bemoreeco

The weather is still holding out which must be great news for al those who are doing outdoor recycling week tasks and pledges.

Recycle Week Reading

I have come across two interesting articles last night while using yahoo search. The first article was about how to get rid of an old computer.  The UK is particularly bad at recycling electronic waste.

A survey, commissioned by the computer manufacturer Dell and published last month, named us as the worst consumers in Europe when it comes to recycling technological waste. Eighty per cent of Germans dispose of their old gadgets in an environmentally responsible way; we manage 50 per cent. For the full story of Terence Blacker Recycling Week pledge a separate post has been created.

The second story I came across came the Recycle For London website which details top tips sent in by readers. My favourite was “Plastic takeaway containers make perfect sandwich boxes for school or work!”. Click here for the rest of the tips.

Lunch (Recycle Week Pledge)

It is going to be hard task to top my lunch yesterday, when I made a great chicken and vegetable soup with left overs. I had very little to go with today. However as part of my Recycle Week pledge I had to create something which was edible.

This is what I had to make lunch with, Pita bread, raw spinach, cooked carrot, two boiled potatoes and 1/4 avocado. I had to rush this morning as I had to take my three boys to school, so I toasted the pitta and then piled everything in and pressed down hard. This may sound strange, and it was. Never mind maybe tomorrow I will have more luck.

Recycling Video

Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home is a feature documentary about how the family household has become one of the most ferocious environmental predators of our time. Concerned for the future of his new baby boy Sebastian, writer and director Andrew Nisker takes an average urban family, the McDonalds, and asks them to keep every scrap of garbage that they create for three months. He then takes them on a journey to find out where it all goes and what it’s doing to the world.

Recycle Week Reading

Last night I was searching twitter for any interesting recycle stories. The one which caught my eye was as a stunt which those clever marketing men at Coca-Cola have come up with. They have created a 50m artwork made up of 200,000 aluminium cans by Robert Bradford. Click here for pictures, video and BeMoreEco post.

The second story which I found interesting was found at www.which.co.uk. Their stating that Britons waste billions of pounds and are damaging the environment by throwing old clothes in the bin.

A You Gov poll found that 63% of people’s clothing ends up in landfill sites, rather than being recycled or reused. Some of this clothes waste will go on to biodegrade to form methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. The poll also revealed that British consumers spend £38 billion each year on new clothes, but only 16% of the clothes they throw out are recycled. According to the study, the average UK consumer spends around £600 on clothes a year and discards £400 worth.

Out of nearly 2,000 people questioned, 39% said they did consider what impact throwing away clothes had on the environment.

Lunch (Recycle week pledge)

Day 2 of my recycle week pledge ended up me having another wrap made with organic turkey burgers and green beans (Monday nights kids meal), toasted with some mustard. This may seem like an interesting meal, but surprisingly it tasted OK (with extra ketchup). Tomorrow I am going to have baked potato or soup!

Eco Recycling Bins (Recycle week pledge)

My second pledge for recycling week was to to post and promote recycling bins. I have been trawling through flickr example of recycling bins which can be found through the world. Below is  selection of my favourite ones.

Also as bonus if you sign up to MoreEco during Recycling Week we will give you an extra 100 joining points. Use offer code ‘recyclenow’.

Environmental Defense Fund scientists have evaluated aspects of wild fisheries and fish farming operations and analyzed 200+ types of fish and shellfish common in the U.S. market.

The Eco-Best choices “represent fish whose fishing or farming methods have minor impacts on the environment.” 

In its top 10 Eco-Best Seafood, the Environmental Defense Fund also lists:

1. Char, Arctic (farmed)
2. Mackerel, Atlantic
3. Mussels
4. Oysters (farmed)
5. Sablefish (Alaska, Canada)
6. Salmon, wild (Alaska)
7. Sardines, Pacific (U.S.)
8. Trout, rainbow (farmed)
9. Tuna, albacore (U.S., Canada)

It took me my son’s science project on recycling to realize that we can really do something constructive out of the waste we generate from our kitchen. Before you turn up your noses and crank about the “Rotting Veggie Odors + Recycling”, let me explain the pros of the Terraviva Domestic Composter. This is a device that sits neatly on your counter top, as stylish as any other appliance that you own. It simply makes a mish-mash of all the veggie waste into something palatable for the plants.

Organic stuff like your peels and leftovers added to the composter decomposes with the help of aerobic microorganisms. These organisms just speed up the degradation process via electromechanical processes and make sure there is no stink. You will need to hook it up to a power source for around 20 minutes a day, and once its tanked up, it just keeps doing its thing. It has the capacity to process 12 liters or 7 kgs of waste at a time.
Those with kitchen gardens are really going to like this thing.

