Ethical Living – Enviro-Mentalist

Sorry, rant coming up

There has been quite a lot in the press recently about our disappearing wildlife – the Guardian and Independent ran just two examples in the last few months.

The State of Nature Report in 2016 gave two main reasons for the decline in UK wildlife – climate change and agricultural practices. One of the best things to do to reduce climate change is to stop flying. Simple. It has more impact than going vegetarian as far as climate change is concerned – halving meat intake for a year would only have the same impact as not going on one return flight to New York. But, of course, there are other environmental impacts related to farming beyond climate change such as pesticide use, monocultures and pollution.

So, in order to help wildlife we should stop flying, reduce our travel in general, eat less meat and be more aware of where our food comes from (and associated food miles) and how it is produced.

Why then, do wildlife NGOs not try and positively influence the behaviour of their members. The BTO has a long standing partnership with Syngenta which manufactures the neonics that have recently been banned for flowering crops in the UK due to their harmful impact on pollinators. As many farmland birds rely on insects for food one can only assume that the use of the neonics is not a positive thing for them either. I cancelled my membership of the BTO when I discovered this. The RSPB magazine (when I was a member) was littered with adverts for foreign holidays round the world. Indeed they even have a section on their website about Eco Tourism which admittedly does push the benefits of staying in the UK or travelling by train. But, it states on the page that 45% of members surveyed had been on three holidays in the last 12 months. I cancelled my RSPB membership because of their constant push of foreign holidays and foreign birding articles. Even my beloved Butterfly Conservation is not immune – they had 5 adverts for foreign holidays in the latest edition of Butterfly, two less than last time I suppose. At least two out of three of the Woodland Trust’s holiday adverts are for train journeys into Europe.

So, I implore those at the conservation charities, and anyone who is worried about the decline in UK wildlife to think about their travel and their food choices, otherwise you are directly contributing to the decline of the wildlife that you purport to conserve.

Antibiotics in livestock

In the UK, 44% of antibiotics are prescribed to non-humans – that’s livestock, including gamebirds, (37%) and pets (7%)¹. That’s not to say there are likely to be antibiotics in your meat, there is a mandated withdrawal period before any animal is slaughtered for meat or before milk enters the food chain. However, the overuse of antibiotics as a cause of antibiotic resistance applies as much to veterinary use as for human use. Despite the emergence of antibiotic resistance shortly after the discovery of antibiotics in the 1940s, and many reports in the 1960s and 1970s, it wasn’t until 2006 that the use of antibiotics as growth promoters was banned in the EU. The good news is that government targets to reduce antibiotic use in livestock are currently on track. The bad news is that they are finding antibiotic resistant genes in meat around the world.

The Guardian recently reported on an increase in the proportion of chickens found in UK supermarkets that had campylobacter resistant to the antibiotics used to treat it. (Campylobacter can cause serious food poisoning in humans.) Whilst there are differences in many of the bacteria that infect animals and humans, there is the potential for resistance to be transferred between species (horizontal transfer) and there are some bacteria that are shared; Salmonella and Campylobacter being two examples.

It is also worth noting that 83 billion tonnes of livestock manure is spread onto land each year in the UK, and in one gram of manure there are 1×10¹¹ bacteria, which means that if just 1% of the bacteria have resistance to antibiotics, then there are more resistant bugs than there are grains of sand going onto UK fields each year.

So, given that it might be a problem, what are the supermarkets doing about it? To date, there are only three supermarkets publishing data on the use of antibiotics in their supply chain; Marks and Spencer, Waitrose and Asda, all seem to have less than the sector average which means someone is using more than average. With the exception of Lidl, all of the supermarkets publish their policy online; many contain the same aims. Most are targeting a reduction in the amount used in their supply chain, although some are only just starting to monitor and establish their baselines. All of them say that they will only allow the use of antibiotics under veterinary supervision. But some of the pledges are not entirely clear; for example, Aldi state on their website that they don’t support the use of antibiotics as prophylactics (used to treat an animal to prevent disease e.g. if others in the herd are ill), but then in their policy they state that prophylaxis is only permitted under veterinary supervision. Sainsbury’s have something similar on their website.

