Friday, 29 June 2007
Ah Fresh Air!
Today in between torrential downpours I took my bike out for a ride quickly to get some fresh air. I filled the basket up with the empty wine bottles of my alcoholic parents to take them to the bottle banks at the other end of the village. One of the few things our local council in Chichester doesn't collect in our recycling wheely bin is glass, so we have to take ours up the road to the bring bank. Mum & Dad usually wait until we have a car boot load (this doesn't take long considering the amount of beer consumed in the house) and then take the glass in the car. But I thought as I was going out for a quick ride anyway today, I'd take some bottles and jars with me so that we don't have to resort to using the car sooner rather than later. Loaded up my backpack with pasta bake jars in addition to the basket of empty wine & beer bottles and hurray! Reduced the stash of glass waiting to be recycled in our garden by about a sixth! So all I have to do is 5 more trips, thats one a day for a week, and I'll have a saved a whole car journey. Maybe that means I can have an extra bath this week with the carbon emissions that will have saved.
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
The problem with buying books.
After moving back home from Oxford on Sunday and unpacking, I discovered that the large quantities of books I have obtained in the last year mean that I can no longer see desk space in my room. I did buy these books (loosely) for "academic reasons" because some of them are vaguely relevant to my dissertation but this leaves me with the problem of not actually having anywhere to set my computer up and write it.
So I have decided to have a clear out of everything in my room that I haven't used in the last 2 years. If I haven't used it in the last 2 years and I don't have a sentimental attachment to it, I reckon its space could be allocated to "A History of the Mind", "The Symbolic Species" or "A Mind So Rare".
Anything thats pretty good I'm going to try and sell on Ebay because I am feeling rather poor at the moment, after spending all that money on Wadham Ball last Friday. However my charitable spirit has not been completely depleted, and anything thats not amazing but half decent I will take to Oxfam. Included in this "not amazing but half decent" pile are my old mobile phone, an IT GCSE revision book and some NME cds, amongst other items...
Anything that is pretty much rubbish but I am reluctant to send to landfill (for reasons already mentioned i.e. landfill releases greenhouse gases) I will put on Freecycle, which is an organisation that allows members to post on a message board items that they no longer need but someone else might find useful. Other people see posts and think "Aha, thats useful" and go and pick whatever it is up from the donor. You're unlikely to find a Nintendo Wii or Gucci shoes on there but you might find leftover patio tiles, garden tools, packing boxes and a whole host of other stuff that you can in fact make use of. Find your local Freecycling network at http://www.freecycle.org.
So I have decided to have a clear out of everything in my room that I haven't used in the last 2 years. If I haven't used it in the last 2 years and I don't have a sentimental attachment to it, I reckon its space could be allocated to "A History of the Mind", "The Symbolic Species" or "A Mind So Rare".
Anything thats pretty good I'm going to try and sell on Ebay because I am feeling rather poor at the moment, after spending all that money on Wadham Ball last Friday. However my charitable spirit has not been completely depleted, and anything thats not amazing but half decent I will take to Oxfam. Included in this "not amazing but half decent" pile are my old mobile phone, an IT GCSE revision book and some NME cds, amongst other items...
Anything that is pretty much rubbish but I am reluctant to send to landfill (for reasons already mentioned i.e. landfill releases greenhouse gases) I will put on Freecycle, which is an organisation that allows members to post on a message board items that they no longer need but someone else might find useful. Other people see posts and think "Aha, thats useful" and go and pick whatever it is up from the donor. You're unlikely to find a Nintendo Wii or Gucci shoes on there but you might find leftover patio tiles, garden tools, packing boxes and a whole host of other stuff that you can in fact make use of. Find your local Freecycling network at http://www.freecycle.org.
Friday, 22 June 2007
Wadham Ball 2007
Tonight is Wadham Ball 2007! Oh yeah. I have mitigated some of the guilt I feel at spending £70 on a ball ticket when there are children starving in Africa by making sure that my outfit for the ball is as ethical as possible.
My dress is Fairtrade organic cotton and comes from People Tree (http://www.peopletree.co.uk/), who produce Fairtrade clothes, accredited by IFAT (International Fair Trade Association). They also have extremely stringent environmental policies and pretty much all their cotton is organic, much of it Soil Association certified. This is the dress I'm wearing tonight, and quite affordable it was too considering ethical clothes have a reputation for being stupidly, ridiculously expensive (only £38!).
