Recycled Paper Journals

For 2012 I have decided to keep a diary.  I havnt kept one in years and whenever I did I wasnt very good at keeping up with it.  But I feel like I am coming to a part of my life now where I have to make really exciting decisions.  The path is no longer laid out for me like when I was in education, but is at such a place where anything could happen.  I feel that now I am really my own independant little woman and the ruler of my own destiny, without feelings of responsibility or expectation stifling me.  Also I have finally made the decision to follow my heart careerwise and pursue a career in sustainability communication.  I feel that this is going to be a really exciting journey, that needs recording and will benefit from the gravity and reflection provided by a diary.  So because sustainability is my passion and my life, I obviously needed to get a sustainabily produced journal.  

Well what a bloody flop that retail exploration was.  I was looking for something with recycled paper and, if possible, a recycled cover.  I started in Paperchase, thinking they would have something beautiful and Eco, or if not Remarkable notebooks.  Nope.  Something exceptionally beautiful with a hand embroidered bird, but absolutely nothing sustainable.
Then WHSmiths, Nope.
Then Waterstones, Nope.
Then Rymans, Nope.

In Cambridge we have a shop called 'One World Is Enough,' which sells clothes and some other bits and bobs that are fairtrade and imported from South East Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.  I thought 'atleast that will be a socially ethical choice.'  But unfortanately the product just wasnt up to requirement.  They were beautiful Sari covered notebooks, but they were either too small or had a fraction of the number of pages I needed to make it worth buying.

So I popped across to OXFAM.  Yey!! they have recycled paper....oh.. they are diaries, all dated and divided up, so there isnt enough room to write.

One last port of call......JOHN LEWIS.... not exactely my preferred option, due to the size of the company, the exquisite way it fuels capitalism and the price it charges for its product.  Having said that the other companies I was looking at were just as bad.  But I thought I would 'just check.'  And there was nothing, not a smidge of an eco journal, not even any Remarkable notebooks!!!

But then I found two sea green and white polka dot notepads that had been demoted to the bottom  shelf at the end of an aisle, because they were reduced to £2 each and were made of FSC paper. 

And I'm afraid thats the best I could do, and I do feel that I sold out on price. I do like the polka dot though.

So if any of you know where you can find recycled paper journals, I would be glad to know.  I think next time I'll buy Remarkable pads online, well in advance, and decorate them up myself.

Cooking my first ever christmas dinner

On the 27th December my dad came to visit us for christmas.  We decided that I would cook christmas dinner, my very first.  In preparation I decided to go to Mill Road to collect all my ingredients.  Unfortunately these days I end up buying food in supermarkets like Budgens and Sainsburys, due to availability of time, so to peruse the local shops of Mill Road was to be a real treat.

I had planned to go to Northrop's butchers for the chicken, because they can tell you exactly how it was reared and where it came from. But the queue trailed out the door and down the side of the building (it was Friday 23rd). Then I remembered Al-Amin had a butchers and thought at least I would be supporting a local business and the chicken will have had a prayer said for it (Al-Amin is run by a muslim family so the butchers is Halal).  Then I popped to my old work place Arjuna for the veggies; potatoes, brussel sprouts, onion, parsnips and orange (I'll come back to this later) AND what a delight RAINBOW CARROTS, I picked an orange, a white and a PURPLE one. GREAT! All organic.

I popped into Urban Larder, for some home made mince pies, that I had tried at my friends house, who works there.  And then I trundled down to Co-op for the bits I hadn't found in the previous two shops.  Organic chicken stock cubes, Paxo sage and onion stuffing and Aunt Bessie's yorkshire puds, before going home to freeze the chicken.

On the 27th I roasted the chicken whole in the oven. Added roast potatoes into the tin an hour later, with some parsnips.  Then when I took the chicken out to rest I put the brussels on, got the stuffing cooking and them chopped up the carrots, added them to a pan with a big knob of organic butter and then squeezed the whole orange over the top.  I then covered the carrots with water, just so the water covers the carrots, then boiled them for 5 minutes with a lid on and 10 minutes with a lid off, before draining and mixing in freshly chopped tarragon. Mmmmm. It was delicious. And finally my Dad worked his magic on the gravy, making it lovely and thick with cornflour.

