Hanging up my hat

At the age of fifteen I had to take part in my school's two week work experience placement. I changed my mind weekly between wanting to be a vet or a palaeontologist at this stage of my life and neither of those were options for work experience. I considered the whole thing to be a waste of time. My exasperated work experience coordinator had a suggestion; 'how about the funeral directors?' I screwed up my face, but there wasn't much choice left at this point with most positions already having been filled. I decided, having watched a couple of episodes of Six Feet Under, that it might be an interesting option. If nothing else I was intrigued. I penned a letter of interest to the manager and subsequently went for a talk with him. As a result of my complete ignorance about what the job involved, I talked at length about how much I liked flowers and the idea of flower arranging. I still remember him telling me I might have been better placed with a florist. Looking back it is a wonder I got the placement.

On the first day I turned up wearing inappropriately casual clothing. I hadn't expected to be on a funeral on my first day but I was; I still remember trying to keep a low profile in the Church, observing proceedings dressed in ill fitting black trousers (I had no smart attire of my own, these belonged to my mum) and a woolly Kangol fleece. Over the two weeks that followed I gained an insight into the funeral profession that made me feel it was the only job I wanted to do. I pursued getting work in this field with dedication and heartfelt interest, resulting in a career that spanned ten years. As I write this, I have just ended my time as a funeral director.

It is a field of work that is rewarding, challenging, interesting, competitive and highly variable. It has led me to some of the most compassionate, friendly souls that I have ever had the privilege to meet who give so much of themselves into their work. They undoubtedly make the most difficult times in people's lives that little bit easier by being so helpful and kind. It has also shown me some of the most egotistical characters; wearing smart suits and a top hat whilst walking in front of huge, expensive, highly polished vehicles seems to do that to some people (but thankfully, there are considerably fewer of these). I have been amazed by human nature in the midst of grief and it has been a privilege helping every family with their unique needs. That said, I have changed a great deal since my introduction to the funeral world and everything began pointing me in the direction of change.

Being tasked with arranging a service for someone ten years older than me provoked a great deal of thought. I asked myself: Is this what you want for the next ten years? Or even for the next year? The answer, with certainty, was no. I brought to mind a quote I had read on the company's desk calendar a while back. It said words to the effect of 'In a year's time you will look back and wish you had started the journey today'. I am a sucker for quotes and that one stuck in my head. I had recently started listening to a podcast by The Minimalists; two likeable, inspiring guys who had six figure salaries supporting expensive lifestyles but, in spite of all that, were not happy. They have since adopted a meaningful life with less, shunning material possessions and wealth for the real things that matter, which you can interpret from their talks as people, conscious living and experiences (among many other things). I had just listened to a podcast about work in which they talked about the danger of the term 'secure' in relation to jobs. They discussed the issue that very few things in life are really, truly secure and the price for security can be very high. It is easy to stick with the familiar and comfortable, but this too often means we stagnate and stop growing just to avoid the risks associated with change. Colleagues who I confided in about my thoughts of leaving told me of the benefits of being in a secure job. Two of the many associated costs to my well being at that time were not wanting to get out of bed in the morning and worrying to the extent that I felt like I couldn't breathe. I spoke with a friend, telling him about advice I had received regarding working simply to save money for the future. He wisely said that doing things for the benefit of the future shouldn't come at the expense of enjoying the present. Everything came together in my mind. I knew it was time for change and I had saved enough to afford me the opportunity to leave.

So, I've hung up my top hat. It has always been a bit too small for me, painfully pinching the right side of my forehead on every funeral I ever conducted. The last few times I looked at myself in the mirror whilst wearing it, it suddenly seemed not to fit me at all, in any way whatsoever.

'What will you do now?' comes the inevitable question from almost everybody I talk to. That won't present a problem; there are a huge number of things I want to learn and do at any one time in my life. The difficulty comes in choosing which ideas and interests to make my priority. Which ones to breathe life into. Which of my half-formed dreams should I work to turn into full blown realities.

