Eco Worrier - Times Online - WBLG

Calling all supermarkets that offer online delivery services

Please stop using so many plastic bags when you drop off shopping. Believe me, it is making you unpopular. By doing this, you will also help me by reducing the number of emails that I receive from frustrated shoppers who have discovered solitary courgettes rolling around in plastic bags.

This is what Claire says: “Yesterday morning, Sainsbury’s online delivered my small weekly shop. It only came to £40 but the shopping came in a total of 16 plastic bags...It was ridiculous, my spring onions had an entire bag to themselves, so did my one courgette. In fact, many of the bags had no more than one item in."

Come on, Sainsburys, you’re always telling us how green you are and flogging designer bags that cut back on plastic waste. Prove it. 

Bin wars are raging

The Daily Mail has set about its ‘save our weekly rubbish collection’ campaign with the sort of vigour that it usually reserves for fighting against immigration. Meanwhile, councils say that they are helping us to get back in touch with our waste (click here for news-story). The theory is that fortnightly bin-emptying, combined with more recycling, will ease the pressure on landfill sites. No prizes for guessing which camp I’m in. Happily, I conduct a complicated three-tier rubbish dividing system - recyclable materials, stuff for the wormery and everything else - yelling instructions at the boyfriend to follow suit if I see him hovering above the normal bin with an eggshell (current favourite food of the worms)
Isn’t that the idea? That getting rid of rubbish shouldn’t be too easy. Make it a little bit more fiddly, and it’ll make people realize that there are repercussions of a rubbish-rich lifestyle. We might not like it but it’s good for us. Or am I just lucky enough to have a council that is committed to providing enough green and black bins?

Slimming your carbon calories and eco-friendly cooking tips

Lots of carbon dieting going on here at The Times, as you’ll see here. We're all getting terribly slender. It kicked off in Body&Soul on Saturday when we published an extract of Polly Ghazi and Rachel Lewis’ Carbon Diet book, followed by a further extract in today’s T2. I’ve already had a tonne of feedback (emission-free, naturally, pinging as it does into my inbox). Thank you to Tony and Judith for pointing out the importance of cavity wall insulation, something that was not mentioned in the diet plan. You’re absolutely right, this is a crucial energy-saving measure. The Energy Saving Trust reckons it can cut your heating bill by over a third. Click here for more info. Why it wasn’t included in the manual, I cannot tell you, but I’ve passed on your email to the authors. Meanwhile, Gavin got in touch to vent his feelings on people who waste gas when they cook. “When we visit friends who are cooking, the gas on the hob is left on full power to cook vegetables,” he writes.  “All that is necessary is to turn down the gas when the water is boiling so that it is just simmering. Better still with veg, boil for one or two minutes and then turn the gas off and leave the veg in the nearly boiling water until they are properly”
Got that? Simmering only for veggies and turn them off before they’re done so they finish cooking without a flame under them. That'll make Gavin a happy man. As for other ways to be an eco-cook, I learnt from my mother. (Click below for her advice.)

10 reasons why going veg one day a week will help the planet

Thank you to the Wannaveg blog for bringing to our attention this particularly good piece of advice. Drop meat from your diet one day a week. Here are the ten reasons why. There are so many green tips knocking around the place these days, it's easy to feel bombarded, but every so often you come across something that is so entirely sensible and convincing that it makes sense to adopt it immediately. A few months ago, I wrote a short article on the meat/methane/farting cows dilemma. Here it is. And if you're looking for inspired veggie dishes to serve up, turn to none other than the inestimable Deliaonline for some crackers.

What on earth is swishing?

A couple of people have written to ask this - and how I appreciate the question. Sustainability company, Futerra, that coined the term has launched a website devoted to explaining exactly what it's all about. So I can just add this link and go off to make myself a cup of tea. The only thing I'd add is the definition which I love best of all. Officially, to swish is 'to rustle, as silk'. Here it is 'to rustle clothes from friends'. If this sort of style game floats your boat, I expect you'll also enjoy the book put together by Cheap Date duo Kira Jolliffe and Bay Garnett. If you haven't already discovered the magazine and its irreverent, original style, it's worth hunting it out. I have my copy of The Cheap Date Book of Style right here. Now where's that cup of tea? 