But, most concerning to me is the stand on CIAs – Critically Important Antibiotics – antibiotics important to human health. Only M&S states that they prohibit the use of these, including Colistin, the last resort antibiotic for humans. All of the other supermarkets mention them, but they only go so far as to state that they can only be used as a last resort. Whilst these antibiotics only make up around 1% of the total use in animals, M&S seem to be saying that they don’t need to be used at all. With the first bacon labelled as being raised without antibiotics hitting supermarket shelves², perhaps change is on the way?

https://www.farmantibiotics.org/science-facts/antibiotic-infographs/human-vs-animal-antibiotic-use/
https://farming.co.uk/news/antibiotic-free-meat-goes-on-sale-in-uk

The Blue Planet Effect – is it real?

Even without a television, I am aware of the so-called Blue Planet 2 effect. Or at least one manifestation of it – the ‘concern’ about the plastic pollution in the oceans.

We now have a Prime Minister calling for the removal of single use plastic ‘wherever possible’. Michael Gove has mentioned plastic and Blue Planet in the House of Commons. There is some rejoicing on social media as the government is consulting on a deposit return scheme for plastic – just as we did in the 1970s for glass. At work I have even had people asking me if we can do some more recycling because ‘We have to save the fishes’.

My first thoughts were why can’t we do the same for Climate Change – make it something people care about? After all, climate change is arguably an even bigger problem. But, I am reliably informed that the series also emphasised the devastating impact of climate change on our oceans – but somehow this seems to have been lost in the press. I am sure there are many theories out there as to why this is the case, but I can think of a couple of reasons. You can see plastic; pictures of seahorses with cotton buds and turtles with plastic in their mouths are memorable. Other than a polar bear without an iceberg, what does the impact of climate change on the oceans look like? Possibly just as important though is that to make an impact on climate change, we all have to change our lifestyles. Whilst these solutions will save households money, for most people not flying, turning down the heating, cutting car use or going meat light are not things that we are willing to do just to save the planet.

But, I hear you say, there are things individuals can do to mitigate the plastic issue – and indeed there are. We can stop using plastic bags (although that only worked when the government slapped a 5p tax on them). We can get a reusable water bottle – that would definitely save money (and I see them being used much more frequently) or a reusable coffee cup (again, I think a tax is the only way, because I rarely see anyone taking a coffee cup into most coffee shops). But these are hardly going to be a lifestyle change compared to giving up a Caribbean holiday or fancy new SUV.

But, once we have our reusable bottle and cup, we can sit back and be pleased with ourselves, because it is the supermarkets’ faults and there is not much more we can do about it, even if we wanted to. And, there is a point – there are increasing shouts on Twitter about the fact that some supermarkets are charging much less money for veg in plastic than loose and unfettered as nature intended, and it seems that the number of items sweating in plastic on the shelves is increasing. Going plastic free often seems to be the expensive option. I can (and now do) buy my milk in glass, but the increase in cost is about having it delivered rather than being in glass – that adds just 1p over the delivered plastic version. The switch to glass is costing me about £100 – but then I have saved half of that amount (and probably done my health some good) by cutting my milk consumption by about 2 pints a week.

If you think I am being a little harsh on my fellow British humans and their motivations, I would point to a recent IPSO Mori poll about the British attitude to plastic. Whilst 85% of those polled were concerned about plastic to some extent (interestingly it was the millennials and GenX who were the least concerned) only 3% believed we consumers had the biggest responsibility to reduce packaging, 27% thought it was down to the companies that make the goods. Most think it is a shared responsibility between companies producing and selling packaged goods, the government and consumers (and I would tend to agree).

Given that 85% of us think there needs to be a solution, it appears that other than reusing bags and bottles (but worryingly only 75% of those polled are willing to make this small change) only a measly 14% would pay more Council Tax to improve recycling and only 12% would pay more for goods with no packaging that can’t be recycled.