What I do know is that I want time. Time to take deep breaths of sea air, to walk barefoot on sand, to listen to birds in quiet woodland. Time to think and to clear my mind in equal measure, to prioritise and give my energy to things that really matter, to find a new, meaningful way to earn my keep. Time to listen to audiobooks, to meditate, to volunteer, to learn. Time to connect more with nature, animals and people. Time for everything to be more light-hearted for awhile. I have a commitment to planning my days to revolve around these things, not leaving it to chance at risk of just lounging inactively around the house. If ten years working in close proximity with death has taught me anything about life it it this; our time can be short or long, we often have little control over that, but time is the most precious thing we have and we shouldn't waste it.

'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us'
Gandalf (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Plastic Beach

Day Seven of the Plastic Challenge.

So far, it's going well. I've begun to 'cheat' (!) less as I am running out of the things that I already had in the cupboard that were wrapped in plastic. I've lost weight too, not a motive for doing this challenge, but an obvious side effect I suppose when you consider that cutting out plastic pretty much alleviates any junk food from your diet. I am a total crisp fiend usually!

Thursday night I did a beach clean. One girl, just over one hour, a small patch of beach and a whole lot of plastic crap and other litter. I was surprised at the volume of stuff I found in this short amount of time. On the Friday night, I sorted it all. Here's a photo:

Apologies for the bad lighting; by the time I finished it was late and two episodes of Sherlock Holmes had passed by. Martin Freeman...*sigh*...oh, I digress!

So, what was this haul made up of?

The most numerous items were (number of pieces in brackets) 

 

Cigarette Butts (78)
Fragments of Foam / Polystyrene (30) - various sources
Lids (27) - mainly screw tops from drink bottles
Straws and straw wrappers (19)
Lollipop sticks (19)
Bits of rope (19)
Fishing line (10)

The quantity of line and rope is in keeping with the worldwide issue of abandoned or lost fishing equipment. These items are a huge contributing factor to marine debris and are responsible for the death of millions of marine animals due to entanglement. World Animal Protection state that 640,000 tonnes of this 'ghost gear' as it is called is left in the oceans each year. Their current Sea Change campaign is seeking to tackle this, along with many other organisations such as ghostfishing and the Global Ghost Gear Initiative. If you need some inspiration do something about ghost gear, watch this incredibly moving video of the rescue of a young humpback whale. Then go forth, oh compassionate people, and campaign against fishing methods that use huge nets like trawling and campaign for more regulation on the dumping of this gear out at sea!

Plastic straws are one of the top ten globally recorded items of marine litter. Over six million straws and drinks stirrers have been collected in beach cleans over the past 25 years (source: Be Straw Free). These are a completely unnecessary single use item that all of us can live without. Next time you get a drink in a bar, say no to straws and stirrers! If you really want to use them get reusable ones like this pretty stirrer (Yes, £22.00 may be a lot for a stirrer, but if you actually drink enough cocktails to warrant needing one in your life then I will assume you can afford to shell out for it) or this stainless steel straw.

The lids were mainly from water bottles. In my opinion, buying bottled water is completely ridiculous when you live in a country with highly monitored, sanitary drinking water (Yep, even with the flouride). I want to give bottled water its own post so I don't want to dwell on it too much here, but if you can't kick the bottled water habit, go for a glass bottled variety and recycle it.

The foam and polystyrene was mainly in little pieces and some were hard to identify. However, from the colour and shape of some pieces, it seemed that they were parts of balls; the kind people might play with with their dogs. Other pieces seemed likely to have come from polystyrene cups or packaging like fish and chip trays.

But the reigning champion of beach litter was the cigarette butt. Here they are, all 78 of them. Completely gross and stinking.