Designer: Ravel Casela

All those people who scorn at green ideas, here’s the Mother of Them ALL, and its by biggie Philips, so lets see what you’re gonna do about it! Biosphere Home Farming is a structure that houses fishes, root veggies, grasses, plants and algae all under one roof. It takes all your kitchen-trash as fodder for the farm and manages to generate food, water and cooking gas for the family.

In short you consume your trash in a more refined way! Ok, enough of green bashing hit the jump to see what exactly Philips has to say about this concept.

“Biosphere home farming concept generates food and cooking gas, while filtering water. The concept supplements a families nutritional needs by generating several hundred calories a day in the form of fish, root vegetables, grasses, plants and algae. Unlike conventional hydroponic nurseries this system incorporates a methane digester than produces heat and gas to power lights, similarly algae produces hydrogen and the root plants produces oxygen, which is fed back to fish. CO2 is pumped into the plants. It is a closed loop interdependent system. The system uses waste water and non-consumable household matter and delivers food in return.”

Source - Yanko Design

Healthy soil makes healthy plants makes healthy people. - Old organic maxim.

Put most simply, organic is a method of growing food using only naturally occurring substances. Properly done, it recycles all wastes and improves the soil as it increases crop yields. Its goal is to work with nature’s laws and tendencies, rather than to counteract or defeat them. Practitioners of the method conceive of all life in the system as an interrelated whole to be strengthened, rather than as a group of creatures to be selectively supported, suppressed, or eliminated chemically.

Compost—the rotted remains of what was once living tissue—is both the source and destiny of life, and it is the heart and engine of the organic method. It. What was alive dies and decays to form a nourishing seedbed for new life. The concept is as old as life itself. Go into the woods and look closely at the forest floor. You’ll see the leaves and twigs of past years decaying to form a rich, spongy duff that nourishes the trees and plants currently growing there, which will in turn eventually die, decay, and nourish yet another generation of plants. William Shakespeare articulated it well when the Friar in Romeo and Juliet proclaimed: “The Earth that’s Nature’s mother is her tomb/ What is her burying grave, that is her womb.”

Compost is the perfect fertilizer, containing plant and animal remains, which naturally have the elements needed for the construction of new plants and animals. 

Read full article at ecomii.

So you’re packing your kid’s lunch to avoid the whole Mystery Meat thing. Food from home is better than whatever’s slopped onto the tray by the Lunch Lady, right? But what about what you pack that lunch IN? Many insulated vinyl lunchboxes are chock full of lead, not exactly what you want cozying up to the homemade or organic treats you’ve lovingly prepared. So what to do? Alternatives, baby. And they’re not as hard to come by as you might think.

Laptop Lunches is one-stop shopping for lead-free lunchware. Their Laptop System includes an uber-cool bento set, insulated carrier, and a water bottle. I’d exchange the plastic bottle pictured for a stainless steel version, though; Kleen Kanteen makes several sizes and they’re BPA-free, reusable, incredibly durable (mine have lasted years now), and eco-friendly..

Want just the bento? Ichibankan has a great selection.

Brown-bagging it? Not recommended—kids already toss an astounding 67 pounds of lunch trash per year. Each. That’s a lot of baloney sandwiches and mushy apples. Instead, go reusable with a stainless steel food jar containing last night’s leftovers, tucked into washable canvas lunch bag. Or go one better with the Eco Lunch kit, a cotton bag containing a 2-tier stainless steel lunch container, bamboo utensils, and cloth napkins. No fuss, no waste. Score!

Go retro. Remember when lunch boxes were made of metal? They still are.

Want more ideas? Go here.

Source; Super Eco

Shoppers are sticking to their ethical principles when it comes to Fairtrade and locally sourced food – but organic food seems to be losing its appeal. The number of British shoppers who buy ethical food – including Fairtrade and locally sourced – has increased since 2006, a new survey by IGD has revealed. However, the number of consumers opting for organic products has fallen, according to the Shopper Trends 2009 report.

A quarter of shoppers said they had purchased at least one Fairtrade item in the past month, compared with 9% in 2006. The percentage choosing locally produced food has almost doubled to 27%, while those who regard food provenance as a priority has risen from 16% to 23%. The results also revealed the proportion of shoppers supporting high animal welfare standards had doubled to 20%.

Almost a half mentioned animal living conditions when asked about food production concerns, compared with 30% in 2006. Organic products was the only ethical food area where the number of shoppers had fallen, to 19% compared with 24% last year.

“We believe this is partly due to a swing towards other ethical options, mainly among more casual organic shoppers,” said Denney-Finch.