I've got some shoes and bag to go with it from Reign, a retro second-hand independent clothes shop at the end of my road in Cowley, Oxford. They are both silver and sparkly! And because they are second-hand they are well ethical because it means new resources have not had to be harvested from the Earth to make them. This is thus another example of the Reuse part of the Mantra I mentioned yesterday, "Reduce, REUSE, Recycle".
My dress is Fairtrade organic cotton and comes from People Tree (http://www.peopletree.co.uk/), who produce Fairtrade clothes, accredited by IFAT (International Fair Trade Association). They also have extremely stringent environmental policies and pretty much all their cotton is organic, much of it Soil Association certified. This is the dress I'm wearing tonight, and quite affordable it was too considering ethical clothes have a reputation for being stupidly, ridiculously expensive (only £38!).
I've got some shoes and bag to go with it from Reign, a retro second-hand independent clothes shop at the end of my road in Cowley, Oxford. They are both silver and sparkly! And because they are second-hand they are well ethical because it means new resources have not had to be harvested from the Earth to make them. This is thus another example of the Reuse part of the Mantra I mentioned yesterday, "Reduce, REUSE, Recycle".
Thursday, 21 June 2007
What to do with the metal hanging hooks?
Latest update in the "what shall we do with the unusable metal hanging hooks" saga: When ripping the recycleable paper away from the not-so-easily recycleable metal hanging hooks of OUNC's stash of 2005 calendars yesterday I noticed the address of the printers who made the calendars on the back page. Inspiration struck me. I could take the metal hanging hooks back to the printers and maybe they could reuse them on new calendars. Thus demonstrating the No. 1 Green Mantra "Reduce, REUSE, Recycle". And the printers are in Holywell Street, which is right next to Wadham - RESULT!
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Cooking Tip #3
Another amazing way to reduce carbon emissions through cooking... when you boil water to cook pasta or something in a pot, its less energy intensive to boil some water in the kettle and then chuck that straight in the pot, instead of putting cold water in the pot and waiting for it to heat up on the hob. It still takes a lot of energy to boil a kettle but less than it takes to boil cold water on the hob. And don't forget that saucepan lid. Leonie my previous #1 cooking tip was intended primarily for Rosie's benefit by the way!
Also shoutout to Nikyla who is the 7th beneficiary of my I Count book giftage. Enjoy the train ride.
Also shoutout to Nikyla who is the 7th beneficiary of my I Count book giftage. Enjoy the train ride.
Tuesday, 19 June 2007
Special shoutout to Leonie
My infectious enthusiasm for being green appears to have worn off substantially on my housemate Leonie, who today asked whether a whole stack of old OUNC (Oxford University Netball Club, of which she is President) calendars could be recycled. We proceeded to rip the calendar in half, establishing that it was in fact paper and could therefore go in the blue recycling box. My job for tomorrow is to go through the whole stack and detach the metal hanging hooks before ceremoniously placing the said calendars in said blue recycling box. Second job for tomorrow is to find some sort of use for the metal hanging hooks which can't go in the recycling.
Initial thoughts are to take them to Orinoco, the Oxford scrapstore (http://www.oxorinoco.org), which crafty people and people with young, bored children can get a load of random stuff from to make a Tracy Island like the one off Blue Peter, or some other such interesting item made with stuff that would otherwise to go landfill (which in case I need to remind you releases shitloads of greenhouse gases). But its all the way over past Headington which on my bike is a round trip of over 5 miles which I can't be bothered with at the moment. Still busy doing my bloody research project. So I might just keep the metal hanging hooks in a little box somewhere until I think of something useful to do with them. I expect when my parents arrive to pick me up and take me back home to Chichester on Sunday they'll say "Stop being so stupid Charlotte and just put them in the bin." And they'll then take the piss for ages about an occasion three years ago when I refused to throw away a bit of gold string because I thought some useful use could be found for it. Possibly they are right to take the piss because I still haven't found anything useful to do with it. Perhaps I should save up a big box of "useless" random stuff and then take that to Orinoco to make the 5 mile journey more worthwhile.
