it pays to clean your windows first - if I placed the tape on dirty parts of the frame it wouldn't stick.
I painstakingly taped up all the panes individually and then magically shrunk the wrap so that it was almost clear and tight across each pain. As they're sash windows the breeze was also getting in through the joints, so I carefully filled all holes with tissue, so that you couldn't see it at all. I can't now open my window but we wouldn't want to until the summer.
The difference that glaze has made is incredible. I actually managed to heat up the lounge and not cover in a blanket all evening. I even went on to do the bedroom and my boyfriend complained it was too hot in there! Success!
Looking at our energy efficiency certificate our house is in band D, with the potential to be in C if we insulated the floors and walls. It also suggests that we could replace all lighting with low energy and save ourselves £51 over a year. It's not our house so we're not able to do much to improve this, but we can physically feel the difference from the film.
This is the product we went for - Stormguard Insulating Film. Unfortunately the website doesn't give any indication of the level of percentage reductions it can make to heat loss, it just states that it saves money, saves energy and saves the environment., so i'm not able to calculate any further. But the proof will be in the heating bill in a few month's time...
Friday, 19 February 2016
Day 5: The Cove
It's Friday! Whoop! Time for a film...
My partner (Gareth - I should probably start referring to him by name seeing as he's also playing a key role in all of this) told me about the film The Cove years ago when we first met. He's a seasoned scuba diver so he's seen the destruction of the oceans first hand and educated himself on the issues, as such he won't eat any fish ever. So tonight seemed a great time to sit and watch The Cove.
As with Earthlings, I'd put the film in the horror category. If you haven't watched it before, the full film is available on YouTube . It's hard to know how to explain how I felt watching the film. to give you the basic premise, it centres around dolphin and whale killing practices in Japan, specifically in the Taiji cove which drives migrating dolphins into nets so they can be picked for marine park amusements, or killed for food. There's many ironies in the story, such as the demand for dolphin meat being almost non-existent in Japan despite them killing almost 23,000 dolphins a year. And the other more sinister irony that the dolphin meat that they're passing off as whale is so high in Mercury that it's slowly killing the fishermen, government officials and their children, those who are trying so hard to keep this declining industry alive. They'll do anything to keep whaling, some laughable actions such as trying to convince a room full of scientists that Dolphins were essentially a pest, shown with a clip art PowerPoint presentation. Other tactics are more sinister, such as bribing small developing island countries to join their plight, in exchange for economy boosting cash we would presume.
I'm not really doing the film justice here, you have to watch it for yourself. The people who made the film are modern day heroes, putting their lives and careers on the line to expose the story. It's the least I can do to click on their petitions, follow their Twitter accounts and share their actions. It's so late that I'll come back to this topic and see how else I can support them.
My partner (Gareth - I should probably start referring to him by name seeing as he's also playing a key role in all of this) told me about the film The Cove years ago when we first met. He's a seasoned scuba diver so he's seen the destruction of the oceans first hand and educated himself on the issues, as such he won't eat any fish ever. So tonight seemed a great time to sit and watch The Cove.
As with Earthlings, I'd put the film in the horror category. If you haven't watched it before, the full film is available on YouTube . It's hard to know how to explain how I felt watching the film. to give you the basic premise, it centres around dolphin and whale killing practices in Japan, specifically in the Taiji cove which drives migrating dolphins into nets so they can be picked for marine park amusements, or killed for food. There's many ironies in the story, such as the demand for dolphin meat being almost non-existent in Japan despite them killing almost 23,000 dolphins a year. And the other more sinister irony that the dolphin meat that they're passing off as whale is so high in Mercury that it's slowly killing the fishermen, government officials and their children, those who are trying so hard to keep this declining industry alive. They'll do anything to keep whaling, some laughable actions such as trying to convince a room full of scientists that Dolphins were essentially a pest, shown with a clip art PowerPoint presentation. Other tactics are more sinister, such as bribing small developing island countries to join their plight, in exchange for economy boosting cash we would presume.
I'm not really doing the film justice here, you have to watch it for yourself. The people who made the film are modern day heroes, putting their lives and careers on the line to expose the story. It's the least I can do to click on their petitions, follow their Twitter accounts and share their actions. It's so late that I'll come back to this topic and see how else I can support them.
