SaveThePlanetTrackWorld

I’ve also stopped using sellotape where possible.
When buying gifts. I pop the unwrapped gift in a small paper bag ( the type with handles, not the type you put mushrooms in), then pop a piece of tissue tucked in over the top. The bag and tissue then can be re-used.
Also our local bookshop sells greeting cards without the plastic wrapping (card and envelope loose).
Maybe I should get a life – Ha ha.

Mini review of Georganics spearmint tooth powder: it’s foul! A bit more detail – used this morning for the first time and pretty much gagged, made my eyes water too. The taste is extremely unpleasant with one ingredient being overpowering although not sure what it is yet. Had to buy some toothpaste cos this is being chucked in the bin except for the lovely little glass jar which will be repurposed.

Any recommendations for eco-friendly tooth powder?

Trying to drive the car as little as possible (even thought taking bus take twice as long). Trying to buy as little plastic packaged food as possible (nuts, oats lentils and pasta without any packaging) Trying to buy as local as possible, switch from cow to seed milk, no red meat (ok it’s been almost 20 years now) and cutting down on eat. When I do eat meat trying to get as much as I can from my fellow MBTer (he’s an organic butcher). Trying to repair as much as I can before disposing, no buying stuff i don’t need anymore. I have start to build my own furniture from reclaimed palletes (although more for fun than political statement). Only buying second hand cars and I might kill my dream of my 40th to buy a new bikes (F800R) for a second hand one.
Recycling only what can be recycle (Metal, glass and paper) at recycling center. Using the honey pot as jar for food.
When at mine heating doesn’t get turned on until it drops below 16°C. I have refurbsihed my flat so double glazed windows and a very fancy heating system for the water meaning I can turn it on demands.
Far from being perfect I know but trying to do my best

EDIT : I don’t have kids (don’t plan too either) a TV or a Dryer. Planning on stopping to buy new books, but owning my taste not sure i’ll find a suitable alternative.

My resolution is to use NO disposible coffee cups this year. To that end I have a collapsible silicone cup with a lid from Amazon. 1/4 of the year in and I’ve used only one so far. And that was me being lazy at work and forgot to go downstairs to fetch my china cup.

Out and about with no cup means the cafe had better offer a seat and china. No cup and no china means no coffee.

Worked in the US for a week too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Collapsible-Silicone-Reusable-Portable-AniSqui/dp/B07DDDTKKX

Any recommendations for eco-friendly tooth powder?

I can recommend Denttabs- they work and taste like toothpaste, they just don’t foam up like toothpaste does.

Hair news- I’m off the bicarb and lemon juice am using plain bastille soap with buttermilk (from ebay, because Lush is really £xp£nsiv£) every 2-3 days with a plain water ‘wash’ in between and my hair’s in really nice condition now, I think I might have found a working plan. The upside of this is that the soap is just soap; you can use it all over, it’s only a few quid for a bar and there’s less crap in the bathroom now.

No-plastic bog roll from here- https://www.thecheekypanda.co.uk/product/100-bamboo-plastic-free-toilet-tissue-48-rolls/

OH has the allotment going now, the first taties are in and the polytunnel up and running with peppers, chilies, courgettes, tomatoes, butternut squash and is composting everything that isn’t nailed down…

We’re trying to find a local supplier for rapeseed in a 20L metal drum so we can stop buying plastic bottles of cooking oil. The stuff in glass jars is nice but too dear just to fry stuff in.

This town’s crying out for a zero-waste co-operative grocer…

Remembered to take the Starbucks reusable cups with us to Center Parcs last week, think I was quite restrained and only had two Caramel Macchiatos all week, but better than landfill cups and saved 25p per cup too (they now charge 5p extra per non-reusable cup).

Still getting used to mine, but better half has been using a wooden tooth brush for a while.

Seeing less and less point in gift wrapping paper, either re-using gift bags or simply using carrier bags.

I hate how Tesco encourage people to buy banana bunches of five in bags for a squid, instead of 25p each loose.

kayla – have seen it mentioned that denttabs shouldn’t be used long term with an electric toothbrush. As there’s no way I’m giving up the electric toothbrush have sourced an alternative that will be used tonight. Have decided that at some point I’ll try making my own.

Do you think you had a build up of residue from commercial shampoo and conditioner? I’m wondering whether the bicarb and lemon juice has helped with that. Is this castille soap you’re now using? Great effort with growing your own veg!

Just made my first batch of melt and pour soap, fingers crossed! Taken delivery of deodorant in a push up cardboard tube, no plastic whatsoever. Shall report back in due course.

Bad news – the zero waste shop I was intending to visit (quite a distance from me) as was daughter who works in the same town – it’s now closed due to owners wanting a work/life balance. So disappointed, sounds as though it was a victim of its own success.