Smokers, answer me this: would you throw a crisp packet on the floor? Or a drinks can? If the answer is no, as it should be, why throw a cigarette butt on the floor? It is litter, and toxic litter at that, containing chemicals such as cyanide and arsenic. Upon entering the sea, these chemicals pass into the water, affecting marine life. They are also hazardous to land animals. Your one cigarette may not seem such a big deal, but there are millions of other people littering cigarette butts too. Cellulose acetate that they are made of takes 12 years to break down. They are disgusting. They belong in a bin! Put them out underfoot if you must, but then please pick them up. I love Surfers Against Sewage's brilliantly named No Butts on the Beach campaign, but also urge you not to leave your butt anywhere outdoors! (Tee hee) That goes for filters and cigarette packets too. An estimated 6,750 million cigarette butts are dropped on the streets of London each year; the money spent cleaning up after this habit could be put to so much better use!

I also found lots of these little plastic pieces:

And some balloon litter:

Please don't ever release balloons (or Chinese lanterns); what goes up must come down, and when they come down these items are litter. The organisation balloons blow has lots of information about this issue. The amount of balloon litter they have collected has to be seen to be believed. Wildlife can fall victim to balloons, mistaking them for food or getting tangled in the strings, which is often fatal ( as was the case for this Razorbill):

After starting a monthly donation to Amnesty International I found out they do balloon releases. Having talked to them about it, with no sign of them stopping I will be cancelling my support and choosing a human rights group that act more responsibly towards the environment.

So there you have it, the analysis of my beach clean. If you use any of these items hope you feel inspired to change your habits, moving away from the single use plastic mentioned in this blog post towards better, reusable alternatives where possible, avoiding altogether where alternatives do not exist.

The alternative to smoking is of course not smoking, but taking into account that giving up can be a very hard thing to do, and you may not want to give up, for the time being at least make sure your butts go in the bin! Thank you :)

Photo from Surfer Against Sewage

Plastic Free Month: Supermarket Shenanigans

In my last post I began telling you about my current mission: a month free from single use non recyclable plastic. Four days in I'm enjoying the challenge, although the same can't be said for the supermarket till workers who are having to deal with my unruly, unpackaged vegetable and fruit purchases.

I always buy fruit and veg loose; for most things, there seems to be the option of plastic wrapped or not, which only makes it more irritating because it shows that the packaging really isn't necessary. The only explanation is 'convenience', but people can, and would, cope with buying three loose, unwrapped leeks if they had to...I cope with it despite being 27 and unable tie my laces properly. Here are some photos of plastic packed multiple veg madness just for your consideration:

Madness

Lunacy

Insanity

By the way, when you start buying loose veg you'll notice that people only queue behind you until they realise you have a haul of individual, time consuming vegetables to be put through and then they dash off to another till. Tee hee hee! You annoying lil' eco warrior, you!

So, on this occasion in Waitrose (hey, it's not that I'm flush, they just seem to have pretty good ethics as far as supermarkets are concerned) I set about looking at the loose fruit. Many were packaging free, none of them were plastic free. Every single loose fruit had a sticker on it. No sale. So, I moved on to new potatoes. There were lots of different types but they were all in plastic. All, that is, except these little beauties on the bottom shelf:

Taters: boil 'em, mash 'em, put 'em in a stew perhaps?

Their cleaned, polished and packaged counterparts on the top shelf were accordingly well behaved. The loose potaters on the other hand, in all their dirt covered glory, were free to roll around the conveyor belt, leaving a trail of soil wherever they went. This was much to the annoyance of the lady at the till; "I'm going to have to wipe this off" she said, nodding towards the aforementioned dirt. "It'll ruin the conveyor belt". "I'm sorry, it's just that all the cleaned ones are in plastic, they should sell the clean ones loose" I explained. "Most people put these into the plastic bags" She retorted. "I'm trying to avoid it, single use bags are terrible" I replied (which reminds me, being apologetic about things like making a mess on a conveyor belt is the courteous thing to do, but don't apologise for your ethical stance when you're trying to make a difference!) She smiled and said she completely agreed, presented me with a Waitrose customer feedback card with a web address and asked me to go onto the site and make suggestions there. Well, you know what Mrs? I jolly well will!

I'm using things that I already had in the kitchen prior to this challenge that I wouldn't be able to buy during this challenge. Grains are one example of  foodstuffs I need to find alternative shops for; I only ever see them in plastic. It feels a bit like cheating using packaged goods I already had...I guess it is really?! Going completely plastic free is, it seems, practically impossible. I wonder how I'd get on next month after I've run out of my stock of plastic covered goods. However, just because you can't get away from it entirely, doesn't mean you shouldn't reduce where you can.