Hmm, something doesn’t add up because although we are not willing to pay more, almost half of those questioned felt that in order to help sort the plastic pollution problem there should be a tax on retailers who produce a lot of unrecyclable packaging (which there already is) and that councils should be forced to spend more on recycling facilities (a lot of the facilities are already there…) Surprisingly (not) a fine on householders that don’t recycle (yes, some of my neighbours, that’s you) was not deemed likely to be effective to solve the plastic problem.

So, I am not convinced there is a Blue Planet 2 effect. If there is will it last? (Not if it requires consumers to take the initiative and change things.) And, why have the Netherlands got the first plastic free supermarket aisle and not the UK?

Zero Waste Week – not rubbish so far

This week is Zero Waste Week and I thought this was probably a good excuse to host some events at work to start raising awareness about waste. The theme of Zero Waste Week is ‘Do One More Thing” and there are lots of things that people can do that will reduce the ridiculous amount of waste that we create. My aim this week is to get people thinking along the lines of reuse rather than recycle – see my previous post on why I hate recycling.

At the hospital where I work as Sustainability Manager, we produce a lot of waste. And I mean that in the sense of waste being something that is no longer to be used for the original intention. However, in actual fact I don’t believe it is really waste.

So, for Zero Waste Week I decided to have a series of events for the week, all to get people thinking about waste and, yes recycling if it can’t be reused.

After two days, which I couldn’t call the busiest two days I’ve had in terms of talking to people, I have had some success and am developing a few ideas for further waste reduction projects.

We started with a uniform and stationery amnesty on Monday. I had several trollies full of stationery delivered and have distributed several reams of coloured paper and a few boxes of folders already. I also got to talk to a few people as they passed; always worthwhile.

Tuesday we had our new waste management company in with free lollipops – we were hoping for pens (pens are like gold dust in a hospital and open many a door) but they didn’t arrive in time! However, they had a recycling game which gave us something to talk to staff and visitors about – many didn’t realise that plastic bottles could be made into fleece jackets or that their food waste collected from their doorsteps is used to generate electricity. Although not as good as pens, lollipops are a useful way to invite people to talk to you – or just to put a smile on their face as they wait for the lift.

We still have three days left although I am trusting in our catering team to deliver tomorrow whilst I am away in London.

A Zero Waste Week Rant

I have a confession to make that may surprise people that have never had a conversation with me (and, please don’t tell our waste contractors this).

I HATE RECYCLING!

Or, to be a little more precise I hate the perceptions and excuses that recycling brings. I have lost count of the number of times that I’ve heard people say, I do everything I can, I recycle! Sorry, no you don’t do everything, you put something you buy in a bin that is provided for you. Or, another of my favourites, we are in a better position than we were thirty years ago. WRONG. (I ranted at a bunch of old men in a meeting about this once – most unlike me, as I am actually usually quite shy and retiring).

I grew up in the 70s (yes, I know, I am old). We didn’t have so much recycling back then, but we didn’t throw so much away either. Today we throw away an average of 423 kg of waste per person (and this has fallen dramatically in the last five years) whereas 30 years ago we each threw away 25kg less. When you consider how much effort has gone into reducing the amount of material in packaging – thinner bottles, thinner cans, less easter egg packaging (it appears everything is getting thinner apart from the general populace itself), it is still a bit disappointing that we are now where we are. But, as a child of the 1970s I remember that we used to have a return on the pop bottles so of course we didn’t throw them away. The milkman brought the milk in milk bottles which he collected when empty and returned for reuse. We used to hire our television and it was easy (if not cheap) to take it back to be repaired – have you tried finding someone to fix a TV or fridge recently? The last time I tried to get my fridge fixed I was told it wasn’t possible. When we went to the supermarket (such that there were back then) you would put your food in a shopping basket or, if it was a Friday night big shop (yes, we did call them that, Peter Kay didn’t make that up) you would get one of the cardboard boxes from the back of the store to put the tins in. You didn’t get a plastic bag – they charged for those! And you certainly didn’t have all your food prepackaged – who ever thought putting bananas or mushrooms in plastic was either necessary or useful?