Hi CG, it’s a bastille soap (part olive oil, part coconut oil) with buttermilk and pureed carrots in it. I don’t think the extras are doing much to be honest 😆 It’s nice and gentle though and I don’t need to use a conditioner. It was maybe just a few weeks off from using commercial shampoo and conditioner that made the difference rather than using bicarb and lemon juice, but I don’t know. I won’t be going back to bottled stuff anyway.

The ‘Fit Pit’ deodorant I got (bicarb, arrowroot, cornflour, tea tree oil & orange oil) in a glass jar is easy to use and I’ll be making my own version soon cos it works well and I don’t stink, which is nice.

We went to the Scoop n Save in Houghton on Wednesday, OH took his HT with a pannier and we took our own containers to fill with stuff we needed. Called into a pub on the way home, obvs.

edit- oh, and we’re collecting a tandem tomorrow to use for longer trips and stuff, via the divorce court probably…

Like pretty much everyone I always try to have some bags with me or use a box when I go to the supermarket, or just load the items from trolley to boot, but I find a bit questionable the latest move to only selling “bags for life”. I only buy a bag when caught out, I don’t need or want any more bags, and I read that these bags need something like 50x the number of uses to make sense environmentally in place of the basic thin bags. Therefore if I get caught out in this way it has 50x the impact it would’ve done if they could sell me a basic bag for 5p. Crazy is it not? Or have I the wrong end of the stick?

"We've got to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it."@GeorgeMonbiot on the only hope we have of stopping
climate breakdown. pic.twitter.com/pB6espCE8b

— Novara Media (@novaramedia) April 12, 2019

Mini tooth powder review: now using Truthpaste’s Peppermint & Wintergreen and, my goodness, it has a zingy taste and actually feels that it’s cleaning my teeth. OK this definitely feels less of a compromise to toothpaste and would happily accept this as regular tooth powder. I bought the 40g size which is in a glass jar, 120g size also available as well as a fennel flavour. Vegan too.

https://www.truthpaste.co.uk/product-page/copy-of-peppermint-wintergreen-40g

Mini deodorant stick review made by Earth Conscious with a most subtle fragrance of jasmine and rose. This comes in a cardboard tube that you simply push up from the bottom, no plastic whatsoever due to simple packaging. Works well so far, non-sticky and my only grumble is the price.

https://www.truthpaste.co.uk/product-page/jasmine-rose-earth-conscious-deordorant-stick

cinnamon girl do you have a guesstimate on how long the deodorant lasts for?

I rarely eat takeaway food but had a curry on Friday with mates. About 10 plastic boxes so that’s on my list of no no.

Gone for bamboo handle toothbrush if anyone has good recommendations.

All my good intentions are probably wiped out by my old diesel van I drive but do what you can and all that.

Marin only started using it this weekend but it’s not as moist as some so perhaps that would mean less wastage. Was using Jason deodorant stick containing 71g compared with Earth Conscious 60g. Actually when you see them side by side you realise how much plastic is used – height of Jason is 13cm compared with Earth Conscious at 9cm and half the width!

To be honest I will have a go at making my own, bound to work out a lot cheaper.

That’s a lot of plastic boxes, can you not reuse them even for something like chain links, nails etc?

We’re all compromising in some shape or form but I always ask myself whether I can do better.

It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? Until such a time as capitalism finally **** off we’re stuck consuming the planet in order to survive.

Yes!! On the positive side though, I now have quite a collection of ingredients which means that I don’t need to buy that much. For example, one thing I don’t have is bentonite clay but if I bought it then it can be used for making both tooth powder and deodorant. This is my wimminz logic at work, ha ha!

The Mrs uses a crystal rock for a deodorant but I’m a lot smellier,dirtier job and need something with a bit more “power”
I’ll give the Earth conscious one a try and see how it goes.

Someone bought me an easter egg on the weekend – unbelievable amount of plastic in the packaging of them! (It was bloody horrible chocolate too (Reeses))
This was last year and they still haven’t changed it!

The Mrs uses a crystal rock for a deodorant but I’m a lot smellier,dirtier job and need something with a bit more “power”
I’ll give the Earth conscious one a try and see how it goes.

Just looking at their website and there’s a few stockists scattered around the Southern part of the country. Good selection of scents with some being unisex. Have seen those crystal rocks but can’t quite get my head around the idea!

Can’t believe this has been staring me in the face for a long time … butter!! Why do I buy it in plastic containers when instead I can buy a foil-wrapped block. Grrrrrrrrrrr

Some great news – by pure chance I read about a newly-opened zero waste shop not a million miles from my hood. Also the owner makes unsponges, dishcloths, reusable kitchen roll etc. Can’t wait to visit!