Today's plastic reducing tip can be done by everyone:

Replace your Toothbrush and Toothpaste with non plastic alternatives

In the UK, if everyone changes their toothbrush every three months (usual recommended lifespan) that equates to more than 260 million toothbrushes being thrown away each year. 

 

That is ridiculous when a plastic free alternative exists. Get yourself a toothbrush made from sustainable bamboo with natural bristles (non animal derived). It comes in a little cardboard box too, so everything in this product can be recycled or will biodegrade. I got mine from greenshop.co.uk for only £2.86. An eco friendly bargain.

Lush Cosmetics have mastered the alternative to plastic packaged toothpaste. Their Toothy Tabs are little tablets of toothpaste that you crunch up between your teeth. You then wet your toothbrush and brush your teeth as you would normally. There's a choice of flavours; if you'd like to retain the familiar minty freshness of your usual toothpaste, go for 'Dirty'. My personal favourite is 'Sparkle', with the tingly combination of grapefruit and black pepper. They come in a little recyclable cardboard box. Priced from £2.00 to £3.50 (depending upon which flavour/ingredients) these are available in Lush stores or online via their website.

Behold, the bamboo toothbrush!

So there you have it, make one little change and help make a big difference!

Tonight I went for a walk on the beach and did a beach clean for a couple of hours, then sat and ate my dinner from a Tupperware pot whilst being watched by this guy:

In my next post I'll be looking through all the things I picked up off the beach, which included a lot of the main culprits for unnecessary, non recyclable, single use plastic rubbish that litters the beaches and seas.

Any guesses for the main offenders?

Plastic Free Month Challenge

Some people fear zombies, A.I. or badgers taking over the world.
Well, be afraid, something already has taken over the world.

It's in your house.
It's in the shops you go into.
It's on your food.
It's in your food.
It's everywhere.

"WHAT KIND OF HELL IS THIS UNKNOWN FOE?!"
You may well ask...

PLASTIC.

Yes, you read it right; plastic. The more you think about plastic, and especially if you try to avoid it as I am doing this month, the more you will come to realise how obsessed our developed world is with it. It really has completely taken over our lives and, considering its lifespan (which is basically forever as it only into smaller pieces and never breaks down completely), it will effect the lives of every future generation too.

I've been proactive about making choices that reduce my contribution to plastic use for some time now but, as aforementioned, this month I am going to try and cut it out all together.

Now, I have a job which relies upon me using my car, phones, computers etc. so I cannot rid myself of plastic completely, but those aren't the non-recyclable and often single use items of plastic that are the problem I am seeking to address.


It's the completely unnecessary things for which plastic free more environmentally friendly options exist and / or the things most commonly found as litter that bother me most.

It costs £1 billion in the UK to deal with litter every year (Source: Keep Britain Tidy ) most of which is likely to be plastic. However, putting things in the bin isn't enough; we need to tackle this problem at its source.

I'll be sharing some information about how you and I can reduce the plastic in our lives and, in doing so, reduce the burden of waste plastic for the lives of future generations, the lives of wildlife and the well being of the whole planet.

Why not join in yourself? Share your ideas with me about reducing our dependency upon plastic!

How green is your house?

A friend said she was enjoying my blog…

...and said she’d find it helpful to have a post about gentle living at home.
So here are my thoughts on how to be the queen (or king) of household green!

Be energy conscious

Over filling the kettle, leaving things on standby and having inefficient household appliances are just a few of the bad habits that cause unnecessary energy consumption. By boiling only the water you need, turning things off at the plug when you aren’t using them and replacing your appliances with more efficient models will reduce the energy consumption in your home, helping your wallet and the planet. Little changes in behaviour make a huge difference.
Over filling the kettle is one of my bad habits...there, I’ve exposed myself as a green living newbie. I am now resorting to filling the number of cups I need with water then pouring them into the kettle prior to boiling it. My brain cannot do quantities by itself!