Initial thoughts are to take them to Orinoco, the Oxford scrapstore (http://www.oxorinoco.org), which crafty people and people with young, bored children can get a load of random stuff from to make a Tracy Island like the one off Blue Peter, or some other such interesting item made with stuff that would otherwise to go landfill (which in case I need to remind you releases shitloads of greenhouse gases). But its all the way over past Headington which on my bike is a round trip of over 5 miles which I can't be bothered with at the moment. Still busy doing my bloody research project. So I might just keep the metal hanging hooks in a little box somewhere until I think of something useful to do with them. I expect when my parents arrive to pick me up and take me back home to Chichester on Sunday they'll say "Stop being so stupid Charlotte and just put them in the bin." And they'll then take the piss for ages about an occasion three years ago when I refused to throw away a bit of gold string because I thought some useful use could be found for it. Possibly they are right to take the piss because I still haven't found anything useful to do with it. Perhaps I should save up a big box of "useless" random stuff and then take that to Orinoco to make the 5 mile journey more worthwhile.
Sunday, 17 June 2007
Cooking Tip #2
After my revelation that using a saucepan lid when you cook will halve your carbon emissions here is another revelatory piece of cooking advice. When you want to eat something that usually only grows here in the summer, like peppers and strawberries, when its not summer, supermarkets very, very cleverly fly these yummy items in on planes from Kenya, South Africa and the Canary Islands, where they grow all the time.
Why is this clever. Why is this clever you say, when doing this results in STUPID AMOUNTS of CO2 being released through the burning of aviation fuel. Well it is clever because the supermarkets can charge you £10,000,000 for the privilege of having strawberries in December and make loadsa money. So clever for them but not so clever for you.
What you could do instead is buy food that doesn't come on a plane from countries miles and miles away round the other side of the world. Therefore saving yourself a lot of money and a load of carbon emissions! Woo!
What you could do, instead of buying strawberries from the supermarket in December, is wait for them to be produced as they would normally be in the English summertime and buy them from a farm in June. If you don't live near a farm (maybe you live in central Oxford) then there are actually places that you can get food other than supermarkets you know. Try going to the Covered Market and not just for another Ben's Cookie (although you could get one of those as well if you wanted). These places are cheaper, less likely to have flown stuff in from the other side of the world and clearly say where their stuff has come from. (Hint: the cheaper stuff tends to be labelled "English strawberries" or "English carrots". The more expensive tends to be labelled, "Maroc courgettes" or "Canary Island peppers". In case you don't know, these places are lot further away than England.)
And then when you cook these lovely things don't forget to use a saucepan lid.
Why is this clever. Why is this clever you say, when doing this results in STUPID AMOUNTS of CO2 being released through the burning of aviation fuel. Well it is clever because the supermarkets can charge you £10,000,000 for the privilege of having strawberries in December and make loadsa money. So clever for them but not so clever for you.
What you could do instead is buy food that doesn't come on a plane from countries miles and miles away round the other side of the world. Therefore saving yourself a lot of money and a load of carbon emissions! Woo!
What you could do, instead of buying strawberries from the supermarket in December, is wait for them to be produced as they would normally be in the English summertime and buy them from a farm in June. If you don't live near a farm (maybe you live in central Oxford) then there are actually places that you can get food other than supermarkets you know. Try going to the Covered Market and not just for another Ben's Cookie (although you could get one of those as well if you wanted). These places are cheaper, less likely to have flown stuff in from the other side of the world and clearly say where their stuff has come from. (Hint: the cheaper stuff tends to be labelled "English strawberries" or "English carrots". The more expensive tends to be labelled, "Maroc courgettes" or "Canary Island peppers". In case you don't know, these places are lot further away than England.)
And then when you cook these lovely things don't forget to use a saucepan lid.
Monday, 11 June 2007
Cooking Tip #1
I know its rather ironic that I am giving out cooking tips but these refer to how to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions, rather than how to actually make something edible... I'm possibly not the best person to advise on that particular aspect of cooking.
This is the first cooking tip that I will reveal to you and is also possibly the easiest, most effective and cheapest.
*PUT ON A LID WHEN YOU USE A SAUCEPAN!!!*
Yes its that easy! Just put the lid on! It takes approximately 0.03 seconds. And you can then turn the energy to your hob down by about half. Thus halving your CO2 emissions from gas or electricity, whichever your cooker uses. (More about gas vs. electric cookers later.)