Thursday, 18 February 2016
Day 4: cycle to the pub instead of driving!
Tonight we wanted to do a pub quiz in a village about 10 miles away from us. It seemed the obvious choice to cycle there instead of drive for Day 4's action!
The ride out wasn't too eventful, it was pretty cold but we wrapped up warm and got peddling to warm up. The promise of pub food kept me going and I felt I really deserved it when I got there! It took about an hour, vs 20 minutes in the car, but with the clear skies and nice country roads I didn't mind being out in it for an hour.
We didn't win the pub quiz, in fact we came in last by a significant amount, but by some freak stroke of luck we won the bonus question which automatically upgraded us to 2nd place and we got a bottle of wine! On the way back I accidentally went over a pot hole, (nearly fell off), unfortunately I also got a puncture, but my lovely boyfriend quickly sorted it out and we were back on the road :)
It was a great evening and I feel very refreshed now, but this challenge is about saving the planet. It's not easy to work out the carbon saving of not driving, but let's say that it takes around a gallon of petrol to drive 20 miles, which produces around 19 lbs of C02. To visualise what that really means and looks like I've found a site called www.carbonvisuals.com who have this image below which I think sums it up nicely - essentially I've saved the planet around 5 of the bubbles shown in the picture below!
My partner is already a prolific cyclist but I'll definitely try to keep it up for trips I think I can manage - to the shops, to the pub, to the train station.
Lydia
The ride out wasn't too eventful, it was pretty cold but we wrapped up warm and got peddling to warm up. The promise of pub food kept me going and I felt I really deserved it when I got there! It took about an hour, vs 20 minutes in the car, but with the clear skies and nice country roads I didn't mind being out in it for an hour.
We didn't win the pub quiz, in fact we came in last by a significant amount, but by some freak stroke of luck we won the bonus question which automatically upgraded us to 2nd place and we got a bottle of wine! On the way back I accidentally went over a pot hole, (nearly fell off), unfortunately I also got a puncture, but my lovely boyfriend quickly sorted it out and we were back on the road :)
It was a great evening and I feel very refreshed now, but this challenge is about saving the planet. It's not easy to work out the carbon saving of not driving, but let's say that it takes around a gallon of petrol to drive 20 miles, which produces around 19 lbs of C02. To visualise what that really means and looks like I've found a site called www.carbonvisuals.com who have this image below which I think sums it up nicely - essentially I've saved the planet around 5 of the bubbles shown in the picture below!
My partner is already a prolific cyclist but I'll definitely try to keep it up for trips I think I can manage - to the shops, to the pub, to the train station.
Lydia
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Day 3: Clicking for rice
It's been one of those incredibly long days where I've been running around like crazy trying to get everything done. Also today I drove the car - around 50 miles, so i had time to think about my new mission and all the possible things I could do towards it. Here were my considerations of the day:
- My car is old. Like, nearly 20 years old. It did recently pass it's MOT so it's emission levels can't be too bad, but it's definitely inefficient. I wonder if there's anything i can do to improve my car's impact on the planet.
- I spoke to my Dad about renewable energy. He's a plumbing and heating engineer and had a mixed view on things. On one hand, he was full of great information about the improved efficiencies of the boilers he has to install - there's apparently new laws in which boilers heating engineers can install, and the new ones are all 20% more efficient. They take less time to heat up the water, and better retain the heated water so that it stays warmer longer. He felt that this was a great contribution that heating engineers are making to UK homes. However, he wasn't very positive about renewable energy. He said that the UK's current infrastructure couldn't provide everyone in the country with renewable energy and that if we were to fast track we'd have black outs etc. I argued that I don't think anyone expects it to happen overnight, but surely this is a case where demand can drive supply? We agreed to disagree. He was generally very positive about solar and frustrated with Conservatives for slashing the subsidy. I agreed with him on that! He had a lot of good points about home energy conservation which I will give some thought to and report back.
- I thought about my clients, and whether there might be something I can do to encourage each of them to contribute something positive to the environment. After all, I help direct their marketing strategies, websites and content. This is one to think about.
