Tuesday 18 March 2014

Giving up meat for lent helps save the planet?

So we haven't eaten much meat this year anyway, as it's generally packaged in lots of unrecycled stuff, but I decided we'd go all out during lent and totally skip meat to see how we'd cope. (As you can see the kids seem to be enjoying it :-)


I also thought I'd start to do some reading up on the carbon footprint of meat, and I've been astonished.  I'm not sure if I've just been blinkered to lots of news about this, or it's just not news, but when we talk about reducing our carbon footprint, I always remember hearing lots about reducing your air miles, insulating your home, double glazing, walk more, etc.  But not eating meat (or even reducing how much you eat) also has a huge impact.

Just google 'carbon footprint of meat' and you'll be drowning in the info.  

At the start of this year I listened to a TED talk by Graham Hill about being a 'Midweek Veggie', which was where we started, and I'd recommend it as a listen: http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian

And having felt a few weeks ago that the issues of climate change were insurmoutable, I was interested to do the WWF Carbon Footprint calculator this weekend (I haven't done one in years), and by the time we don't fly, we've gotten rid of the car, and we've cut out meat, along with lots of boring things such as insulated the house, double glazing, shop local, buy organic, grow a few bits, recycle/share things, we've somehow managed to get our use of the earth to less than 1.  So if we all lived like that (according to WWF) we'd be OK.  I was amazed, as I thought we'd have to live much more extremely.  (of course we will if others don't get on board!)

So in future I'm going to approach carbon footprint conversations differently, as often people have great excuses why they can't give up flying, or driving, but do we really have a good excuse not to give up some meat from our lives?  (And I don't count 'but I like it' as much of an excuse :-)

So yet again, perhaps an 'inconvenient truth', but how about cutting out meat at least one more day next week, and see how it goes.   And you might find my pinterest pages with recipes helpful:
http://www.pinterest.com/southseamum/2014-meat-free-lent-recipes-for-this-week/
http://www.pinterest.com/southseamum/midweek-veggie-ideas/

And if you do buy meat, try and get it from the local farmers market, butchers, or the counter at a supermarket, and take along your own container.  I've asked our local organic butcher who comes to the farmers' market each month, and he had no problem at all with not using his bags to take it home in (saves him money too).

Friday 7 March 2014

Eco Balls to Lend Out & Jam Jar Lids

Fancy trying Eco Balls before buying?

So if you've been reading this blog you'll know that I'm a convert to the Ecoballs, although we had a slight blip at the start of this week.  I opened the door to the washing machine and found the nappies mixed with the innards of one of the balls.  One of the joins had worked loose, and out they came.  No disaster as I managed to just scoop them back up, and the washing was still done, but slightly annoying.


I contacted Ethicalsuperstore, where I'd bought them from, and they apologised and sent me another pack.

I haven't heard of this happening to anyone else, so I'm up for continuing with them, but I do now have a couple spare, as they last for 1000 washes.  So rather than squirrel them away for a few years, I thought I'd see if anyone wants to experiment with them, and have the chance to 'try before you buy'.

Jam Jar Lids

So if you live locally, let me know and I'll send them your way for a couple of weeks.

My other revelation recently was on the recycling of jam jar lids.  I lot of jars I reuse for my homemade jam, but there are some that are just unusable due to their size, and I've been frustrated that you can't also recycle their lids in the glass banks.  Locally they've started to advertise that you can leave screw tops on wine bottles now, but they dont't seem to have extended that to jam jars etc yet.

I googled and came up with a revelation from Somerset: 
Can you accept can and jam jar lids? Yes, but because small lids sometimes get stuck in collection vehicles and sorting equipment, it helps if lids can be squashed inside a food can. All can and jam jar lids can be recycled as they are made from steel (test with a magnet to see if sticks), but not screw tops from bottles, which are made from various alloys and are not steel.
And don't forget steel biscuit tins.  (Just remember to not put lids in if they are lined with plastic...life's not that simple of course.)

Saturday 1 March 2014

The 'continuing' Age of Stupid & Rethinking Environmental Folklore

So in the past week I've been sent a couple of things to watch from friends, and I thought I'd share them with you too.

The first was a TED talk (I love these) by a sustainability strategist, who urges us to think bigger in order to create systems and products that ease the strain on the planet.  Really interesting, very accessible and challenging. (18 mins long)

http://www.ted.com/talks/leyla_acaroglu_paper_beats_plastic_how_to_rethink_environmental_folklore.html

The second is a movie from a few years back, that I missed at the time, and is called 'The Age of Stupid'.  Wikipedia sums it up nicely: The film is a drama-documentary-animation hybrid which stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from the mid-to-late 2000s and asking "Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"

It has very challenging footage from Iraq, the US, Nigeria, France and some infuriating footage from the UK.  It's a bit longer at 89 mins, but is a challenging watch, and in some ways makes my small changes seem like total drops in the ever rising oceans, but inspires me to think further and beyond as well.  http://youtu.be/XpSdPP9b0pc

A few weeks ago someone was shocked when I explained that we no longer have a car and rarely leave the city, and that I hope not to have to travel on a plane in the future.  Was I not limiting my children's outlook on life by not taking them to the woods and the countryside frequently, by not flying them to different places?  On one level the answer could be 'yes', but on a more future planet-state level, perhaps I'm helping to keep opportunities and life as we know it on our planet for a bit longer.  As another movie title suggestions, it's an 'inconvient truth'...and a constant battle/challenge to make decisions....but it often feels like the 'right choice'.

All a bit more heavy that bins, plastic and nappies...but hey ho.