1. Easy - just put the lid on
2. Effective - reduce energy consumption to cook that pot of pasta by half
3. Cheap - your saucepan came with a lid when you bought it so this action costs you nothing!
Obsessively putting lids on saucepans has caused some controversy with my housemates, who prefer to have the hob on full blast and evaporate a load of water into thin air, rather than keep it in the pot where instead it cooks whatever it is you're eating that evening... strange... We have now agreed to put one person in charge of cooking and one in charge of washing up whenever we cook together to avoid these lid confrontations. So far no one had been hit on the head with a saucepan lid but it was probably only a matter of time.
This is the first cooking tip that I will reveal to you and is also possibly the easiest, most effective and cheapest.
*PUT ON A LID WHEN YOU USE A SAUCEPAN!!!*
Yes its that easy! Just put the lid on! It takes approximately 0.03 seconds. And you can then turn the energy to your hob down by about half. Thus halving your CO2 emissions from gas or electricity, whichever your cooker uses. (More about gas vs. electric cookers later.)
1. Easy - just put the lid on
2. Effective - reduce energy consumption to cook that pot of pasta by half
3. Cheap - your saucepan came with a lid when you bought it so this action costs you nothing!
Obsessively putting lids on saucepans has caused some controversy with my housemates, who prefer to have the hob on full blast and evaporate a load of water into thin air, rather than keep it in the pot where instead it cooks whatever it is you're eating that evening... strange... We have now agreed to put one person in charge of cooking and one in charge of washing up whenever we cook together to avoid these lid confrontations. So far no one had been hit on the head with a saucepan lid but it was probably only a matter of time.
Saturday, 9 June 2007
Double-sided photocopying makes you happy
Haven't posted for a few days because I've been spending all my time in the lab running participants for my research project. I'm looking at the relationship between music and problem-solving ability, and participants have to listen to some music and then do some paper-based problem-solving tasks involving diagrams of paper being folded and bits cut out of them. To save paper, and energy photocopying, I've put all the questions into a booklet that can be re-used for each participant! The pages in the booklet are also double-sided, halving the number of bits of paper needed. Wonderful. Then participants just give their answers on a separate answersheet thats only one page long. Doing this will have saved about 300 photocopies. Thats probably half a forest (forests, incidentally, absorb lots of CO2), and lots of electricity from photocopying, saved. That made me very happy. Photocopying only when you absolutely need to, doing it double-sided and using recycled paper will make you happy too.
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Happy World Environment Day!
Today is WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY!! How exciting. All around the world people are celebrating our planet and the need to avoid its emminent destruction as a result of climate change (http://www.unep.org/wed/2007/english/). This afternoon I'll be going to OUSU Environment & Ethics Committee's stall on Cornmarket Street where they are giving out low carbon passports - i.e. info on how to holiday this summer WITHOUT GOING ON A PLANE. Don't even think about it. A single flight releases tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. And then you'll possibly want to get back home again at the end of your holiday, releasing even more CO2 on the return journey. If you want to go on holiday this summer you can go on a TRAIN! I'm going to go to France for a couple of weeks in September and I'll be going on the Eurostar (http://www.eurostar.com). Flying makes me sick anyway so I'm glad to have an excuse not to go anywhere near a plane.
Then after I've been to the OUSU E&E stall I'm heading to Oxford Town Hall on St. Aldates, where there are exhibitions, talks and screenings of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth all afternoon. I'm particularly looking to forward to hearing Mark Lynas speak, the guy who wrote "6 degrees: our future on a hotter planet", and also listening to talks on the theme "What can you and your neighbours do?". If you're around in Oxford and want to go too here's the itinerary: http://www.oxfordismyworld.org/wed.php
Then after I've been to the OUSU E&E stall I'm heading to Oxford Town Hall on St. Aldates, where there are exhibitions, talks and screenings of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth all afternoon. I'm particularly looking to forward to hearing Mark Lynas speak, the guy who wrote "6 degrees: our future on a hotter planet", and also listening to talks on the theme "What can you and your neighbours do?". If you're around in Oxford and want to go too here's the itinerary: http://www.oxfordismyworld.org/wed.php
Monday, 4 June 2007
The Revolve Eco-Rally
Tomorrow, the 5th of June, is World Environment Day. There are lots of amazing things going on in Oxford, which I'll write about tomorrow. But today's topic is THE REVOLVE ECO-RALLY (http://www.revolve.ws). This is a rally of eco-friendly cars (i.e. cars that run on charged electric batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, biodiesel or are petrol-electric hybrids) going from Brighton at 10.30 tomorrow morning to London. The rally is scheduled to arrive in London at 3.30. And no it doesn't take a whole 5 hours because all eco-friendly cars are crap and go at 2mph. Its 5 hours long because the rally is conveniently stopping at lots of points along the way to show off to people between Brighton and London how great the cars are. Most eco-friendly cars perform at just the same level as normal carbon-spewing ones, so they'd get to London just as quickly if it wasn't for the fact that they're stopping a few times on the way.