Shoppers’ values ran deep when it came to doing the right thing, said Fairtrade Foundation director of communications Barbara Crowther. Traidcraft marketing director Larry Bush added: “This survey reinforces that Fairtrade is not a fad; it’s a result of consumer education and awareness of the benefits of Fairtrade to developing world producers.”

Shoppers were more price-sensitive, but were not leaving their ethical concerns at home when they went  shopping, said IGD chief executive Joanne Denney-Finch. “People are scrutinising closely to get the best value for their values,” she said.

The Soil Association insisted that although the recession had destabilised organic sales the impact had not been catastrophic.

Source; The Grocer

UK supermarkets produce too much packaging, almost 40% of which is non-recyclable, local councils say. The Local Government Association argues supermarkets should pay towards the collection of their packaging as an incentive to cut back.

In a survey of 29 common grocery items, it found Waitrose had the most wrapping while Tesco had the least, but Waitrose said it had cut the weight of its packaging by a third since 2001 and believed the report was misleading. Lidl had the least recyclable packaging on their products, Sainsbury’s contained the most.

How much packaging could be recycled

• Sainsbury’s - 67%
• Co-op - 66%
• M&S - 66%
• Tesco - 65%
• Morrisons - 64%
• Waitrose - 62%
• Asda - 60%
• Lidl - 58%

(Based on sample of 29 items Source: LGA)

Higher bills

Since the LGA’s first report in October 2007, the amount of food packaging created has decreased on the whole, but the amount recycled has stayed almost exactly the same. At a time when people are trying to tighten their belts, this excessive packaging is leading to greater use of landfill sites and therefore higher council tax bills, the LGA said.

Councils currently pay £32 in landfill tax for every tonne of rubbish they throw into landfill, and this will continue to rise. Councillor Margaret Eaton, chairman of the LGA, said that less packaging of food would make life easier for the businesses themselves as well as consumers.

“If we had less unnecessary packaging it would cut costs and lead to lower prices at the tills. When packaging is sent to landfill, it’s expensive for taxpayers and damaging for the environment.

“If retailers create unnecessary rubbish, they should help taxpayers by paying for it to be recycled.”

The LGA said that the cost of all this packaging is undermining householders’ own recycling efforts. Marks and Spencer (M&S), which had come second to last in both previous surveys for its heavy packaging, has risen to second best. The head of food packaging at M&S, Helene Roberts, said that it was all part of the company’s “Plan A”.

“We have taken 2,600 tonnes of packaging out of our food products since the launch of Plan A in January 2007.

“An example to illustrate this: Over 60% of the packaging used in all M&S pizzas has been stripped away, totalling almost 500 tonnes of cardboard and 83 tonnes of plastic to be saved in the next year.”

Reduces waste

Waitrose said it had cut product packaging weight by over a third since 2001.

“We are currently going through the report and believe it to be misleading. It fails to use accurate comparisons - a 500g tomato punnet at Waitrose is compared to a 250g punnet at most other stores,” the company said in a statement.

“Around 20% of all our fish and meat sales are over the counter but this study chose to only compare the pre-packed option,” it added. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said the survey did not recognise the key role packaging plays in preserving food, which cut down on waste.

The BRC’s head of environment Bob Gordon said: “It’s a nonsense to suggest that retailers swathe their goods in masses of unnecessary packaging. This would simply be a pointless cost. Packaging reduces waste by protecting and preserving products.

“Retailers pay over £5bn a year in business rates towards local authority funding. The biggest barrier to recycling is local authorities’ failure to agree on which materials they’re prepared to recycle.”

Source; BBC News

A few months back I discovered a hidden gem just a few minutes from the high street in town whilst out shopping. Whilst everyone knows about farmer’s markets the country markets seem to be a well kept secret.

There are over 12,000 local producers who sell their goods at 400 markets throughout the U.K. The Country Markets are a co-operative with their roots going back as far as 1919 when the Agriculture organisation Society (now Defra) sponsored the setting up of co-operative markets to sell surplus produce.

At my local market I can purchase fresh flowers, herbs and vegetables, home baked pies, cakes and quiches, honey, jams and free range eggs to name but a few. There are also a selection of home made craft items which make for lovely gifts too.

A couple of weeks ago my friend and I went halves on a gigantic pumpkin costing the princely sum of £5 which even included delivery. It was so big we couldn’t have possibly carried it home on our bikes. Two weeks later after it was carved for a haloween party we are still enjoying pumpkin soup and pumpkin risotto.

Visiting the country markets has now become a weekly ritual for me and some of my friends as we can catch up, do our weekly shop and have a cup of tea (costing only 20p) and a fairy cake all in one sitting. It’s great to be able to buy local food in a friendly setting and I urge anyone with an interest in locally produced and home made food to seek out their nearest country market.

Source : Green Girls Global

Written by: Kate, the founder of GreenFinder