It's been a while, but there's been no green news to report...Still enjoying our veg box deliveries (fantastic seasonal squash recently which go very well with sausages), and using our new kerbside collection (our plastics box is mostly filled with stuff saved by colleagues at work, as there's no such thing as kerbside recycling for offices!).
However, I did get rather (over?!) excited last weekend when it was time to take out the summer bedding plants in our garden pots and replace them with winter pansies and spring flowering bulbs. To give them all a head start (although the bulbs are the National Trust's finest so I have high hopes for them) I thought I should give them a bit of fresh compost around their roots when planting.
With some trepidation I prised away the little 'door' at the bottom of our huge compost bin and I think I actually whooped with delight at what I saw! In front of my eyes was plenty of brown, crumbly stuff that looked like actual compost that you would buy in a shop!!! I scooped some out into a bucket to take a closer look - I can't believe that our old veg peelings, tea bags etc have, with no attention whatsoever (save a warm spot in the garden and a drop of water when it got too hot) have, thanks to some worms and bugs and heat from the sun, mulched down into this marvellous nourishing stuff! I scattered a good deal into the pots and beds as I was planting the pansies and bulbs - time will tell what difference it makes but there are two flowers and more buds on some of the pansies already - fab!
Why don't more people have compost bins?! So easy to do, puts less in your bin/landfill, and yields goodies if you're patient (ours has taken about 15 months to get to this stage).
Now, I quite fancy the idea of a wormery with all those cute wriggles chewing away...wonder if I can persuade Mr Going Greener...
See www.recyclenow.org.uk for more home composting info.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Kerbside collection
A couple of weeks ago I was very excited to receive a leaflet from the council informing us that our street was next in line for the 'Black Box' kerbside recycling scheme for cans and plastic bottles. This has been an ongoing project for the council for a few years now: black boxes have been rolled out on a postcode-by-postcode basis as funding has become available to run the scheme. According to council statistics, recycling rates have really leapt up in our local area since the introduction of the black box scheme - essentially people now have no excuse not to recycle the specified items. Households being charged per kg of waste they throw out rather than recycle? Bring it on!!
Kerbside collection of paper and cardboard for recycling was introduced in our town several years ago. At present, the box is emptied fornightly. Even for a two person household such as ours this isn't frequently enough: we easily fill our box every week, with the overspill stored in the shed until collection day. Still, it's better than nothing. The black box will also be emptied fortnightly (on bin day), beginning tomorrow, and I'm pleased that it has a better design than the papers box! The lid is securely fastened, as opposed to needing to weighted down with a brick in windy weather. Perhaps the council learnt from the design faults in the previous recycling box design?!
So now the only things we will have to take to a recycling centre ourselves are glass bottles, tin foil and textiles etc. I hope that, in time, glass will also be collected from our kerbside: when we lived in the adjacent county some 5 years ago, the council there collected a mixed box of paper, plastic, cans and glass every week on bin day. It still mystifies me how one council can differ so much from another in a country as small as ours, but hey ho - it all helps.
Our first black box collection is tomorrow - how exciting!
Kerbside collection of paper and cardboard for recycling was introduced in our town several years ago. At present, the box is emptied fornightly. Even for a two person household such as ours this isn't frequently enough: we easily fill our box every week, with the overspill stored in the shed until collection day. Still, it's better than nothing. The black box will also be emptied fortnightly (on bin day), beginning tomorrow, and I'm pleased that it has a better design than the papers box! The lid is securely fastened, as opposed to needing to weighted down with a brick in windy weather. Perhaps the council learnt from the design faults in the previous recycling box design?!
So now the only things we will have to take to a recycling centre ourselves are glass bottles, tin foil and textiles etc. I hope that, in time, glass will also be collected from our kerbside: when we lived in the adjacent county some 5 years ago, the council there collected a mixed box of paper, plastic, cans and glass every week on bin day. It still mystifies me how one council can differ so much from another in a country as small as ours, but hey ho - it all helps.
Our first black box collection is tomorrow - how exciting!
Monday, June 4, 2007
Daily pinta - at work!! PART II
Quick update.
Another unit in our office building have followed our lead and begun getting their milk delivered! Myself and my tea club cohort are hoping, after some initial confusion, that no-one will nick anyone else's milk - don't fancy a milk turf war!!
Another unit in our office building have followed our lead and begun getting their milk delivered! Myself and my tea club cohort are hoping, after some initial confusion, that no-one will nick anyone else's milk - don't fancy a milk turf war!!
Ethical Man
I brought back with me from India a newspaper cutting, from a quality daily rag called the Mumbai Mirror. It caught my eye as it was about a BBC Newsnight presenter by the name of Justin Rowlatt (link to BBC mini-site here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight
/ethical_man/default.stm)
In spring 2006, Justin was set the challenge of spending a year leading a more ethical life, with the aim of reducing his family's carbon footprint. He and his wife got rid of their car, converted to cloth nappies for their young children, switched the laundry eco-balls, started composting...His blog makes interesting reading and is full of good ideas and tips, from a man keen to 'do his bit', and to see how feasiible this would be to sustain on a long term basis. I'd recommend a browse.
