Burt's Bees

Photo from Re-Nest

Much of the brands mentioned in this article are American brands, though we’re familiar with a few, like Burt’s Bees. But the same question is posed – would you continue to buy your favourite eco product if it was owned by a multinational known to flout environmental issues?

I guess multinational or not, most businesses diversify to survive. There is a growing market for eco products. And big companies want a share of that market. yes, I’d still buy to tell them that this is what I want as a consumer. In a sense, that is what Guui is about – Responsible consumerism. You vote with your money. You buy what is good for you and the environment.

But, be vigilant. Continue to be informed. There isn’t a lot of regulations as to what constitutes a green product. Be careful of greenwashing.

Just thought I share this great site with you

I think I’m going to start wearing gloves tomorrow. My hands were frozen this morning as I trekked to work.

Last week had seen the weather turned quite warm for this time of the year. But winter is fast approaching, and at home we have been resisting turning on the heat in spite of some cold spells.

We’ve come across some great blogs sharing tips on how to keep warm without turning the heat up. 

Get clicking, we’ve got the tips from the Apartment Therapy Re-Nest site  which ran 2 helpful articles – 30 Ways to Live and Stay Green in a Cold and Frozen Climate and 14 Ways To Keep Warm Without Turning the Heat On or Up. We’ve thrown in also a few of our own ideas. So here some things we’re keeping in mind,

• warm colours inside the home can make a difference
• get cosy on the feet with rugs
• get started on those winter warmer food and drinks - stews and baked goodies warms up the kitchen and the home, and of course a cup of good old tea, coffee or hot cocoa, and wrap your fingers around the mug.
• when the sun is out outside, let the sunshine in.
• use layers in your beddings. and layers on you as well - wear a hat. wear socks. put a hot water bottle under the sheets with you. or just snuggle up with someone.
• cleaning is good exercise, keeps you warm too. keep moving around.
• block drafts from doors or windows. we’re putting cling film on our drafty windows and drawing the curtains closed at night. if you can, put curtains over your doors.
• close the doors on each rooms, and heat only rooms you’re using. Better yet, make the kids do their homework and your partner to drag the laptop on the dining table whilst you cook. Warm up the family together.
• warm up some beanbags to keep hands warm. Use around the house or when you’re out and about.

Buy-one-get-one-free offers by supermarkets are recently highlighted by the government as one of the main causes of the billions worth of food thrown away each year in the UK.

And there have been talks of banning this kind of offers.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that BOGOFs are meant to get rid of the supermarket’s/manufacturers’ extra stock as opposed to help consumers save. But they can be a godsend for those who count the pennies.

I don’t think the government should have the right to dictate to companies what marketing strategies they take to entice customers.

But it does take a little more discipline from us the consumers. Because it really isn’t a great deal if we end up not using what we buy. BOGOFs are great for food staples – oil, pasta, toilet rolls, toiletries. But in buying perishable food, you have to put a little more thought into it – can you freeze it? can you work it into your menu for the week?   

But we all have been guilty of buying too much. And I am still trying to find ways to make sure that we use up the food in the fridge before they go off.

The problem in our household is that we don’t plan our meals. We usually get inspiration on what to cook based from what is in the fridge. And lazy days that we eat out unplanned can mean that the chicken left defrosting in the fridge can go off. And stressful days at work can mean the cheese sandwich goes uneaten and inedible by the time we get home.

I’ve eaten my share of less than fresh food just because I couldn’t get myself to throw it away. Or left my hands yellowed trying to juice all the oranges still sitting in the counter after more than a week.

Here are some tips I will try to do myself:

• citrus fruits. juice them.
• other soft fruits. make a smoothie out of them.
• apples. make apple sauce. lovely with pork chops, sausages. or topping for your cereals.
• stale bread. no don’t feed the wildlife with them. make bread crumbs. if it’s not furry yet, toast them.
• leftover vegetables. add chicken to make chicken and vegetable soup.
• potatoes. use in soups. make mashed potatoes. make potato omelettes. potato cakes.
• and of course if you have compost, throw inedible food in.