We might be making moves to be more sustainable – but all we are doing in many cases is turning the clock back. There are now reverse vending machines that give you tokens for bringing your bottles or cans back, there is a move to leasing items so the onus is on the manufacturer to make the goods repairable or recyclable, people search Freegle for cardboard boxes (because you can’t pick them up from the supermarket any more and they come in handy for so many things). I believe that George Osborne (our green chancellor – please, please say you realise I am being sarcastic) is even thinking of charging for plastic bags – his excuse to date has been that it might send us back into recession and hit our pockets too hard – I might be misty eyed in my recollections (remembering days when wagon wheel chocolate wasn’t translucent) but I don’t think anyone blamed plastic bag charges in the 1970s for people being poor. I thought there was an oil crisis and three day week and huge inflation and trade unions that affected disposable income, not plastic bags being less than free!

So, the next time you congratulate yourself on your dark green credentials and think that you are doing all you can because you are recycling, be a bit more critical and think – what am I recycling, did I need it in the first place and, can I reuse it or next time buy something that is reusable? Remember, Freegle is your friend.

Leading by example.

One of the quotes by Ghandi that is often cited, particularly within the environmental and sustainability world is

‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’

To be honest it is probably the only quote I can remember reading that is ascribed to Ghandi. However, it highlights an issue that I see quite often.

I am now lucky enough to work as a Sustainability Manager, I hesitate to use the word professional as I am not sure what constitutes professional sustainability. But, I digress. Although I have only worked in this area for a couple of years, a couple of things soon became obvious. Firstly, almost everything in some way comes back to sustainability – most things are linked; travel, food, climate change, population – you name it and I can probably link it into sustainability somehow. Secondly, some of the issues seem to be so obvious that you wonder why they are an issue at all. Why isn’t everyone changing their behaviour to preserve the planet – if not for future generations then at least so I don’t have to suffer in my old age?

But then, and here is where I really want to rant, I look around me at colleagues in the sustainability arena. I see pictures of them on holiday in places where they could only get to by ‘plane. Apparently it is their only vice and they do everything else sustainably – BUT this outweighs all the other stuff and then some! Others get out their latest iPhone, would not even consider cutting down on meat, don’t care whether their food is Fair Trade or locally grown. I could, and often do go on. I recently made a comment when a colleague was talking about their upcoming cruise around the caribbean to the effect that I can no longer go on a ‘plane. They thought that I was afraid of flying (for the record I’m not) – and were gobsmacked when I said that I could no longer fly for ethical reasons.

I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I do try to reduce my environmental impact as much as possible and don’t ask others to do anything or give up anything that I wouldn’t do or give up.

After all, how can I tell people about climate change, try and convince them to adopt more climate friendly behaviours and then jump on a ‘plane to fly halfway across the world for a holiday? It would be like being an overweight, twenty a day doctor lecturing someone on their unhealthy lifestyle.

An adventure on public transport.

As a Sustainability Manager and a self-confessed environmentalist I often feel very guilty about using my car to get to work. This was obviously not a problem when I could walk to work, but now, at just over 15 miles, it might take a while.

For various reasons, mainly relating to being a one-car family, I decided to try taking the bus to work last week. This was the first time I had caught a but other than for park and ride reasons in over 15 years. When I lived in Birmingham buses were so frequent on some routes that the timetable simply stated ‘every few minutes’ and I simply would never contemplate doing other than using public transport. However, Northamptonshire is a different kettle of fish and public transport in Daventry could certainly be improved.