What I was most happy about however was the portions I served. Even with all the different veggies, not a thing was left in the pans, note on the plates.  So my Zero Waste christmas pledge to serve perfect portions, was accomplished.

Next year, I would like to make my own yorkshires and have organic, free-range meat.

Live and love the seconds that you breathe.

We are obsessed with striving for happiness.  What makes us happy? What fulfills us? Power? Money? Success? Love?

We spend so much time trying to be better, trying to be happier, constantly reinventing ourselves to be more harmonious and successful and constantly talking about what we should be, what we should be doing, how we should behave. Trying to make ourselves happier, instead of just being.

We are, after all, human beings, shouldn't we just be.

Instead of trying to be the best you can, just be.
Instead of planning and telling people what you are going to do, just do.

Just ride the wave of life and watch it wave by.  We are a mere blip on the scale of existence.  Savour every moment of now.  Look back at all the wonders that have been, look forward to all the wonders that could be,

but live and love the seconds that you breathe.

All Quiet on the Sustainability Front

Hello Old Friend, it has been so long.

I do apologise for my silence over the last months, I have been busy at my job at the Garden Museum where I am a trainee in the sustainability of heritage.  I am already over half way through the traineeship and starting to consider my next career move, but am also starting to refocus on my own sustainable lifestyle (or current lack of it).  It is common knowledge that full time work, particularly with a commute, makes it dreadfully difficult to be sustainable.  In fact it is highly ironic that the trainee in the sustainability of heritage at the Garden Museum lives 60 miles away!!  And with my current long distance work arrangements our household efforts to reduce our energy consumption and our efforts to not have plastic packaging have quite understandably drifted off. 

There is a part of me determined to find some kind of formula, solution, framework or maybe just answers to how to be a sustainable city commuter and I know there are many things that I can change if I just try.  Then there is an even bigger part of me that is becoming resigned to the fact that actually our 40+ hour weeks, where we commute into and out of the city and stays in hotels here and there, just isnt sustainable, thats just the truth of it.  Another truth is that the majority of the commuting population, if not all, do not want to spend 3-4 hours of their day travelling and would like to have more time at home, to nest build, spend with the family, indulge in their hobbies and so on. But unfortunately we feel trapped into an economic system that requires us to conform to this work schedule in order to pay the bills and maintain some sort of lifestyle.  But why am I banging on telling you all this, you already know, we ALL know this to be the case.  The real problem is that we are just not ready to change, some of us dont believe that its financially possible, some of us are too scared and comfortable, some of us feel pressurised by the eyes of society, judging whether we are working hard enough (or in the case of today, working ourselves to the grave). 

For me, I decided to take on the Cambridge to London commute to grapple an amazing career opportunity, to get onto the Sustainability ladder.  'Just a year in London to do this traineeship,' I said, 'I know the commute will be hard, but its totally worth it and its just a year.'  But now as I start looking for my next rung on the ladder, I start to realise that most of the next rungs are in London, that I am going to be hard pushed to continue to do what I want to do in Cambridge.  My life, my passion, is sustainability.  I believe that sustainable development is the most important and fundamental thing in the world today.  Yet to pursue a career in sustainability, seems to mean to give up a sustainable lifestyle.  What a weird world we live in.

I like to endeavour to have a solution at the end of each of my blog posts, something people can take away with them, as I have spent too much time in conferences and discussion groups discussing the same problems with the same arguments and never concluding with an answer.  But this issue isnt as clear cut as me suggesting an answer, because it is so situational, it depends on each family, each household doing a careful cost benefit analysis of their needs, their wants, their money and their time.

For me, the number one thing is getting a job in sustainability, I need to feel that I am working towards something that will make positive sustainable change in the world.  To live sustainabley comes very closely behind, how can you be a sustainability professional if you dont practice what you preach?

So I think my solution is go and grab another sustainability job; if its in London carefully work out how you can make that commuting lifestyle more sustainable.  When you get a job in Cambridge you can enjoy that extra time in making your home and your lifestyle the most sustainable it can be.  Thats the best that I can do for now.