- I had an idea to start a litter picking community group! Possibly a mad idea, it kind of appeals to my OCD tendencies though.
- I started pulling together a home-made present for my boyfriend's birthday coming up, trying to upcycle/not buy new products, which will reduce my carbon footprint.
Just giving all the above ideas some thought is another positive step for today, but I wanted to finish the day off with an action, so I remembered a site called freerice.com. It serves up questions and for every answer you get right they donate 10 grains of rice through the world food programme to end hunger. It's all generated from ad impressions, a great way to get advertiser's budgets directly supporting a great cause. It's a Win Win. I'm going to give this website a few minutes of my time every day I can.
Lydia
- My car is old. Like, nearly 20 years old. It did recently pass it's MOT so it's emission levels can't be too bad, but it's definitely inefficient. I wonder if there's anything i can do to improve my car's impact on the planet.
- I spoke to my Dad about renewable energy. He's a plumbing and heating engineer and had a mixed view on things. On one hand, he was full of great information about the improved efficiencies of the boilers he has to install - there's apparently new laws in which boilers heating engineers can install, and the new ones are all 20% more efficient. They take less time to heat up the water, and better retain the heated water so that it stays warmer longer. He felt that this was a great contribution that heating engineers are making to UK homes. However, he wasn't very positive about renewable energy. He said that the UK's current infrastructure couldn't provide everyone in the country with renewable energy and that if we were to fast track we'd have black outs etc. I argued that I don't think anyone expects it to happen overnight, but surely this is a case where demand can drive supply? We agreed to disagree. He was generally very positive about solar and frustrated with Conservatives for slashing the subsidy. I agreed with him on that! He had a lot of good points about home energy conservation which I will give some thought to and report back.
- I thought about my clients, and whether there might be something I can do to encourage each of them to contribute something positive to the environment. After all, I help direct their marketing strategies, websites and content. This is one to think about.
- I had an idea to start a litter picking community group! Possibly a mad idea, it kind of appeals to my OCD tendencies though.
- I started pulling together a home-made present for my boyfriend's birthday coming up, trying to upcycle/not buy new products, which will reduce my carbon footprint.
Just giving all the above ideas some thought is another positive step for today, but I wanted to finish the day off with an action, so I remembered a site called freerice.com. It serves up questions and for every answer you get right they donate 10 grains of rice through the world food programme to end hunger. It's all generated from ad impressions, a great way to get advertiser's budgets directly supporting a great cause. It's a Win Win. I'm going to give this website a few minutes of my time every day I can.
Lydia
Tuesday, 16 February 2016
Day 2: Switching to green energy
It's day 2 in my challenge, and my small step today is going to transfer our energy to a green supplier. We use gas and electric, gas for our central heating and electric for all appliances. From researching, I understand now that all UK domestic gas is sourced from a number of places around the world, the North Sea being the biggest source (UK-based) followed by Norway, Qatar, Netherlands & Belgium, Gas is gas, wherever we source it from, it's a fossil fuel that's being burnt and produces C02. I feel guilt already as we're not able to move away from using gas entirely because we're in a rented house, and also, what are the alternatives? I have no idea. But for now i'll keep going, with a view to understand more about gas. and focus on finding an alternative for our electricity source.
My perception of green energy companies is that they're going to be more expensive than regular suppliers. I've never been in a position where I can say, 'well, its only £30 more a year'. We're always trying to cut costs and make ends meet, so I can't increase my bill. Another reason i've never moved suppliers is because the idea of switching energy companies just seems like a lot of hassle. I'm ashamed to admit I've never really investigated the options. Apathy, bah.
We're currently with E-ON for both gas & electric, and pay around £100 a month total. They have actually recently written to us saying they're going to increase that. It's not a surprise to me that our energy bill is big, I work from home so I use electricity and gas day and night. I've cleared it with the boyf and i'm allowed to swap it, but it cannot be more expensive than what we already pay, that's the deal.
A simple Google search and Uswitch form shows me that I can actually save us a whopping £261.23 a year if I went with the cheapest supplier (*faints*). But this exercise is not in saving money, it's in saving the planet. The first 10 results back are all from non-green energy companies. All claiming some level of planet saving - tips to help you reduce your energy use, or a promise that their percentage of renewable source will be larger than that of the big six, but that's not good enough for me. It has to be 100% renewable.