And this site will prove really useful for ideas on what to do with your leftovers. They’ve got an index there of ingredients that need using up, and it shows you a range of recipes using that.

[image swiped from Michael's Luffas]

loofah, luffa, lufah. It goes by a lot of spellings, which I think are all correct. If you haven’t seen one look here.

Normally you use it to scrub yourself in the shower. I’ve ran across one in a health shop named Michael’s Original Luffa Washing-Up Scouring pad. And I thought, what a brilliant idea!

Not much packaging, just a cardboard label around it. With a string so you can hang it to dry.

Let me share with you what the label contains…

In the Philippines, people wash their dishes using a luffa instead of a plastic scourer. Luffas are durable, effective, and far better for the environment as they biodegrade when worn out.
Michael’s Original Luffa Scouring Pad’s[sic] are ethically and sustainably grown on his family farm in the Philippines (NB luffas are plants grown on land).
Bought directly from the farm at a fair price, your purchase supports less privileged families and prevents environmental degradation.
Michael’s Luffas are durable and tough enough for all your washing up and surfaces (soak baked on food first). They are gentle enough for cleaning non-stick surfaces, fruit and vegetables (and also your body).
Michael’s Luffas are clean and hygienic. Rinse and air dry by hanging them up or wash them in the dish/clothes washer. Luffas are biodegradable, so after their natural life, feed your compost or wormery with them, not the land fill.

If everyone used Michael’s Original scouring Luffas instead of plastic scourers, it is estimated we would avoid the equivalent of 150 double-decker buses of non-biodegradable landfill a year.
Luffas are a natural product hence size and shape may vary.

My verdict?

I’ve used them right away as I was looking to replace my used up scourer. A bit hard to use as they tend to be quite unflexible when used for the first time. I would recommend soaking it up in water first. It did scratch my nails. And scratched up the non-stick pans as I probably scrubbed up too hard. Didn’t work as well as my stainless steel scourers on tough baked on dirt (yes, I soaked them first, sometimes overnight). And found it quite unwieldy – couldn’t scrub at the bottom of plates and mug handles and in between the fork tines.

Maybe it takes getting used to. I still have it hanging there by the sink and alternate between using that and the normal scourer which I still need if I don’t want to scratch my pans (or maybe i shouldn’t be using non-sticks anyway). But I still think it is worth trying it out though it might not be for everyone.

So let me know if you love it or hate it? I think I’m somewhere in between. I so much want to love it, but I just can’t.

We’ve been doing this for years, yet only though about blogging about it just now.

We’ve never really liked paper. But we like keeping records. of everything. bills. mortgage statements. bank statements. insurance certificates. Face it, there is a lot of records you need to keep these days with the thousand-and-one insurances we have to cover just about everything. So we scan, and print to PDF.

It’s so much easier to organise. You have folders in your computer instead of the shelves and shelves of storage. not to mention the filing folders and boxes you have to buy as well.

When you need to keep a record of something you received online, print to PDF, instead of printing on paper. These days, I’ve been PDFing my travel itineraries and maps whenever we’re on holiday and bring a PDF reader with me.

So google it up, there’s lots of free print to PDF software out there you can use for your Macs or PCs.

Call me lazy. I used to wash my glasses and mugs after each use. And I find myself in front of the sink for a good part of the day. I soon got tired of that.
Call me icky. I now use the same mug for my coffee and tea and water and juice. Just a little swish of hot or tap water and it’s ready for the next beverage.
Now I think people who can’t stand using the same glass for different beverages are such *snobs*. Maybe they need to stand in front of a sinkful of dirty dishes for them to realise it is a lot of work to do the washing up. Not to mention a lot of wasted water and polluting soap.
So be lazy and save the environment at the same time.

Last day today at UKAware - Ideas for greener living.