The Toyota Prius is the most well-known eco-friendly car and Leo DiCaprio famously owns one. Its a petrol-electric hybrid, which means that the engine uses petrol to accelerate when you start the car up, then when you brake it converts the energy and stores it in a battery so that when you next accelerate the car uses this stored energy and doesn't have to burn petrol. A very similar car available in the UK if you can't get hold of a Prius (because everyone wants one) is the Honda Civic Hybrid. (AHEM Dad I know you are in the market for a new car right now and the Civic is much cheaper than the Prius http://www.whatcar.co.uk/car-review-full.aspx?RT=746. Also check out http://www.green-car-guide.com)
My personal favourite eco-friendly car is the G-Wiz, which runs solely on an electric battery, and when I have a house of my own in which to charge it up and a space to park it outside I will definitely get one. Top speed of only 40mph though. And for it to be completely eco-friendly you need to charge it up using green electricity. More about this soon.
The Toyota Prius is the most well-known eco-friendly car and Leo DiCaprio famously owns one. Its a petrol-electric hybrid, which means that the engine uses petrol to accelerate when you start the car up, then when you brake it converts the energy and stores it in a battery so that when you next accelerate the car uses this stored energy and doesn't have to burn petrol. A very similar car available in the UK if you can't get hold of a Prius (because everyone wants one) is the Honda Civic Hybrid. (AHEM Dad I know you are in the market for a new car right now and the Civic is much cheaper than the Prius http://www.whatcar.co.uk/car-review-full.aspx?RT=746. Also check out http://www.green-car-guide.com)
My personal favourite eco-friendly car is the G-Wiz, which runs solely on an electric battery, and when I have a house of my own in which to charge it up and a space to park it outside I will definitely get one. Top speed of only 40mph though. And for it to be completely eco-friendly you need to charge it up using green electricity. More about this soon.
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Love Off
"Always remember to switch appliances off standby when you have finished using them. Incredibly, nearly £1 billion worth of energy is wasted in the UK every year by people leaving appliances on standby."
- from http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk
Love your off button and take your phone off charge, your stereo off standby and unplug your TV so there is no red light blinking at you manically. DO IT NOW! And to help you enjoy it colour in these Love Off badges from I Count (http://www.icount.org.uk/book_bliss/94.asp). So far none of my housemates have taken me up on my offer of already coloured in ones, so I'll be using them at home on my sister's laptop (yes that means you Becky, I know you leave it on standby when you've finished playing WAW so you get a special purple Love Off badge to stick on it to remind you to NOT WASTE ENERGY!)
- from http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk
Love your off button and take your phone off charge, your stereo off standby and unplug your TV so there is no red light blinking at you manically. DO IT NOW! And to help you enjoy it colour in these Love Off badges from I Count (http://www.icount.org.uk/book_bliss/94.asp). So far none of my housemates have taken me up on my offer of already coloured in ones, so I'll be using them at home on my sister's laptop (yes that means you Becky, I know you leave it on standby when you've finished playing WAW so you get a special purple Love Off badge to stick on it to remind you to NOT WASTE ENERGY!)
Saturday, 2 June 2007
I Count - Together We Can Stop Climate Chaos
I Count (http://www.icount.org.uk) is the campaign of Stop Climate Chaos, a coalition of over 30 organisations who are working together to prevent catostrophic climate change and all the negative impacts that it could have on us, those in other countries and our ecosystems. They have produced a wonderful book called "I Count - Your Step-by-Step Guide to Climate Bliss", which contains 16 steps towards reducing your carbon emissions. It has fun things in like "I love OFF" badges which you stick on light switches and lots of pictures. It makes reducing your carbon footprint fun.