The price difference in the results does also confirm my pre-conception that green isn't the cheapest, but as I scroll down the options I am glad to see there are a number of green energy companies that will still reduce my bill. As I expected green to be more expensive I'm not surprised to see some of the bigger names in Green energy not coming up as alternatives, but a bit of scrolling shows me what kind of savings they could have offered me:
Ecotricity: +£41.31 - but they offer 'green gas' and a no frack guarantee. This does seem very appealing, but at the moment i can't justify increasing our energy bill a year, even if it is just £41.31. This is definitely one for the future though.
Good Energy: + £26.73.
Ovo Energy: -£171.56 - this tariff is only 33% renewables it seems. I have to stick to my 100% renewable promise.
* The above three i've selected just because i've heard of them, They're all located around Bristol which is where i'm based.
After some investigation, I've reduced it down to these three options:
Flow energy - this is the first Green energy to offer us the biggest savings of £215.26, but after looking into their offering, it seems we'd need a new boiler installed. This is no go for us renters. The concept looks great though, whilst the boiler is heating up your home, it's also generating electricity.
Green Star Energy - This is our cheapest standard switch energy company offering renewable. The saving i'll make is £187.85 over a year according to Uswitch. However when investigating further, it seems that to be on the 'green tariff' is a different rate to that which has come up in the search engine. I'm not sure what the differences are between the green tariff and other tariffs. I plug in my details to see what rate the green tariff could give me and the results show a saving of £117.71 + fixed fee of £30 if I leave early, or a saving of £62.31 plus no fixed fee if I go on their 'rate watch'. It's actually only 99.8% renewable, which is fine, but, hmm... It's a good option offering me decent savings, but perhaps I'll keep investigating.
BULB energy - This will save us £124.26 a year. Their online quote and switch system is the simplest I've ever come across, i'm a sucker for a simple website. I can even log in with my Facebook details, these guys know how to make life easy! I've also noticed that the price is inclusive of 5% tax, whereas my current supplier's costs are excluding VAT. I chatted with their friendly staff online and it's a simple switch, plus no exit fees. That's great as when renting, who knows when we might have to get out of a contract. A slight problem is that they don't seem to be able to find our address on their system. A quick chat to the nice online guy and he's found us and sorted it out. I think we've found our winner....
This took about 1-2 hour of faff, mainly because our stupid address isn't always clear on the system, plus i've been writing this up during the whole affair. I've received the email confirmation so I just need to wait 14 days and we'll be switched. I'll probably have to set up a Direct Debit at some point but that's minimum fuss.
I've learnt a bit today about the sourcing of gas, the realities of green energy propositions and the clear fact that actually green energy options can be a lot cheaper than the big six. It pays to investigate properly with a recent bill in your hand. 100% renewable-sourced electricity is surely a no-brainer, especially when it's so accessible? A quick look at E-ON's fuel mix tells me that they use around 38.6% coal, 36.2% gas, 14.2% Nuclear and only 4.7% Renewable. Plus, another 6.3% on 'other' (yikes, what other?!) The UK's average percentage of renewable energy is 16.5% so they are well below par.
Frankly 16.5% as an average for the UK doesn't seem great either, a quick Wiki search for Europe gives me some stats from 2014, and shows that Sweden is leading the way with 52% (generally all the nordic countries around 40-50%). Germany, France & Italy are all ahead of the UK. In the world, this article states that Costa Rica is 99% renewable but that Sweden will be the first to be 100%. I'm not sure exactly how credible this article is, lots of big graphics with statements and non-comparable stats, but still, UK is nowhere to be seen on anything. Shame on us!
What will day 3 bring! I'm looking forward to it.
Lydia
My perception of green energy companies is that they're going to be more expensive than regular suppliers. I've never been in a position where I can say, 'well, its only £30 more a year'. We're always trying to cut costs and make ends meet, so I can't increase my bill. Another reason i've never moved suppliers is because the idea of switching energy companies just seems like a lot of hassle. I'm ashamed to admit I've never really investigated the options. Apathy, bah.
