The Green Parent
Raising kids with conscience
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Nov 04 2008
How to have a green office
Well, we haven’t spent any money for three days although I did go a little crazy whilst playing shops earlier and spent a whole purse full of crystals on some pieces of wooden fruit. I also got a slight pang for lunch in a café, rather than having to make everything from scratch again (and wash up afterwards!) but that passed quite quickly.
Our office is also part of the Buy Nothing Challenge as well so we will not be splurging on stationery items this month or indulging in edible treats to fuel the late nights that are often necessary when producing a magazine every two months. We don’t really buy ‘things’ for work though so I thought I would come up with a few other ideas on how to create a really clean green office.• SAVE PAPER – The average office worker uses 20,000 sheets of A4 paper a year, most of which gets thrown away. It is easy to reduce the amount of paper used though – print and photocopy on both sides, send emails rather than letters, reuse envelopes and turn scrap paper into notepads. Set up an office recycling scheme and be sure to source recycled paper.
• BUY TO LAST – Avoid disposable biros and choose refillable pens or pencils instead. A plastic pen in landfill will still be there in 50,000 years time. Globally 14 million biros are bought a day!
• SOURCE GREEN STATIONERY – Buy recycled stationery, eco staplers and more from the Green Stationery Company. If each of the UK’s ten million office workers used one less staple a day, 120 tonnes of steel would be saved a year.
• FAIR TEA BREAK – Drink Fairtrade tea and coffee, bought from a local shop, if possible. Use a real mug, instead of a disposable cup. Rather than buying pastries and cakes to treat colleagues, bring in homemade goodies instead.
• PACK AN ECO LUNCH – Mrs Green recommends a zero waste approach to packed lunches over at the fab Little Green Blog, capitalising on nature’s own perfect packaging.
• RECYCLE YOUR CARTRIDGES – Over 7.5 million toner cartridges and 12 million ink cartridges end up in landfill each year – and the sad thing is that about 90% of them could be recycled. Cartridge World says that 12 months of cartridge recycling in the UK could save up to 15 million litres of oil. Look for one of its 280 stores in high streets across the country where you can refill your cartridge instead of buying new. Alternatively check the manufacturers guidelines on the packet for the freepost address to send used cartridges to for recycling.
• RECYCLE FURNITURE – Unwanted furniture can be recycled by Green Works, a not-for-profit organisation that donates office furniture to schools and charities. This reduces landfill, supports projects in need and provides employment for disadvantaged and disabled people.
• SAVE ENERGY – Position desks to get the best natural light. Switch off lights and machines when not in use. Screensavers do not save energy – switch your machine to sleep mode or turn it off.
• GET WATER EFFICIENT – The Environment Agency has produced a range of leaflets to encourage organisations to become more environmentally aware. You can download free guides on becoming more water efficient and other aspects of greening your business.
• LOOK FOR THE STAR – If you need to buy new equipment, look for the Energy Star – a system developed in the US that also applies to goods sold in the UK. Purchasing a printer, modem or monitor with the Energy Star, you know it will be one of the most efficient models and you will save around £25 a year in energy costs.
• READ CHANGE THE WORLD – For lots of inspiring ideas and actions to take at work, check out We Are What We Do’s book – Change the World 9-5.
• TRAVEL LIGHT – Work out your carbon footprint of travelling to and from work and how you can reduce it. Try a car pool and who knows you might find some new friends whilst saving the planet.
• GET A PLANT – House plants improve indoor air quality, they can reduce pollution by 87% in 24 hours. They look good and lift your spirits too.
• GO NEW AGE – I have a selection of crystals round my desk, specifically clear quartz, as it helps to soak up some of the Electromagnetic Radiation that leaches from electrical equipment.
Any more ideas? Do let me know ways that you have managed to make your work environment a greener, more lovely place to work! -
Nov 04 2008
Vegan Month
November is Vegan Month, organised by animal welfare charity, Animal Aid, to raise awareness of an animal-free diet and lifestyle and to improve availability of vegan food.
Visitors to the site can download a vegan recipe book and action pack, enter a competition to win a hamper full of vegan goodies, find out about events taking place in the local area, source recipes, watch videos and find out why going vegan is good for animal welfare, the environment and our health.
I am going to be celebrating different vegan companies on the blog throughout the month so keep reading to find out which companies have animal welfare at their heart.Tagged as:Bookmark: -
Nov 04 2008
Vegan spotlight 1
The first vegan company that I would like to feature in our spotlight is Plamil Foods because they are probably one of the longest running. Originally the company was set up in the 1960’s to produce an alternative to dairy milk, producing milk from plants, the original ‘soya milk’ called Plant Milk. PLAnt MILk became Plamil Foods.