Has anyone made any more changes or been inspired to do things differently?

Paid a visit to the newly-opened local zero waste shop and was really impressed. They’re stocking goods made by local small businesses such as candles, soaps etc., all smelled lovely. Took some empty containers along and was able to buy hair conditioner costing 50p per 100mls which is bargaintastic, also some fabric conditioner. You can also buy a selection of shampoo, body wash and washing up liquid in whatever quantity you want. Owner will be taking over the unit next door to sell dried goods as well.

As I’ve been baulking at the cost of non-plastic personal care products, a search online threw up loads of recipes. It helped that I already had some ingredients but still needed to buy some really random stuff. Mouthwash was a doddle to make but will need to tweak the recipe. Remineralising tooth powder was also easy despite numerous ingredients such as bentonite clay, ground cinnamon and ground cloves. Added my favourite essential oil for dental products namely wintergreen and am really pleased with this recipe, teeth feel so clean. Only downside is that I need to have some sort of spittoon handy as the clay is making a right mess of the basin! Lastly, lavender deodorant which took a little longer to make as the ingredients needed melting but must confess to not having yet tried it.

Still more work to do though!

We’ve been knitting (or you can crotchet) old cotton tee shirts, or balls of jute at our local WI, to use as cleaning cloths.
Haven’t tried the jute yet, but have knitted a tee shirt. It tales a bit of patience to cut the shirt in such a way to ensure a continuous strip. I purchased some enormous knitting needles from a charity shop because the tee shirt was cut at strips of 1cm.

When we moved to Scotland in 2004 we decided to try to be more ecologically aware. We bought a croft cottage which we renovated completely. The building was completely gutted inside, fully insulated, then had underfloor heating and a ground source heat system installed. When we extended it the new annex had an air source heat pump. We had a barn built across the road for our horses and when we got electricity to it we also added PV panels.

We try to limit our use of cars but as we live 10 miles from the nearest shops this can be difficult. We are also foster carers which can involve a lot of travel in local trips. We would like to use the train more to visit family in the South but this can also be difficult as we need transport at the other end. We have decided to stop flying, which we don’t do very often but it’s a gesture. Public transport locally is not great, we only have 3 buses a day each way and 1 on Saturdays.

We have reduced our meat consumption, partly due to my wife changing her diet to avoid wheat and dairy. This is helped by the 2 girls we have on placement who will only eat processed food products which I refuse to eat. We recycle everything we can although I’m not convinced that the council deal with it as well as they suggest – I think plastic recycling particularly may be more ineffective  than people would like to think. We don’t grow our own vegetables mainly due to lack of time.

One area which I think we could do more is in packaging. We use bags for shopping at the supermarket but I am appalled by the amount of packaging of foodstuff. I think food producers must do more to limit product packaging. We buy a lot of prepared foods, largely because of the foster placements we have whose diets have been taught badly and they refuse to eat home-cooked meals. We end up feeding burgers, chicken nuggets and pizzas because it’s all they’ll eat.

We’re not really sure now what else we can usefully do. I feel a little bit that it’s not going to be the efforts of individual people and families that is going to sort out this problem when governments and multi-national companies just seem to pay lip-service to making changes.

I’m really trying to not buy stuff in plastic packaging, i drive as economically as possible, i recycle as much as i can, but mainly I’m trying to talk my lad out of having kids. Too many people on the planet as it is.

Totally agree about population and the need to control growth. Present world population is around 7.5bn, estimates of sustainable population seem to vary from c1.7bn to 11bn depending on the level of standard of living. The question is how to educate people to limit their families.

As I am sure you all know – reduce, reuse, recycle. Of these reduce is by far the most important.

In our household? No car, no children. No clingfilm, no fabric conditioner, no deodorant ( natural fibres instead for clothing and wash!)

Consumer goods are only replaced when no longer repairable and second hand ones bought if possible – never bought a new TV for example nor a new camera nor most of the stereo equipment. Computer is more than 10 years old. Phone was new but is now 3(?) years old. We only have one between us. Never print anything at home or at work unless work insists. I refuse all handouts of material on paper when at training.