Great show! I have been there this morning and here are my favourites…

• I’m a gadget person and the Firewinder caught my eye. It’s a British invention and powered by wind. I think this product has a lot of potential, not only in its current use but also some other applications. If I have a beach resort in the Far East, this is a nice feature.
• One of the more busier stalls I believe is Morsbags. For a fee, you get to create your own bag…you even do the sewing.

• If you have been opting for paperless bills, you’re helping the environment. You may notice you end up will a lot of usernames and passwords, as paperless means you access them online…separately. A novel idea on this show is NoMorePost.com – the online postal system. All your utilities, phone, credit card and bank statements all in one basket. They are still at early stages, but if you join them – it will help them convince more companies to link to their system.
• I finally got my own Onya bag and personally met the Brother of the Australian inventor of this great bag.
• The USBCell is worth mentioning here too. Another clever idea.

Got no plans for tomorrow? Or simply want to know more about green living?

Head for Olympia for the UK’s only green lifestyle exhibition (10am – 6pm).

And don’t come empty handed. Bring along clothes to swap and items to recycle.

Check out their website for the list of exhibitors at http://www.ukaware.com

ok. i’ve been snooping around other blogs looking for tips to share here. so click away…

a bit of decorating DIY here – how to make egg carton flower lights.

another decorating DIY, but i must say these are sooo pretty, though not something I would try – coffee filter wall art

not sure how this would go down with friends – Spring cleaning party

this would surely come in handy – How to get every last drop

We have been buying less and less stuff. And not just because it’s officially recession. Several house moves that have involved moving between continents has taught us that a lot of the things we have bought are simply not worth the money. how we waste storage space around the home just to house the things we have considered too precious to give away, yet too impractical to use. And that we have allowed resources to be wasted just for it to gather dust.

I hope to be moving soon. To a house that we can finally call home and settle. And whilst I wait for that to happen, I have been busying myself daydreaming how I can turn the house into a home.

Not too long ago I had been crazy about all things mass-produced. The cheap and cheerful stuff. All because the idea of having to fill your home right after giving up a hefty amount for the deposit and sinking neck deep in mortgages is quite daunting to the wallet. This time, I am hoping to sit in an empty house until I find only the things worth buying.

Maybe a lot of old stuff. Trawl through the car boot sales for good finds. The antique markets for one-off pieces. Some new stuff. But quality new stuff. Things that lasts. The husband and I have been shying away from the ‘made in china’ labels. Always looking for alternatives. And trying to find shops who actually have ethics.

I don’t want to be changing my living room suite every 5 years. I want stuff that looks better as they age. (Maybe secretly hoping that it would rub off on me as well.)

Here are a few rules I am hoping to follow:

• Say no to ‘Made in China’. And be partial to locally made to imported ones.
• Always look in second hand shops and antique markets first.
• Be partial to multi-purpose stuff. A side table that can double as a stool perhaps? I already have a rice cooker/slow cooker/steamer in one. Love the slash.
• Plan before buying. Would it suit the house? Can I live without it?
• What is it made of? Limit plastics. More recycled materials. Is it from a sustainable source?

Now that the credit crunch have hit us so hard that we minimised most things to basic essentials, is it possible that when we start going back to our old habits of luxury that we start thinking of the negative effects of these luxuries to the environment of our children? What I’m trying to say is, if we can afford to buy luxuries, can we choose products which have least negative effect with our environment. Or at least demand from manufacturers that they should make their products more environment-friendly.

Luxuries are not at all bad if they make our life a bit more comfortable.

However, if these things pollute the air we breathe, harm the environment when they were manufactured or disposed of, then we’re not really gaining anything and we’re not contributing to our children’s future.

With the daily luxuries that we use everyday, or used to have, or we’ll be having, can we ask ourselves some questions: Are there alternative more environment-friendly products than the one I’m considering now? Are there parts which can be sourced from organic/recycled materials that I can suggest to manufacturers? Did they come from ethically-traded sources? When I don’t want it anymore and want to dispose of it, are there environment-friendly ways to do it? From my perspective these are the basic things I need to consider when buying luxuries.