Still, I was up for an adventure. I enquired about times and prices by email (why you can’t get this from the website I don’t know – it seems to be possible for National Rail, but not Stagecoach buses) and I received a response in less than an hour including a copy of the timetable. All was set. So, on Monday morning I diligently set off round the corner to catch the bus, nearly missed it because I suddenly realised that they might not stop at every stop and I hadn’t seen this one on the timetable, so ran to the next stop.

We went round the housing estates to get to the bus station and then round some more to get out of Daventry and on the road to Northampton. To be fair, once we were out of Northampton it was pretty much a straight route into town, with only a few stops on the way and we were at the Railway station within a few minutes of the promised time. The same was true of the journey back.

I can’t complain about the bus, or the drivers or the price – at £6.40 it was fairly comparable to the cost of petrol and not much more than a return would cost on the train from Long Buckby which I would have to drive to because the first bus to the railway station isn’t until 9am – but that is another rant. However, if there is more than one of you , then the costs are not so comparable. I did find it a bit disorienting as the windows were steamed up and at times I had no idea where I was, but that was because I was merrily catching up on some reading which is an advantage of going by public transport.

However, the things that put me off and that will stop me making this a regular journey and therefore lessening my green guilt are the frequency of the buses and the time it takes for my commute. There is only one bus an hour, which means that in order to get to Northampton in time to start at 8:30 then I have to leave home at 6:45. In the car I can comfortably leave 45 minutes later. I also have to leave work before 5pm which is not something I can do every day otherwise I won’t get home until after 7pm. On a normal day in the car my commute from door to door lasts 1 hour 15 minutes maximum. On the bus it is double that.

Don’t get me wrong, if I didn’t have a car then the bus is definitely a viable way to get to work, but if it can’t tempt someone who longs to be greener from their car, then what chance do the buses on this side of Northamptonshire have of persuading people that actually like being in their car to make that change?

Waste Hierarchy

OK, if asked to state what the waste hierarchy is then I guess a lot of people would be stumped. However, most people have heard of reduce, reuse recycle – a lot of waste collection vehicles have it plastered all over their sides. This has become an easily repeated mantra, but, what does it mean in practice and why is it important, particularly for business?

Taking the latter question first, a recent change to the waste regulations (2011) states that:

‘ businesses who import or produce, collect, transport, recover or dispose of waste, or who operate as dealers and brokers, must take all reasonable measures to apply the waste hierarchy when the waste is transferred’ (taken from the environment agency website).

The waste hierarchy also has recover and dispose – this means that where possible a company should consider energy recovery through either combustion or anaerobic digestion. Any waste transfer notes and consignment notes will, from the end of September 2011, include a declaration that the waste hierarchy has been considered in the disposal of the waste.

To me, this poses a question – if I can have my waste collected by two companies, one of which takes any unrecyclable waste to an energy recovery facility and one that sends to landfill, do I have to go with the first company if I am to comply with regulations? Do I need to check whether there is methane recovery from the landfill? Does that count in the same way as the energy recovery? So far, I have not been able to definitively answer that question. The fact that some companies still send to landfill (and therefore charge the landfill tax and its associated escalator) makes me think that there is a loophole somewhere. From an economic point of view, my research to date has shown that removing landfill tax by sending product to energy recovery saves a considerable amount of money – by 2014 the cost will be £80 per tonne and most standard skips hold around half a tonne each time they are emptied. (The rights and wrongs of burning potentially valuable resources is a topic for another blog post.)

One of the other major changes in the regulations doesn’t come into effect for another four years, but concerns the collection of recycling and will affect quite a number of companies. At the moment companies can salve their conscience and save making too much effort by having what is called Dry Mixed Recycling (DMR). This means that cardboard, paper, office waste, bottles, cans, plastic etc., can all be put in one container which is later sorted by the waste company (who charge a little more for this as well). I have also heard of some companies that collect separated waste in one vehicle – thus begging the question as to why separate in the first place. I have two problems with this practice. The first is purely practical. The value and usefulness of these recyclates is lowered because they are contaminated – this is particularly true of the cardboard and paper. The second is a matter of perception. If someone has to make more of an effort and think about what they are recycling because they have to consider and separate the different types, does the importance of recycling increase in their mind.