We're currently with E-ON for both gas & electric, and pay around £100 a month total. They have actually recently written to us saying they're going to increase that. It's not a surprise to me that our energy bill is big, I work from home so I use electricity and gas day and night. I've cleared it with the boyf and i'm allowed to swap it, but it cannot be more expensive than what we already pay, that's the deal.
A simple Google search and Uswitch form shows me that I can actually save us a whopping £261.23 a year if I went with the cheapest supplier (*faints*). But this exercise is not in saving money, it's in saving the planet. The first 10 results back are all from non-green energy companies. All claiming some level of planet saving - tips to help you reduce your energy use, or a promise that their percentage of renewable source will be larger than that of the big six, but that's not good enough for me. It has to be 100% renewable.
The price difference in the results does also confirm my pre-conception that green isn't the cheapest, but as I scroll down the options I am glad to see there are a number of green energy companies that will still reduce my bill. As I expected green to be more expensive I'm not surprised to see some of the bigger names in Green energy not coming up as alternatives, but a bit of scrolling shows me what kind of savings they could have offered me:
Ecotricity: +£41.31 - but they offer 'green gas' and a no frack guarantee. This does seem very appealing, but at the moment i can't justify increasing our energy bill a year, even if it is just £41.31. This is definitely one for the future though.
Good Energy: + £26.73.
Ovo Energy: -£171.56 - this tariff is only 33% renewables it seems. I have to stick to my 100% renewable promise.
* The above three i've selected just because i've heard of them, They're all located around Bristol which is where i'm based.
After some investigation, I've reduced it down to these three options:
Flow energy - this is the first Green energy to offer us the biggest savings of £215.26, but after looking into their offering, it seems we'd need a new boiler installed. This is no go for us renters. The concept looks great though, whilst the boiler is heating up your home, it's also generating electricity.
Green Star Energy - This is our cheapest standard switch energy company offering renewable. The saving i'll make is £187.85 over a year according to Uswitch. However when investigating further, it seems that to be on the 'green tariff' is a different rate to that which has come up in the search engine. I'm not sure what the differences are between the green tariff and other tariffs. I plug in my details to see what rate the green tariff could give me and the results show a saving of £117.71 + fixed fee of £30 if I leave early, or a saving of £62.31 plus no fixed fee if I go on their 'rate watch'. It's actually only 99.8% renewable, which is fine, but, hmm... It's a good option offering me decent savings, but perhaps I'll keep investigating.
BULB energy - This will save us £124.26 a year. Their online quote and switch system is the simplest I've ever come across, i'm a sucker for a simple website. I can even log in with my Facebook details, these guys know how to make life easy! I've also noticed that the price is inclusive of 5% tax, whereas my current supplier's costs are excluding VAT. I chatted with their friendly staff online and it's a simple switch, plus no exit fees. That's great as when renting, who knows when we might have to get out of a contract. A slight problem is that they don't seem to be able to find our address on their system. A quick chat to the nice online guy and he's found us and sorted it out. I think we've found our winner....
This took about 1-2 hour of faff, mainly because our stupid address isn't always clear on the system, plus i've been writing this up during the whole affair. I've received the email confirmation so I just need to wait 14 days and we'll be switched. I'll probably have to set up a Direct Debit at some point but that's minimum fuss.
I've learnt a bit today about the sourcing of gas, the realities of green energy propositions and the clear fact that actually green energy options can be a lot cheaper than the big six. It pays to investigate properly with a recent bill in your hand. 100% renewable-sourced electricity is surely a no-brainer, especially when it's so accessible? A quick look at E-ON's fuel mix tells me that they use around 38.6% coal, 36.2% gas, 14.2% Nuclear and only 4.7% Renewable. Plus, another 6.3% on 'other' (yikes, what other?!) The UK's average percentage of renewable energy is 16.5% so they are well below par.
Frankly 16.5% as an average for the UK doesn't seem great either, a quick Wiki search for Europe gives me some stats from 2014, and shows that Sweden is leading the way with 52% (generally all the nordic countries around 40-50%). Germany, France & Italy are all ahead of the UK. In the world, this article states that Costa Rica is 99% renewable but that Sweden will be the first to be 100%. I'm not sure exactly how credible this article is, lots of big graphics with statements and non-comparable stats, but still, UK is nowhere to be seen on anything. Shame on us!