You should know the drill by now, you should always say no to a plastic carrier bags!

But, we sometimes forget. Or the really efficient sales staff have wrapped up our purchases so quickly that we have not had the heart to tell her off. Green or not, we all have that stash of plastic carrier bags in the kitchen drawers ready to reuse, biding their time until they’re ready for the recycler. And they’re most probably taking up more space than we’d like.

I’ve actually been folding up my stash into little triangles. It’s not a new idea, I can’t even remember how I stumbled across it on the internet.

I recently came across a blog with pictures, here, and thought I share the idea with everyone. I only have a little paper bag now to hold my stash ready for reuse.

Happy folding!

I shop in the supermarkets for a good majority of what I eat. I have no loyalty to any to one supermarket, and truth be told, I would much rather spend a whole day in the London Borough Markets for all my food shopping needs (who wouldn’t?). But, I don’t have a car to carry a weekly shopping’s worth. Nor the arm muscles. Nor the bottomless wallet. And I try to fit in my shopping on the way home on a weekday so I can live it up during the weekends (sleep through the mornings, that is!). 

So I shop where it’s on the way home. And with no local markets and farm stalls open by the time I head for home, I make do with the convenience that the supermarkets offer.

So, if you’re like me, constrained to the goods that the supermarkets churn out, note that you can still shop responsibly within these aisles. Aside from reading the labels (you know, trying to be healthy as well), I also wanted to make sure that it doesn’t have to cost the earth to feed me. I look out for these symbols:

The Soil Association Organic Logo. But not all organic products bear this symbol. Also look out for the Organic Certification numbers in the label (UK2, UK3, UK5, UK15, etc.) which means this was produced to EC Organic Certifications standards.

The Fairtrade Logo. This is what you would normally see in the UK.

But occasionally I also see the Fair Trade Federation mark, which is the trade association promoting fair trade in North America.

The RSPCA Freedom Food Logo. Make a difference to farm animal welfare, buy your meat with this label. The Soil Association also makes sure that the organic meat you buy are also welfare-friendly, with the animals able to roam freely.

The Marine Stewardship Council logo. Seafood is healthy for you. But the stocks are running low. And with most of the seafood I have grown to love ending up in the Greenpeace’s Red list fish, I realised I have to do more.

The Rainforest Alliance Logo. 

The Forest Stewardship Council logo.

I had been on the lookout for a more environmental loo roll. I have seen these on a few online sites, and have tried to look for them in the shops. I couldn’t find any, and for the meantime, I made sure that I buy only FSC certified ones.

I decided to buy Cotton Soft online. The write ups look promising – better for the environment and for me as they are made from organic waste cotton.

They arrived in a pack of 4 rolls. in a plastic packaging with no signs saying the packaging was from recycled material. I opened one, and found out the packaging wasn’t completely sealed. There was sello tape at the bottom to keep the two ends together and another sealed fold over it. I just hoped they have been stored in a clean environment at all times, as I think it could still be easily contaminated.

The loo roll is softer than the paper ones. it doesn’t break as easily. and there is less tissue left on wet skin. Only comes in 2-ply. Though it doesn’t seem like the 2 ply stick very well together. I had a bit of a struggle on the first roll I took out as the perforations on them don’t align. But you get this even on the paper ones, so no biggie. The only thing is, I do end up using a bit more than my usual 3-ply paper rolls as this doesn’t seem to be any more absorbent.

Cost me £2.89 for a pack of 4. A bit expensive if you also add the shipping costs as you can’t just buy them along with your weekly shopping.

But the question is, would I buy again? I would. Though I know, I would probably be back to using FSC certified ones whenever i forget to replenish my stock. I buy the idea that cotton loo rolls are better for the environment as it would mean less trees being cut down to add to the ever growing demand for paper products. So maybe, whilst I am still unable to give up on such modern conveniences such as the loo roll – I might as well try and be more responsible where I buy them from.