From 2015 anyone who produces paper, glass, plastic or metal waste streams will have to ensure they have taken all practicable steps to ensure they are separated. This will mean a change in collection facilities for many companies and therefore a change in culture. My team and I instigated a separated recycling system on one of our sites a few years ago. We did encounter some resistance at first, but eventually most people did come on board. The main problems result from lorry drivers throwing anything they can in the recycling skip.

In later posts I will go through some of the things that can be put in place to reduce your waste to landfill as well as taking you along the journey I am starting as I attempt to instigate a waste management practice at work.

Packaging Issues

OK, to some of you this may not seem like a big deal, but I am increasingly paying more attention to packaging and am trying to buy products with less packaging. Where packaging is essential, then recyclable or recycled packaging is the preferred option. I recently had cause to change my brand of porridge oats (mainly because Waitrose have a habit of putting them on offer and running out of stock) so, my environmentalist head thought that it would try Jordans who are seem to be doing quite a lot for wildlife and sustainability.

All appeared to be OK, there are notes on the back of the packet about their work with farmers and nature-friendly methods. However, when I opened the box I was hugely disappointed to see that there was a bag inside the cardboard (unlike my usual brand) – do porridge oats really need to havetwo layers of packaging – they are not very likely to go off? What was even more disappointing though was that they did not respond to my email asking why they felt the need to add in the extraneous bag. This is not to say that I will not buy their product again, because now I have done some digging I have discovered that unlike Jordans, my usual brand does not state the origin of their oats. (I have therefore sent an email asking for their oaty origin, but usually, if they are not shouting about it they are not sourcing from the UK.)

My search for packaging information has also resulted in the discovery of a symbol on the cereal box that I had never noticed before – the orange and white arrows in the bottom right corner of the box shown in the picture above. Whilst this is obviously not a recycling symbol, it does look as though it is related – one could maybe assume that the packaging was made from recycled materials. Unfortunately this is not the case as a quick search around the Jordans website revealed. The intertwined arrows merely show that the Company is complying with European regulations. Companies over a certain size (turnover) or who buy above a threshold of packaging must ‘recover’ that packaging. In practice this means that the Company pays a certain amount into a scheme which then recovers / recycles a certain proportion of packaging material. So, in reality the intertwined arrows just mean that Jordans are not breaking the law on packaging waste regulations – not that they are doing anything special to help the environment.

Whilst Jordans are not the only company to put this symbol on their cartons I think that it is certainly misleading – I didn’t know what the symbol meant and I am responsible for ensuring that our company pays a sufficient amount into one of these schemes!

First Steps

Just like everyone else I have a long list of things to do / organise / put in place which really do not take much effort or time at all. One of these things is to increase the recycling that we do at work. I have now taken the first step and we have installed a textile bin on site to collect old textiles on behalf of the firefighters charity. The main idea behind having the recycling bin is to give us somewhere to put old uniforms and gloves, but it is also obviously available for people to bring their old clothes etc in from home.

As well as reducing the waste going to landfill, we will be donating to a worthwhile charity and raising awareness of the amount of things that can be recycled rather than wasted. In many ways however, this is more a case of reusing rather than recycling. Any useful items of clothing are sent to poorer nations in Africa, and any textiles that are beyond use are reused as industrial rags etc. It was really easy to set up and the next step is to put these bins on the rest of our UK sites.

In a separate project, a colleague of mine has found a way to recycle (or upcycle as it is more correctly known) crisp packets – which is a pretty good idea considering that an average of 5 or 6 packets are eaten per day in the office (and there are only 8 people in the office!) They are now collected up and sent to a PO Box for the Philippine Community Fund. They are shipped on a boat that is already going to the Philippines and there they are made into bags and purses – about thirty crisp packets making a bag (or one per week for the office). This is intended to reduce child labour in the Philippines as it means that the children of these ladies can then go to school.