Finding a new swimming home

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First off, a quick apology to the blog for having neglected it for so long! So many things have popped up – we’re turning a back wasteland into a proper garden, I’ve started a new job after eight years of working at the same place, there has been honey to harvest from our bees, and I took up running (and then subsequently got an ankle injury).

But where I’ve idled away the most time, when I could have been writing, is at this beautiful spot above – the Great Ouse river in Olney, Buckinghamshire. It’s different from my former swim spot, the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond in Hampstead, London. Kenwood has its own character, through a sense of bohemian ideas, and a strong identity through the women who swim there. It’s unashamedly London – alternative, feisty and bold. When I moved away from London in May 2016, I didn’t know what I’d do without it. Luckily, a tip from the Open Water Swimming Society  pointed me to a bend in the river, behind a rugby club, 10 miles up the road from my new home. Continue reading “Finding a new swimming home” →

My Terracycle Zero Waste Box: four months on

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In January, I wrote about my purchase of a rather fancy cardboard box. What possessed me to purchase mid-sized piece of cardboard for £117.62 you ask? Well, this box is pretty special – it allows all sorts of things that would normally end up in landfill to go for recycling instead. This is done courtesy of a company called Terracycle.

Terracycle, through a mixture of free collection points and boxes you can purchase for your home or business, pride themselves on recycling the unrecyclable – cigarette butts, flipflops, cassette tapes – and more other things than I could have possibly imagined.

Over the past few years, I’ve been on a mission to reduce the amount of waste our household produces. What I’ve learned in that time is that a lot of waste is avoidable, based on strategies of:

  1. trying to purchase only what I actually need,
  2. shopping second hand for clothes and household goods when I do purchase things, keeping them maintained and fixing them if they break,
  3. taking time to create some avoidance strategies for the seemingly endless amount of packaging our food comes in, and composting the leftovers.

Continue reading “My Terracycle Zero Waste Box: four months on” →

The psychological problem with plastic

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I had a bit of a revelation the other day. I can’t imagine I’m the first person to think of it, but it struck me as significant at the time.

I was at work, and we had some leftover birthday cake in the office. Some people wanted to take a few slices home, but didn’t have any containers with them. “I’ve got a spare container you can borrow” I said, offering a colleague my metal lunchbox (pictured above, minus the lunch). “I can’t take that” they replied, “it’s far too nice to borrow!”

Searching further in my desk drawer I found a plastic box, the type that takeaway food comes in. “That’s perfect”, my colleague said, “I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”

And that’s when it hit me – the problem with plastic isn’t just that it’s disposable, but that it somehow intrinsically embodies the quality of ‘disposable’-ness as well. Plastic represents something that doesn’t require care or preservation – it looks as though it was made to be discarded. Continue reading “The psychological problem with plastic” →

Eco audit: the bathroom

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“The littlest room in the house” is an apt expression in our home

Sometimes it’s easy to get swept up in the big picture of wanting a lovely eco, pared-down life, and feel a bit overwhelmed with the task at hand. When there’s just too much of everything, it often ends up with nothing getting done.

To that end, I’m taking on a room-by-room approach to my house, seeing what’s been ‘greenified’ as much as possible, what could be better, and what needs a complete rethink. I’m starting with the bathroom because it’s a room with a lot of potentially disposable items, and with the expertise of the lovely zero waste community I’m sure that some of the easier wins here will help me with some of the trickier rooms.

Our bathroom is on the small side of what estate agents would call ‘compact’. In the picture of our bathroom at the top of this article, the toilet is behind the wall on the left. Essentially, if you want more than one person in the bathroom at once, one person has to stand either in the bath or on the toilet. It’s friendly. So where items can be minimised or multipurposed, all the better. Continue reading “Eco audit: the bathroom” →

Plastic free and on TV

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A slightly wonky snap of me from my TV!

This was definitely not a post I was expecting to write, but on Saturday I was interviewed about shopping plastic free for Sky News! One of their reporters got in touch with me via Twitter on Saturday morning following a referral from the lovely Kate at Plastic is Rubbish, and a few hours later, I found myself in one of my favourite places, Earth Natural Foods, being mic-ed up and ready to film.