Unfortunately tho going from one small local supermarket to 4 large ones has killed all local shopping so plastic waste on food is hard to avoid but I do not buy much food that is flown to the UK, very little out of season stuff. Buy scottish first, UK second, EU third, almost never anything from outside the EU. Reduce those food miles. I grow herbs in pots ( can’t grow more food or I would)

Bike parts mainly secondhand. Never bought any new furniture or cutlery or crockery – all second hand. clothing 50 / 50 secondhand. Pots and pans mainly secondhand

WE tend to fly on once every two years ( been a bit more than that the last few years tho.) Train and bus wherever possible. I think I have had about 4 days of hire vehicles in the last year. I very rarely drive to ride. Holidays are walking and cycling mainly

Our flat is in a 150 year old building and has been insulated to the point the central heating rarely comes on ( top floor flat, we are effectively an insulated cap on the top of it)

Decisions on what to buy and what to do have embedded co2 taken into account

Even with all that our lifestyle is still not really sustainable in the true sense of the word but our co2 footprint is lower than most in the developed world but if everyone in the world had our co2 footprint it would be unsustainable

Vote green.

mikejd – how sad that those children have only ever known processed food and frustrating that they can’t be persuaded to eat anything else. Yes, more recycling but I think the public has to demand that companies do more and basically boycott those who don’t.

tj – amazed at what you do and curious to know whether it mirrors your upbringing. Love the way you choose local produce first and shop seasonally, we should all be doing this to support our farmers.

I’ve been looking at minimal barefoot shoes, disliking the high prices, and so now I’m considering recycling some old MTB tyres to make sandals. Car tyres seem to be the usual choice, but I don’t have any old car tyres, just 26″ x 2.1″ MTB tyres, plus I want something minimal. Anyone done it?

Vote green

Last week I helped get the first Green Councillors elected to our local Council 🙂

Just in case you need a visual of what I described in my last post:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-48198098

Start shipping all your used bottles to Scotland and make a bit of cash?

In Cheshire since Jan it is illegal to sit with an idling car engine. I have been asking people as nicely as poss to switch off their engines if sitting around.
On Mon nbt and myself asked a lady sitting in a car park to switch off her engine. She said she was ‘just’ waiting while her husband nipped into Waitrose. It took me a while to persuade her. We did our shopping and came out to find her still sitting in her car. Out came her husband, who started shouting at me for interfering with his wife. Another couple joined in. ‘Have you got nothing better to do with your time’, they’re shouting. Well actually No, because in my eyes at this moment in time saving our planet is top of my list.

All it takes is a little flick of your wrist to switch off a car engine when your car isn’t in use. Of course people don’t care, they don’t realise the importance of taking action now. This climate change is going to affect everyone, even very wealthy people who think they can just carry on as they are.

Sorry for rant. But these people who don’t give a toss are the idiots, not nbt and myself, who laughingly got told to get on our bike (we were on our tandem at the time and had cycled 20 miles).

If you don’t have time to grow your own veg, try looking for “community supported agriculture” in your area. I pay £34 a month and help on the farm a few times a year for a weekly veg collection in the village I work in. A zero waste stall comes every other week as well, so I rarely have to go to supermarkets anymore.

Sorry for rant. But these people who don’t give a toss are the idiots, not nbt and myself, who laughingly got told to get on our bike (we were on our tandem at the time and had cycled 20 miles).

Very much this. People who are trying to stop the planet from being killed aren’t the lunatics, it’s the ones who are killing it who have the sanity issues.

New plastic bike every other year, anyone? #STW #nearlyeverybigbikemanufacturer

mikejd – have you thought of cooking with the children (in other words they make their own meal occasionally).
Something simple like a made from scratch macaroni cheese – looks like ready meal, but is easy to make. I think Jamie Oliver had a good recipe.

Or spag bol

Brown a chopped up onion for 2 mins, add some good quality mince, cook until browned all over.
Add a bit of dried basil, a crushed clove of garlic and a tine of chopped tomatoes or passata.
Cook all this slowly for an hour or so (slow cooker if you have one).
Cook pasta as per packet instructions.
Grate over cheese when on plates.

Children seem to enjoy eating the things they cook, it gives them a sense of pride. Hopefully leading on to bigger more complicated dishes.

I used to make a stew and bung tiny chopped up bits of everything from mushrooms to broccoli in, then serve with crusty bread. Even the fussy eaters managed that after a full day running around.

Your life in Scotland sounds great.

How about we stop building houses on perfectly good arable land? The more land we lose the more foodstuffs we have to import. The amount of houses being built on land that just a couple of years had crops growing in them is scary.
We need to stop being selfish in thinking its our given right to reproduce & sod the consequences.

Came across this article today, certainly an eye opener.

Sent my eco-anxiety through the roof to be honest, especially as we have two kids and a third due in July and have just bought a diesel 7-seater to ferry the brood around in.

:-S

It’s fruitcake central in here

Only since you turned up

We need to burn as much fossil fuel as possible to stave off the next ice age

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-mini-ice-age-is-coming-in-the-next-15-years

Ok, what about bicycle tyre recycling?

Any joy getting car service centres to take them? (for free!)

I’m not interested in making chic stuff out of them because I have enough projects (and stuff).