The book is in lots of shops at the moment for £3. You can also order them in bulk from the publishers for £1.50 (http://www.icount.org.uk/book_bliss/88.asp), which is what I have done, so that I can give them out to all my friends. Yes, they're that much fun. We can have I Count parties where we colour in the "I love OFF" badges and stuff.
Beneficiaries so far of my I Count book generosity have been Leonie, Rosie, Penny, Sarah and Robin. I have 5 books left so if you would like one email me at Flowerinawindow@aol.com! And I'll pidge it to you or post it to you if you're not at Oxford (if you're one of my friends from home then wait 3 weeks and I'll give it to you in person to avoid unnecessary Royal Mail van carbon emissions).
I Count. You Count. We Count. Together we can stop climate chaos. (Because... I'd have to snorkel to my favourite pub.)
The book is in lots of shops at the moment for £3. You can also order them in bulk from the publishers for £1.50 (http://www.icount.org.uk/book_bliss/88.asp), which is what I have done, so that I can give them out to all my friends. Yes, they're that much fun. We can have I Count parties where we colour in the "I love OFF" badges and stuff.
Beneficiaries so far of my I Count book generosity have been Leonie, Rosie, Penny, Sarah and Robin. I have 5 books left so if you would like one email me at Flowerinawindow@aol.com! And I'll pidge it to you or post it to you if you're not at Oxford (if you're one of my friends from home then wait 3 weeks and I'll give it to you in person to avoid unnecessary Royal Mail van carbon emissions).
I Count. You Count. We Count. Together we can stop climate chaos. (Because... I'd have to snorkel to my favourite pub.)
Friday, 1 June 2007
Cool People Compost.
Composting is extremely cool. Really. Its kind of like recycling plastic bottles and glass jars - making rubbish into lovely, new things. But the lovely new thing that comes out of a compost bin is wonderful, wonderful gorgeous soil that can go in your garden. Its full of nutrients and makes your plants grow big, healthy and pretty. Very useful if you have your own vegetable patch for example.
Putting vegetable peelings, banana skins, tea bags, grass cuttings and dead flowers into a compost bin instead of in your rubbish is also a great way to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. When you put these organic (that means biologically-based and not man-made here, instead of 'not covered in pesticides') materials into your normal rubbish, they go into landfill and are one of the main causes of the relase of methane from landfill sites as they decompose. Put them in a compost bin instead!
http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting tells you where you can get a nice cheap compost bin to put in your garden. You can also get *Accessories* like a kitchen caddy. This is a little box that sits under your sink, or on top of the fridge, or somewhere on display if you really love it, that you collect all your vegetable peelings and teabags etc in, and then you take it out to the big compost bin outside when its full. Saves you having to go outside 20 times a day just because you peeled a carrot or dead-headed a house plant. However it can be annoying having to wash out the caddy. So my Mum (hello Mum) uses these bags from Lakeland Plastics - http://www.lakeland.co.uk/product.aspx/!21046, which are completely biodegradable. They line your caddy and stop it getting manky and then fully decompose when you put the bag on the compost heap. I think they are made from corn starch or some such wonderful substance that isn't plastic (thus reducing the manufacture of plastic, thus reducing our consumption of oil...)
Putting vegetable peelings, banana skins, tea bags, grass cuttings and dead flowers into a compost bin instead of in your rubbish is also a great way to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. When you put these organic (that means biologically-based and not man-made here, instead of 'not covered in pesticides') materials into your normal rubbish, they go into landfill and are one of the main causes of the relase of methane from landfill sites as they decompose. Put them in a compost bin instead!
http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting tells you where you can get a nice cheap compost bin to put in your garden. You can also get *Accessories* like a kitchen caddy. This is a little box that sits under your sink, or on top of the fridge, or somewhere on display if you really love it, that you collect all your vegetable peelings and teabags etc in, and then you take it out to the big compost bin outside when its full. Saves you having to go outside 20 times a day just because you peeled a carrot or dead-headed a house plant. However it can be annoying having to wash out the caddy. So my Mum (hello Mum) uses these bags from Lakeland Plastics - http://www.lakeland.co.uk/product.aspx/!21046, which are completely biodegradable. They line your caddy and stop it getting manky and then fully decompose when you put the bag on the compost heap. I think they are made from corn starch or some such wonderful substance that isn't plastic (thus reducing the manufacture of plastic, thus reducing our consumption of oil...)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)