All their products are suitable for vegans and are also gluten free. Plamil’s chocolate is almost a ‘guilt free indulgence’ and even comes as a ‘no added sugar’ bar, sweetened using Xylitol, which is made from birch trees. They also have a new range of snack bars, an organic dairy free chocolate spread and the ever popular carob bars.
Ethics are high on the agenda securing high scores in the Ethiscore ratings published by Ethical Consumer magazine. From sourcing ingredients right through to the way they do business ethical issues are at the forefront and in fact all the energy used to make the products is sourced from 100% renewable energy.
Look out for their yummy chocolate range at your local health food store. -
Nov 03 2008
Buy Nothing Month Begins
Well, it’s a gorgeous autumnal afternoon on day two of our Buy Nothing Month and I’m sitting here with a cup of tea and an almond and chocolate muffin, feeling pretty good. So how is it going? And what temptations have we encountered so far?
It’s going well, although this might have something to with the fact that we live in the back of beyond and retail temptations don’t really exist out here – unless you count the fab village shop and of course, the ever present lure of internet shopping. We are all looking forward to the challenge and even the kids have volunteered to forfeit their pocket money for the month, in order to be more involved in the experiment. I have cancelled our weekly newspaper fix and the film club that we belong to.
I am being extra cautious and sparing in the kitchen with store cupboard ingredients like coconut oil, agave syrup and dairy items such as butter and yoghurt as these will run out quite quickly and we will not replace them during November. I guess there will come a time towards the end of the month when we eat lots of soups and flat breads!
Yesterday, I made big batch of pastry using flour, coconut butter and cold water and turned it into a gigantic pumpkin pie (to make use of all that pumpkin flesh left over from Halloween) and a batch of mini tartlets filled with leek and cheese or tomatoes and herbs, which should last a day or so. On presenting the massive pumpkin pie at dinner last night, amid cinnamony wafts and proud smiles, I discovered that I am the only one of us who likes this traditional treat. Anyone who visits in the next day or so will not get away without being sat down for a cup of tea and a large slab of pie.
Today for lunch I unearthed a packet of couscous from the back of the cupboard and made a salad with tomatoes, herbs and chilli from the garden. Dinner will probably be pasta with similar seasonal veg. I must confess that my cupboard is probably fuller than the average store stump as we do an Infinity Foods bulk order once every few months, so I have a stock of items like tinned tomatoes and large bags of flax seeds, almonds etc.
We usually sell our eggs to neighbours and passers by but this month I will be using them or maybe bartering them at the dairy farm round the corner. I am really interested in nutrition and will keep a close eye on the kids to check that they are getting everything they need this month in order to thrive. I used to feel that my girls were very picky eaters but since I have relaxed my attitude to this, they in turn have relaxed and are mostly happy to try things before rejecting them. My eldest is happiest with raw fruit and veg and her sister prefers pies and potatoes and more carby food. It is an interesting balance but I now love being in the kitchen, when a year or so ago food had become a bit of a sore point.
Over the last two days we have discovered that we ‘need’ a few things for the house – a lightbulb, new washer on the tap, over mitt etc. and although these items have been on the To Buy list for a while, now that we can’t just go out and buy them, they are causing more frustration. Perhaps I might get around to making my own oven glove this month. Watch this space…
Tagged as:Bookmark: -
Nov 03 2008
facts about waste
Did you know that in the past 30 years, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed? Or that in the US less than 4% of the original forests remain? These are scary facts, but ones worth remembering if we are to make any positive changes in our attitude to consumption.
• In the past 30 years, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed.
• In the United States, less than 4% of the original forests remain.
• Forty percent of waterways in the US have become undrinkable.
• The US has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% of the world’s resources and creates 30% of the world’s waste.
• If everybody consumed at rates, similar to those of the UK we would need 3 to 5 planets to support us all.
• There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals on the market today.
• Only a handful of synthetic chemicals have even been tested for human health impacts and NONE have been tested for synergistic health impacts.
• In the US, industry admits to releasing over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year.
• The average person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago.
• We each see more advertisements in one year than a people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime.
• In the US, national happiness peaked sometime in the 1950s.
• Average house size has doubled since the 1970s.
• For every binfull of waste you put out, 70 binfulls of waste were made upstream to make the waste in that one bin.Tagged as:Bookmark: -
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Welcome to the new blog from the Green Parent office. Here we'll talk about what's going on in the small and quite leafy headquarters of the UK's leading green lifestyle magazine. We'll share news that interests us and talk about green issues and natural parenting. We'll share advice and information from our own experiences of living a green lifestyle. And we'll even tell you what we are reading, eating, drinking and thinking. Hope you get plenty of food for thought here.
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