Yorkshire Tea

I received a lovely hand written card from the lovely Chloe Darcy, from Customer Services at Taylors of Harrogate last week.  She kindly responded to my letter requesting that they start to phase out the plastic wrapping from their boxes of tea, explaining that they 'are required to pack [their] boxes with cellophane because they act as a protection against foreign bodies, [reducing] the risk of other products on a shop shelf tainting the flavour of the tea and damaging the tea bags themselves.'  There were some other very kind and friendly pleasantries in the letter and a sample box of 10 Yorkshire Tea bags, wrapped in plastic!!!  All the same I was very pleased to receive such a lovely and gentle hand written reply. 

My quest for plastic free tea bags does not stop there, I shall not be defeated at the last hurdle, I shall get my Yorkshire Tea without the plastic, even if I have to go up there and buy it from them at the factory door myself.  On a more sensible note it would be worth confirming whether the cellophane they use is actually made from cellulose or from petrochemicals.  If made from cellulose then I dont believe that there is a problem as it should biodegrade.  If however it is made from petrochemicals, I SHALL find an alternative.  I have been informed by a colleague at work that Celestial Seasonings tea bags are individually wrapped in a wax coated pocket.  Can anybody confirm this?  I am going to purchase a pack, have a little goosey gander and if it is true, will contact them to see what their wax coating is made of, as there is a chance that it could be petrochemical based.  Should the wax be made out of a biodegradable substance I think that Taylors of Harrogate may be finding a solution to their plastic packaging in the post.

Lushious (plastic free) Looks

I treated myself last week to some utterly delicious lush shampoo and conditioner bars and oooooh la la are they scrumptious.  Not only do they smell divine, they soap up really well and my hair is so much fluffier and voluminous.  The soap is a lot lighter than that you get in a bottle, so it doesnt cling onto you locks weighing you hair down.  The number of bottled brands that I have tried to use to lift my roots and finally I have a ethical product that does the job.

I  also invested in some more toothy tabs which are AMAZING.  Its toothpaste in a tablet and I like it so much more than regular toothpaste.  It isnt minty like a tube of toothpaste, it taste a little bit soapy (which takes a little bit of getting used to) but it has more of a chalky texture, which means your teeth feel like they get a much more thorough clean, almost an exfoliation.



Toothpaste is just a habit - give it up and stick to toothy tabs.



What makes these three products all so much more scrumptious is they are all completely plastic package free - WOOPEE, which means the only plastic packaging in our bathroom now is my face cleanser and the bathroom cleaners, oh and the next item.

There is one other thing that I have been pondering a lot at the moment and that is razors.  Now I am not a big fan of shaving, its a pain in the derriere as far as I am concerned and my skin isnt too keen on it either, it always gets sore, but what really annoys me is the number of plastic disposable razors that I have sent to the landfill in my years.  But lets face it unshaven legs just arnt acceptable in this society and I like to bare my legs so whats got to be done has got to be done.

So I have invested in a VENUS (oooooo), and yes it is still plastic and it is a little expensive, BUT its just the head of the razor that you change, so that means a lot less plastic going to landfill AND the razor is a lot better quality so my legs should be happier.  But if anyone has any more eco ideas to keep my legs smooth and sexy please do let me know.  I had thought about going old school with a barbers razor, buuut, I am rather clumsy and I would like to keep all parts of my legs.

Thanks for reading,

Best wishes,

from a lushily smelling, voluminous hair wearing, plastic free Jade

Belated Lent Update

MASS MASS MASS apologies for having neglected this blog for a month!!!!  I have recently taken a new job which requires me to commute to London and have just been settling in.  So to all of you who have been following my plastic free progress, I hope you can accept my apologies and that you will enjoy my Lent synopsis.

Yorkshire Tea:

I would like to start this update where I started this blog, with the issue of Yorkshire Tea.  I went for three weeks without a cup of Yorkshire tea because the card boxes are wrapped in cellophane!!  It was torture.  A cup of Yorkshire tea on a morning and after work are two of my daily pleasures and other teas just don't rate.  I have been sipping Biodynamic Peppermint and Chamomile tea instead, both utterly delicious, but they just don't hit that caffinated, sweet and milky tea spot. 

Action:  Write to Taylors of Harrogate asking them why they use plastic wrapping, whether they could stop using it and whether they could send me a big plastic free supply, to keep me going until they find a solution.

