Posts tagged “sustainability”

UK Climate Debate and Pollution

Posted on December 8, 2019

On Thursday, November 28th, the leaders of most of the political parties in the UK took part in a “Climate Debate” (unfortunately the leaders of the Conservative Party and the Brexit Party did not accept the invitation). If you haven’t seen the debate, you can see the whole thing right here below, as Channel 4 has released it on YouTube. I’ll make my comments further down in this post. For me, what the political parties are planning to do to make us rapidly reduce pollution and environmental destruction is the key issue in this election. From my point of view, focussing on “climate” is not as good as focussing on “pollution” and “environmental destruction”. The real problem is the amount of pollution that humans…

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Categories: Climate Change, Less Pollution

Tagged: air travel, climate justice, environment, planes, sustainability

We are just greedy and wasteful

Posted on August 28, 2019

Forget the argument about whether climate change is being caused by humans or not, it’s perfectly clear that we humans are very greedy and wasteful. This is what has to stop. Let’s acknowledge how greedy and wasteful we are, and then let’s start trying to address it. We don’t need any other reason than the fact that greed leading to lots of waste can’t be good for anything. Some time ago I was researching about the amount of energy we use. It’s no surprise that the world is using exponentially more energy as time passes. The counter argument goes that there are more and more people on the planet too, so maybe the extra energy usage is just natural. However, I wasn’t expecting to…

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Categories: Less Fossil Fuels, Less Pollution

Tagged: air travel, CO2, sustainability

It’s Not all Rose Gold Straws and The Perfect Pantry

Posted on August 7, 2019

Today we have a guest writer, Abi Jarvis, talking about some of her advice for using less. I find Abi inspirational. She’s a young person who’s really showing us all the way and I’m glad that she’s been able to write this post for us. Until I saw her post, I’d never heard of “Rose Gold Straws and The Perfect Pantry“, so I’ve been further educated by Abi. Many thanks. Peter. It’s Not all Rose Gold Straws and The Perfect Pantry By Abi Jarvis First, I would like to start with – THERE IS NO PERFECT WAY OF DOING THIS. Whether you’re lucky enough to live near a zero waste bulk buy food shop or not, whether you don’t have time to pre-make your…

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Categories: Less Pollution, Less Waste, Recycling

Tagged: plastic, sustainability

Plastic and shale gas from the US

Posted on July 23, 2019

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the BBC’s programme “War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita, Series 1, Episode 3” and was shocked by many things, but none more than the fact that the UK is shipping in US gas (from US fracking) so that we can make more and more plastics in the UK. I didn’t realise there was such a strong link with the plastic we use every day and shale gas. Now I feel quite sad, and I wonder if people are aware of the connection between plastic and shale gas. US Gas from fracking in the UK! Firstly I’m shocked that US gas from the fracking of their own land is being shipped to the UK. Even as the…

Tagged: environment, plastic, shale gas, sustainability

An evil plot to pollute the world

Posted on June 20, 2019

Let’s imagine we live in a beautiful world without pollution, with plenty of fruit to eat and clean running water in beautiful streams. Everyone is happy in this beautiful place. Now, enter an evil mastermind who wants to ruin everything. What plans could he hatch to pollute the world and ruin it? Well, pretty much what humans have been doing for the last 100 years would work. Sounds like a plot for a 007 movie, and it would be amusing if it didn’t feel so true. The plot to pollute the world The evil mastermind hatched a plot to pollute the world. He wanted to bring the world to an end and have everyone else in the world help him do it without knowing.…

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Categories: Climate Change, Less Pollution

Tagged: air travel, environment, forests, meat, plastic, sustainability, trees

Ironing – why do we do that?

Posted on May 19, 2019

Have you ever stopped to think why we do ironing? Why do we iron and press our clothes? I’m sure you’re all thinking that it’s because we need to get the wrinkles and creases out. Sure, but why is that important? Why is that we are not acceptable human beings if our clothing isn’t pressed? Surely this is just a symbol of status and it’s quite ridiculous. If we didn’t have to iron and press our clothes, we’d actually be using less of the worlds resources; we wouldn’t be wasting energy (mostly electricity) on heating up irons we wouldn’t have to make irons (mostly made in far away countries, using metals and plastics, then wrapped in plastic and a box and then shipped all…

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Categories: Less Pollution, Less Waste

Tagged: sustainability

Recycled Toilet Paper

Posted on February 27, 2019

Everything should be recycled. Really it should. We can’t afford to keep making new stuff and just throwing nearly all of it away into landfill, that makes no sense. One thing that should be very easy to buy is recycled toilet paper, and it is. Here’s just one example from the Ecoleaf range of the Suma Cooperative. As you can see below, the paper is 100% recycled and sourced locally (for me that’s in the UK) and even the wrap that it comes in is made from potato starch and biodegradable. Going even further than that, Suma supports Treesponsibility and is a very socially responsible cooperative. It’s positive organisations like this that I’m happy to support. They’re showing the way for how all corporations…

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Categories: Recycling

Tagged: paper, sustainability

Compostable Crisp Packets

Posted on December 26, 2018

We don’t think about crisp packets too often do we? We just enjoy the crisps, without realising that almost all crisp packets are not recyclable and will end up in landfill (or worse!) for a very long time. The good news is that a British company called Two Farmers has come up with a way of creating compostable crisp packets, which is fantastic, and they taste great too! Compostable Crisp Packets It’s amazing that a small start-up company in the UK has been able to beat all the big manufacturers to a compostable crisp packet. Amazing, but understandable. We’ll see later what’s really going on here. On the Two Farmers website, they say this about their compostable crisp packets (I have no affiliation with Two…

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Categories: Less Pollution, Less Waste, Recycling

Tagged: packaging, plastic, sustainability

Mobility Lab and Amazon Plastic Packaging

Posted on November 18, 2018

I was completely shocked recently when I ordered a “Mobility Lab” mouse from Amazon and the package arrived with so much plastic packaging. It’s really awful, so unnecessary and none of it recyclable. In this case, Mobility Lab and Amazon plastic packaging is so bad, they should both be ashamed, and governments need to step in and stop such usage of plastic. In the images below you can see that seven independent pieces of plastic were used to package the mouse. Really over the top. Not good Mobility Lab and not good Amazon! I’d purchased the “Mobility Lab ML301884 1600 DPI Wired Optical Mouse for Mac and PC – White” from Amazon. I’m a little disappointed that I bought a new mouse made out…

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Categories: Less Pollution, Less Waste, Recycling

Tagged: packaging, plastic, sustainability

Harrogate Spring Water and recycling

Posted on October 31, 2018

I was flying on a short flight in Europe recently and, I’m sorry to say, that I needed some water so I bought one (as you have to do on flights these days) from the flight crew. I know, it’s in a plastic bottle that’s just going to get thrown away (sorry planet!). The bottle I received was from Harrogate Spring Water and I was surprised to learn that it was 50% recycled. This made me feel somewhat better as Harrogate Spring Water was using 50% materials that had already been recycled. That’s great and they need applause for that. If everyone did that it would be a great step forward. However of course, we’d like companies to go even further. Why can’t they…

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Categories: Less Pollution, Recycling

Tagged: plastic, sustainability