The Mumbai Mirror ran a two-page spread about his efforts, predicated on his recent trip to Mumbai to see if he could encourage a local family to change their habits to more eco-frinedly ways. It has to be said that India is something of an eco disaster zone: poorly regulated urban development, ever-increasing traffic with no mitigation in terms of emmissions limits, and massive urban populations, many of whom have no access to clean water, toilets or secure housing. Recycling seems to be pretty much unheard of: in the rush to embrace Western ways (the McCulture) 'progress' seems to be all that matters, regardless on the impact on the environment/population. I know that in the West we have a litany of errors to answer to in this regard, but it seems sad that rapidly developing nations don't look at those with a view to avoiding repeating them.
So it was with much interest that I read the article. Rowlatt was tasked with given a middle class Mumbai family an 'eco makeover' to see if they could take steps to reduce theri carbon footprint. The family was similar in size and age to Rowlatt's own, and whilst they were not prepared to give up their car (high temperatures and humidity make public transport an almost unbearable experience in the summer months), they were amenable to making some changes (sadly the article doesn't go into much detail). Interestingly, Rowlatt also spent time with a different family whom the newspaper claims have zero carbon emissions: the wife, before her recent marriage, lived in one of Mumbai's many slums and the usage of public 'toilets' was extolled as something we could learn from in the West...
The Mumbai Mirror's top tips for reducing Indians' carbon footprint are resonant with those put forward here:
1. Consume only locally grown/produced food and avoid meat
2. Reduce car usage to a minimum
3. Switch to energy saving lighbulbs
4. Put your air conditioning at 25 degrees C of higher (the flip side of our 'turn your thermostat down by one degree' I guess)
5. Avoid using your tumble drier
6. Take the train to your next holiday destination
I'm not sure if the irony was realised by the printers, but immediately below these tips was an ad for a low-cost Indian airline...ha!
/ethical_man/default.stm)
In spring 2006, Justin was set the challenge of spending a year leading a more ethical life, with the aim of reducing his family's carbon footprint. He and his wife got rid of their car, converted to cloth nappies for their young children, switched the laundry eco-balls, started composting...His blog makes interesting reading and is full of good ideas and tips, from a man keen to 'do his bit', and to see how feasiible this would be to sustain on a long term basis. I'd recommend a browse.
The Mumbai Mirror ran a two-page spread about his efforts, predicated on his recent trip to Mumbai to see if he could encourage a local family to change their habits to more eco-frinedly ways. It has to be said that India is something of an eco disaster zone: poorly regulated urban development, ever-increasing traffic with no mitigation in terms of emmissions limits, and massive urban populations, many of whom have no access to clean water, toilets or secure housing. Recycling seems to be pretty much unheard of: in the rush to embrace Western ways (the McCulture) 'progress' seems to be all that matters, regardless on the impact on the environment/population. I know that in the West we have a litany of errors to answer to in this regard, but it seems sad that rapidly developing nations don't look at those with a view to avoiding repeating them.
So it was with much interest that I read the article. Rowlatt was tasked with given a middle class Mumbai family an 'eco makeover' to see if they could take steps to reduce theri carbon footprint. The family was similar in size and age to Rowlatt's own, and whilst they were not prepared to give up their car (high temperatures and humidity make public transport an almost unbearable experience in the summer months), they were amenable to making some changes (sadly the article doesn't go into much detail). Interestingly, Rowlatt also spent time with a different family whom the newspaper claims have zero carbon emissions: the wife, before her recent marriage, lived in one of Mumbai's many slums and the usage of public 'toilets' was extolled as something we could learn from in the West...
The Mumbai Mirror's top tips for reducing Indians' carbon footprint are resonant with those put forward here:
1. Consume only locally grown/produced food and avoid meat
2. Reduce car usage to a minimum
3. Switch to energy saving lighbulbs
4. Put your air conditioning at 25 degrees C of higher (the flip side of our 'turn your thermostat down by one degree' I guess)
5. Avoid using your tumble drier
6. Take the train to your next holiday destination
I'm not sure if the irony was realised by the printers, but immediately below these tips was an ad for a low-cost Indian airline...ha!
Back...!!
Hello blog fans! I'm back after too long an absence. I was in Paris with my job for a couple of weeks, then after 5 hectic days at home, went to India to visit The Travelling Macbook and Datchet Diva (links aside).
The garden is now blooming (and would be even more had not some rascal pinched two plant pots from beside our front door two nights ago - grr!) and thanks to my parents-in-law was reigned in from it's meadow-like state in time for my return home. It does now need a weed though, and the grass needs cutting again, so my aim is to do that if it stays dry on my days off this week.
I will give a compost update in due course too. It needs a good stir, and I left the lid off last week for a day or two so some rain could get in as it was all looking rather dry. The stuff at the very bottom looks to be about the right colour/consistency, so I"m hopeful...ish!