What will day 3 bring! I'm looking forward to it.
Lydia
Monday, 15 February 2016
Day 1: The big picture
This blog is about my journey taking small, single steps towards change in my lifestyle and views, so that I can somehow contribute my tiny part to saving the planet. The idea that anyone can stop the deteriorating state of the planet seems almost laughable, How can little changes I make to recycling and eating less meat mean anything to the bigger picture? Then last night i suddenly got it. I realised that my apathetic state means I am actually part of the problem, that my apathy is the problem, and that I must do SOMETHING, to start being part of the solution.
Watching the films were not the life-changing shock to the system, It was instead the moment the film ended. I sighed, got up to make a cup of tea and started getting on with normal life. I realised that within a few steps to the kitchen I was already becoming apathetic to what i'd just seen and heard. The realisation was that my 'head-in-the-sand' approach is being repeated by people all over the planet, and that collectively our attitude could actually be the thing between us killing and saving the planet.
I'm a regular, meat-eating, box-set binging, brand-consuming, earth-polluting girl with a busy life and a million other things in my head. I watch a film like Racing Extinction or Earthlings and i'm appalled at what I see. My reaction however, is to wallow in self-shame for a few days, worry a bit about choices I make over products I buy and food I eat, and then in a few weeks I'm back to my old habits. The reason my efforts aren't sustained is because making a difference just seems overwhelming, and because I don't see any direct results that reassure me that my efforts are paying off.
I had a chat with a good friend of mine last weekend who has recently turned full hippy. Now a vegan, she quit her job and is considering doing an apprenticeship working on a farm so she can live off the land. Her ultimate dream is to live 'off grid'. She's generally horrified by the way the world is these days and is making her own changes to improve the planet. But whilst I admire her attitude and vivaciousness, I said to her honestly that her new ways seemed a bit extreme. That the truth is, I'm not going to stop eating meat. And that even though i'm ashamed to say, some days, I put plastic in the normal bin. I also still eat eggs, even though I know that egg companies kill all male chicks ( I wrote to Happy Eggs to find out for sure).
The world needs people like my friend, who take the extreme route. She's inspiring, and she sets boundaries for me to aspire to. But extremist views and alternative lifestyle choices can also makes people uncomfortable, reconfirming apathy in the masses. This apathy needs to be broken, slowly but surely. I don't want to live off grid and whittle spoons. But I also don't want to pollute the planet. So i'm going to find my own way of making a difference to the world in a way that everyone can relate to. I'm going to be fully honest about the good and the bad that I do to the world, and tell the story of change right here.
Where to start? Well, firstly i'll focus on the good things. I always carry my own carrier bag. I recycle. I grow a few herbs and easy vegetables in the garden. I work from home so I hardly use the car. We tend to use the bikes quite a lot for mini trips and nights out to local pubs. I don't flush the toilet in the middle of the night. We make a concerted effort not to waste food. Okay, so far that's not bad. But here's the not so good stuff.
I don't use energy saving lightbulbs - I hate the buzz. I do sometimes put recyclable materials in the normal bin when I don't have the time or energy to wash it out. I use the tumble dryer ALL the time. I'm generally a bit obsessed with clothes washing. I let the tap run when i'm brushing my teeth. I know my facewash doesnt have 'microbeads' in it but i haven't checked out any other products I use. I also haven't really got a clue if I eat palm oil products, how much electricity i use, what happens to any products I put in the bin or down the drain, or frankly, what else I might be doing that is quite terrible. Put simply, I'm ignorant. I want knowledge.
Yesterday was Day 0. My single step was watching Racing Extinction. That film was an eye opener and if you get a chance to watch it, do. What I gained from that film was a bit more knowledge.
Today is Day 1. My single step today is starting this blog, which makes me accountable, and places a public stake in the ground so that I (or anyone else) can use it to smack me over the head if I start waning into apathy again. Remember, APATHY is the problem here, so anything that is a positive move in the right direction is good.
Tomorrow is Day 2. I have some ideas of what I'm going to do, but i'll share that with you tomorrow.
Wish me luck!
Lydia
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