High street = bad?

Which clothes shops on the high street are ethically sound, asks Cathy.                         

It is my struggle to answer this question that has pushed me onto the Wardrobe Challenge, as regular readers will know as I'm always banging on about it. Fact is it's a tough one. When research is done into high street clothes shops, as it was recently into Primark and George at Asda by both War on Want and a team at Cambridge University, it makes grisly reading. That doesn't mean to say that Primark is a million times worse than, say, Hennes or Zara. More that Hennes and Zara have so far escaped being the focus of any independent research into ethical standards. Topshop has done well to include a People Tree concession (good) but it still refuses to sign up to the Ethical Trading Initiative (bad). Why? It has mentioned that it cannot dedicate resources to this at present (as if it didn't have enough to go round). Gap have done an impressive job of cleaning up its act. Not everyone's thinks so, but I do. Here's an article I wrote on this subject. Shame I don't much like the clothes. I'm also impressed by M&S and its eco-plan A - but I don't want to look like my mum.

Pimp your ride: 10 ways

If you can (as the TV motor show slogan suggests) “transform a rusty minger into a metal blinger” why not do the same with bikes? As well as extending the life of your wheels, jazzing them up can also deter bike thieves. They tend not to go for the ones swathed in garlands and colourful stripes.
Here are the freshly pimped wheels of Sarah and Rose from Green Knickers. Not content with making incredibly sexy organic, fair trade underwear (see here if you don’t believe me - and, chaps, remember, nothing us ladies like more than an unexpected Spring gift of ethical underwear), they are reducing their carbon footprint by pushing around their wares in shopping trolleys or lugging them behind these colourful bikes. Londonites, look out for them on the streets.
You don’t have to go for the all out hippy makeover. Depending on your taste, age, and gender, you could plump for a more subtle makeover, a spray of paint perhaps, or some stickers and stripey tape.
Perhaps don’t go as far as the picture below, though. Not the outfit, anyway.

Shameful reflections on EU Carbon Trading

Am I the only one to feel a little embarrassed at news of the shortcomings of the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme? A new report on its performance last year, showed that 93 per cent of the industrial plants it covers, emitted LESS carbon than their quota of free permits. So the amount of carbon trading that was actually going on was miniscule. 
Why? Because the firms all gave generous emission estimates so they wouldn't have to by carbon credits off other companies. Here are some insights from today’s LA Times.

"The credits were based in large part on what the firms estimated their annual carbon dioxide emissions would be... Some said the firms had inflated their earlier emissions estimates, and thus all had credits to sell. This situation produced a surplus.
Because these credits were given out, not auctioned off, the firms did not pay for their pollution. Yet they stood to make money by selling them."

Click here for some background on how the whole thing works.

Not that this suggests carbon trading doesn’t work. Quite the opposite, it demonstrates that it could work well, if the EU wasn’t still being bullied by big business and instead dared to demand that it change.

Wardrobe Challenge update

What I have been most impressed by, so far, during my month of doing the Wardrobe Challenge (the first of twelve) is the number of people who have beaten me to it. "Oh, I've been doing that for years," is a common response. "Last time I bought a new item of clothing was in 1992." I'm seriously impressed. The concept of making the most of clothes already in circulation and boycotting the high street is clearly nothing new. It has long been the ultimate badge of consumer power.

Here are some of your comments.

John says: "Maybe it's just easier for men but I don't see the attraction in shopping for clothes in my free time. I spend a few weekends a year at car boot sales and have managed to pick up bargains like suits, a skiing jacket and a very stylish cowbody hat."

Meanwhile Marianne writes in to say that "not buying new clothes is the thing that is the hardest about ethical living, I can manage most things, but I'm going to try my best to join up to the challenge." That's the spirit...

By the way, I am assuming that anything you email me, you are happy for me to put up like this. Please say so if not, or say that you'd like your name changed if you're publicity shy.