Meat and Dairy:

I/We didn't manage to consume plastic free meat and dairy products, as I found that I didn't make the time to go and buy cheese from the market and didn't have the motivation to go to the butchers for Liam, although we rarely have meat in the house anyway.

Action:  Build a weekly trip to the market for plastic free bread and cheese, into my weekly routine.

Abel & Cole:

I have been disappointed on a number of occasions when in our veg box from Abel & Cole salads and greens have come wrapped in plastic.

Action:  Do not buy those products from Abel & Cole which do come in plastic packaging and write to them to inform them of your decision, whilst suggesting alternatives that they might implement.  Could salads come in the fridge boxes, in card boxes so that they don't get bashed yet stay cool? 

Upcycling:

We continued to buy margarine and butter in plastic tubs but have washed and saved each container for use at a later date.  Any plastic bottles that we have ended up with, such as the containers for cleaning and washing products we have also washed and saved.  This has lead to a rather amusing storage problem; we are collecting far more plastic containers than we can find uses for and so we now have a mountain of plastic hiding (and now spilling out from) behind the sofa!!!

Action 1:  Identify which plastic packages you acquire most often and re-source the product.  Once resourced find the next offender. 

Action 2:  Brainstorm objects/ items that you would like for the home or garden that could be constructed from the plastic collection.  Eg. Gutter for shed and plastic bottle green house.

Emergencies:  I have also experienced a couple of sugar dip emergencies.  One when I accompanied Liam to hospital for his finger x-ray after he got it stuck in his car door (the car actually has a dent in it, OUCH!).  Just as the nurse was finished strapping Liam's finger up, I almost fainted so we had to quickly get me something to eat.  My options were;  a) chocolate (in plastic), b) crisps (in plastic) or c) soft drinks (in plastic)!!!  I went for chocolate and crisps. : (  I find it very strange that the refreshment services in hospital waiting rooms are always chocolate and crisp vending machines, but that's another matter.  Similarly I have found myself on the London underground getting over heated and hypoglycemic and having to rush to the nearest bit of sugar, unavoidably wrapped in plastic. 

Action:  Eat more regularly and always have some homemade biscuits, or similar, in my bag, for such moments.

Full time work and THE COMMUTE:

Three weeks ago I started the first ever traineeship in the Sustainability of Heritage, based at the Garden Museum, Lambeth, London.  Please watch out for my blog 'Sustaining Heritage' to find out all about it and follow my sustainability journey.  My life has changed from part time work, just a 15 minute cycle from my home, to full time work a 2 hour journey from my home.  Before you can say anything, I am perfectly aware that my new job is less sustainable in terms of travel and time, but it is much more personally sustainable in keeping me challenged, mentally stimulated and its a step onto my career ladder.  It was just a week ago, when I realised why it was that I had found the plastic packaging abstinence relatively easy.  I had plenty of time on my hands and would cycle past several independent retailers, giving me plenty of choice in which products I choose to purchase.  Now I have, on average, an 11 hour day, during which I travel on train and the London underground (although I have just signed up for my Boris Bike), leaving me very little opportunity and energy to purchase consciously and prepare meals from scratch.

However I am not defeated, in fact I am even more motivated to eradicate plastic from my life.  My personal challenge is now more relative to the rest of society who work full time, commute and has a family to look after.  I am in a position where I can produce a realistic, tried and tested, frame work for people who have similar concerns, to adopt.

But the removal of plastic from a society and a world, that 100% relies on the production of fossil fuels, is no easy feat.  It requires a gentle and steady lifestyle change but as dramatic as a caterpillar breaking free from its cocoon and spreading out its brilliant dusted wings to partake a new role in the world.  A role where people stop to watch with amazement and follow the trail of those glorious beating wings. 

Step by step, beat by beat, we can make that transition.

I will now take a step by step approach to removing plastic from my life, with small challenges and targets to reach on a fortnightly or monthly basis.  Join in if you wish, and let me know what challenges you face on the way and to what degree you achieved each step.

I have been very grateful for all your comments and suggestions and hope that you continue to contribute to this undeniably difficult challenge.

I shall start by writing to both Taylors of Harrogate and Abel & Cole about their use of plastic packaging.  I will let you know when I receive a response.

Love and hugs,

Jade