In all honesty, when I was first asked, my first reaction was to refuse. I feel incredibly awkward and shy at public appearances, and didn’t want to make a fool of myself. But my lovely partner gently persuaded me that it was a good idea Continue reading “Plastic free and on TV” →

The most worthwhile cardboard box I’ve ever bought

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Behold my beautiful cardboard box. What a treat, eh?
As you can guess from the title of this post, I purchased a cardboard box this week. £117.62 worth of cardboard box to be exact. There it is in the picture above, in all its glory. Isn’t she lovely?

Have I gone completely off the rails you ask? No, I have not. For this isn’t just any old cardboard box, it’s a Terracycle No Separation Zero Waste Box. What this box will enable me to do is to recycle almost all of the final few bits of landfill waste I’m still creating. The stuff that is just too difficult for me to give up, at least right now.

Terracycle are a company who pride themselves on recycling the bits and bobs which aren’t easily recyclable elsewhere. The range of things you can recycle with them is huge: items such as tennis balls, sponges, crayons, backpacks, cassette tapes, safety goggles, flip flops and about a million other things. Continue reading “The most worthwhile cardboard box I’ve ever bought” →

Compassion is still our currency

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It’s very easy to become disillusioned when you care a lot about the environment. The earth, and our fragile place on it, can feel very precarious at times. 2017 seems set to be a year that will test our resilience to its very maximum; most notably an incoming US president who doesn’t accept the clear, established science of climate change. He is depressingly accompanied by our own UK government who appear to see environmental protections as ‘red tape’ to be swept aside along with investment in renewable technologies, as it goes on a mission to alienate itself from its neighbours on the continent. Also in attendance is a shocking resurgence across large swathes of the Western world of a far-right ideology that sees compassion for the planet, and indeed other humans, as a weakness to be mocked and exploited. Continue reading “Compassion is still our currency” →

What price happiness?

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Definitely no magic land at the back of this wardrobe…

Over the last few years there has been a growing backlash against the rise of a culture based on hyper consumption. The movement towards buying and having less has grown as people have begun to realise that a. more stuff doesn’t necessarily mean more happiness, and b. that our planet doesn’t have the resources to sustain our growing levels of consumption.

There is a level of affluence and technical innovation that greatly increases our happiness and ability to lead full, productive lives – from a warm, safe home, access to food, clean water, healthcare, through to education, and access to freedom of ideas and time to discuss them with others. Continue reading “What price happiness?” →

A Plastic Ocean (and how you can start doing something about it): Part 2

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Running low on pictures this week, so here are my kitchen shelves again…

So in November, I wrote a post focusing on easy ways to start reducing everyday single-use plastic after seeing the film ‘A Plastic Ocean’. I was beyond excited when Plastic Oceans shared the link on their Facebook page (I still am to be honest)!

Now on to Part 2 – taking it past the easy wins and up to the next level, particularly in an area close to my heart, or rather to my stomach: food. Rather than my own recommendations, this post is going to be a guided tour round some of my favourite parts of the internet; the people, posts and pages that have inspired me.

Grocery shopping

So first up, you’ve got your water bottle, reusable cup, canvas bags and all that jazz, but you’re still finding that grocery shopping seems to involve a whole load of unnecessary waste? Supermarkets are difficult places to avoid this waste, and it’s definitely worth looking to shop elsewhere. Continue reading “A Plastic Ocean (and how you can start doing something about it): Part 2” →

A Plastic Ocean (and how you can start doing something about it): Part 1

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Plastic, plastic everywhere. Everywhere it shouldn’t be.

Earlier this year, I went to see A Plastic Ocean as part of the Raindance Film Festival in London. Directed by Craig Leeson and starring world-record breaking freediver Tanya Streeter, it’s a film about how plastics get into the ocean, the devastating effects they have, and what can be done about it. I thought my trip to see it would end up being a one-person event, as whilst many of my friends politely humour me about my enthusiastic commitment to avoiding plastic,  I appreciate that for many people it’s a bit of niche subject and perhaps not what you go to the cinema to see.

To my surprise, four friends agreed to come along.  Continue reading “A Plastic Ocean (and how you can start doing something about it): Part 1” →