I've also, being unable to close the drawers, finally defrosted our freezer so it should be running more eco-efficiently now. Just in time for being filled with ice-cream!
The garden is now blooming (and would be even more had not some rascal pinched two plant pots from beside our front door two nights ago - grr!) and thanks to my parents-in-law was reigned in from it's meadow-like state in time for my return home. It does now need a weed though, and the grass needs cutting again, so my aim is to do that if it stays dry on my days off this week.
I will give a compost update in due course too. It needs a good stir, and I left the lid off last week for a day or two so some rain could get in as it was all looking rather dry. The stuff at the very bottom looks to be about the right colour/consistency, so I"m hopeful...ish!
I've also, being unable to close the drawers, finally defrosted our freezer so it should be running more eco-efficiently now. Just in time for being filled with ice-cream!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Going greener....abroad
I'm currently in Paris for a couple of weeks with my job (hard life, I know). I flew here (bad, but cheaper than the train which is what it unfortunately boiled down to), but am walking/using public transport to get around everywhere (good). I can now vouch for the efficacy of sterilizing tablets for cleaning my mooncup (see previous post 'One for the girls'), but am suffering from a guilt complex re recycling my rubbish!
I brought with me a gorgeous Radley shopping bag, which I'm using in the little shops near to my apartment. France has yet to fully succumb to the lure of a Tesco metro on every corner, and there are still plenty of independent shops all specialising in one or two types of produce, even in the centre of Paris. However, I'm still reliant on supermarkets for most bottled/canned products and its this packaging which is causing me angst, especially as BBC World which is beamed to my tv 24/7 is running a special series of Climate Watch progammes...
Anyway, I guess it shows how used I've become to recycling at home, which is a good thing, in that now the thought of not being able to do the same here is an anathema. I have seen some bottle banks on street corners, so will have to scope out the nearest ones. Cans are still a quandy, although I think I may have spotted a paper recycling bin on the way home from the office today...Not sure of the system in terms of bin ownership - perhaps I ought to go out under the cover of darkness!!
Paris really is beautiful at this time of year, and I guess careful waste disposal plays an important role in keeping it that way. I shall let you all know if I achieve recycling succes...!
I brought with me a gorgeous Radley shopping bag, which I'm using in the little shops near to my apartment. France has yet to fully succumb to the lure of a Tesco metro on every corner, and there are still plenty of independent shops all specialising in one or two types of produce, even in the centre of Paris. However, I'm still reliant on supermarkets for most bottled/canned products and its this packaging which is causing me angst, especially as BBC World which is beamed to my tv 24/7 is running a special series of Climate Watch progammes...
Anyway, I guess it shows how used I've become to recycling at home, which is a good thing, in that now the thought of not being able to do the same here is an anathema. I have seen some bottle banks on street corners, so will have to scope out the nearest ones. Cans are still a quandy, although I think I may have spotted a paper recycling bin on the way home from the office today...Not sure of the system in terms of bin ownership - perhaps I ought to go out under the cover of darkness!!
Paris really is beautiful at this time of year, and I guess careful waste disposal plays an important role in keeping it that way. I shall let you all know if I achieve recycling succes...!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Daily pinta - at work!
Milk and orange juice deliveries to our home are proving very successful. I still get a bit excited seeing the bottles huddled up on the doorstep twice a week! Perhaps I need to get out more....!
Anyway, the place where I work has just moved offices. Myself and a friend run the tea club, and we were forever lugging big bottles of supermarket milk to work to feed the voracious thirsts of our colleagues.
So I got thinking...and put our new office postcode into the Dairy Crest website (www.dairycrest.co.uk). Hey presto - it's on a local delivery route! So, just like I'd done for home, I wizzed off our order via the website, and 5 days later 6 pints of milk were waiting outside the main entrance when the first person got to work! It's early days yet, and it may take some tweaking to ensure the regular order meets our needs, but so far so good. An added bonus is that the tea club can pay by direct debit, so no risk of cheques left in bottles outside overnight going AWOL. And who knows, it may even make some of my colleagues explore the possibility of using their own local milkman.
Now, I wonder what the reaction would be if we introduced fair trade tea and coffee into the tea club... :-)
Anyway, the place where I work has just moved offices. Myself and a friend run the tea club, and we were forever lugging big bottles of supermarket milk to work to feed the voracious thirsts of our colleagues.
So I got thinking...and put our new office postcode into the Dairy Crest website (www.dairycrest.co.uk). Hey presto - it's on a local delivery route! So, just like I'd done for home, I wizzed off our order via the website, and 5 days later 6 pints of milk were waiting outside the main entrance when the first person got to work! It's early days yet, and it may take some tweaking to ensure the regular order meets our needs, but so far so good. An added bonus is that the tea club can pay by direct debit, so no risk of cheques left in bottles outside overnight going AWOL. And who knows, it may even make some of my colleagues explore the possibility of using their own local milkman.
Now, I wonder what the reaction would be if we introduced fair trade tea and coffee into the tea club... :-)
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