Be green when you clean

There are lots of different eco-friendly cleaning products which seek to minimise the use of harsh chemicals, have recycled or recyclable packaging and, as an added gentle living bonus, don’t test on animals.
I particularly love Faith in Nature. They’re a UK based company who are all round good guys: they don’t test on animals, they’ve got ethical consumer ‘best buy’ status, certified organic ingredients and they’re vegan (no animal based ingredients within their products).

If you’re interested, have a look at the back story page on their website which features a photo of the creator with amazing 1970s hair and the lovely ‘We Believe in…’ page stating their morals and ethics.
Their stuff smells delicious and in addition to wonderful home care products they also have hair, body and skin care ranges – I’ll be doing a post about cosmetics soon. I know lots of health shops in the UK stock Faith in Nature products if you would rather buy in store than online.

I also like Ecover who use plant and mineral ingredients. They have an interesting ocean plastic project which involves recycling waste plastic from the ocean to create bottles. They’ve only made a limited number of ocean plastic containers so far and the ones they have made contain 10% recycled ocean plastic (the other 90% is recycled plastic from other sources) but I think this project has a lot more potential for use in the future. Hopefully other companies will follow their example in finding innovative ways to recycle materials for their products. Ecover show a genuine commitment to eco-friendly working practice.

Go nuts
Soap nuts, that is. If you really want to get brownie points (or greenie points?) you can have a go at washing your clothes with soap nuts. Have a read about what they are and what they do here. I have tried them and they do work, but if you’re used to highly potent floral smelling washing, you’ll have to get used to your clothes smelling of, well, not much really, unless you add some drops of essential oils.

Be water wise
I’ve already mentioned not boiling too much of it in the kettle, but there are many other things you can do to save water, save money and most importantly help the planet too. Leaving taps running is a big one. Don’t leave them on whilst you’re brushing your teeth, wash vegetables in a sink or bowl of water rather than under a continually running tap and if you’re out and about and see a tap running (perhaps in a public washroom for example) turn it off! We have to use a dehumidifier in our little house and I use the waste water collected in it to water the plants.
This clip from my Sesame Street watching youth drilled this message about not wasting water into my consciousness…

Sesame Street obviously did a good job of penetrating my brain because I’m now in my mid-twenties and whenever I think about not wasting water, this song comes into my head too…

And now you’ll have the tune going round in your head all day! You’re welcome! Mwah ha ha ha!

Shower vs. baths

Unless you spend an hour in the shower and your preferred bath depth is akin to that of a puddle, it’s most likely showering will use less water that bathing. If you prefer having a bath, providing you aren’t filthy dirty, let someone else have the water before or after you, just like your parents probably insisted when you were a kid if, like me, you have siblings.

All appliances are not created equal

Some home appliances such as washing machines, fridges and electric ovens come with energy efficiency ratings on a scale from A+++ to D, based on their energy consumption. So next time you’re buying an appliance that is affected by this rating system, you can be aware of its green credentials. You can find out about this labelling system and which kinds of products are subject to the rating here.

Ethical energy

Switch to an environmentally conscious energy provider. Ecotricity are the main contenders in this field; they’re rated top over on Which? for green energy suppliers. Have a look at the ratings for them and other energy suppliers here.

When you switch to this green energy supplier, you can use a code to give a donation to a charity of your choice too, such as Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the RSPB and Trees for Cities. Find out more about Ecotricity here.

Ditch the single use disposables where possible

If you buy cloths and sponges to use for cleaning around the house, buy ones that will have more than one use. Decent quality may cost more initially, but by buying products that can be washed and re-used you’ll save money in the long run and create less waste.



So there you have it peeps, a few tips for eco-friendly living. Thanks to my friend for suggesting this topic for a post, I’ve learned some interesting things whilst doing my research for it!

I hope these suggestions help you to live a little bit more gently. There are so many more things you can do to make your life more kind to the environment, people and animals – do you have any tips? Let me know, I’d love to hear them!