The (anti)-Shopping List

This week, and my final post for 2014, a simple challenge and only a few words from me as the image speaks for itself. Whether your motivation is saving pennies, protecting the environment, reducing clutter or all of the above, this is the list for you!

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Have a great week and summer break.  If you are not studying with us next year, keep in contact with us and this blog by signing up to our Facebook page or the FutureFocusVet page.

Say no to plastic

Welcome back to term 4.  You are on the home straight now - keep up the great work.  We hope these weekly blogs have provide a welcome distraction from the study grind and given you some good food for thought.  Remember, above all "do good".

Do you ever think about plastic and waste plastic and its impact on the environment?   Here is a recent  journal article that highlights the effects of waste plastic on bird life in the Otago region.

These effects are not isolated to birds.  Waste plastic is also found in the sea, rivers and also in our native bush, not to mention the paddocks that grow our farm animals and produce our milk.  Plastic debris kills animals by strangulation or acting as a tourniquet on the outside and on the inside causing gut blockages.  There is also the problem associated with ingestion of the toxic components and the risks affecting us as they enter the food chain, when we eat the animal that has ingested plastic debris.

Image source - Just one of the many images available if you Google plastic strangling animals.  The images are horrendous.  

So what actions can you take:

1. Pick up any plastic you find in the environment - even if you didn't drop it and dispose of it correctly
2. Make conscious choices about what you purchase.  

Here are some easy changes that you can make

• Stop buying glad wrap - fullstop.  You can use plates to cover plates or use long lasting reusable containers with lids.
• Stop buying bottled water - in NZ there is never a reason to do this. 
• Bake your own bread - you know what’s in it then and no plastic bags; purchase from a bakery that uses paper.  Dispose of the paper bags in the recycling or compost.  
• Buy as many products in compostable packaging as possible.  If an alternative is not available - ask yourself, do I need this product? and if the answer is no, don't buy it.  If the answer is yes, challenge the company to produce better packaging. 
• Take reusable containers to the butcher and reusable cotton bags to the supermarket and fruit and vegetable shop to put your purchases in.  
• Tell people what you are doing and challenge them to follow the trend for "doing good". 

Challenge: 

Look in your rubbish bin (both recycling and general waste and make a list of all the plastic products in there).  Identify which ones you can stop buying then and there, which ones you can purchase an alternative for and which ones need you to challenge the company/ies to do better.  For the latter category, when contact them regarding this - tell your friends on Facebook or other social media sites and ask them to send a similar message.  

Together little by little we can make a big difference! 

Have a great week

Ecotherapy

Thank you to my colleague Jane who provided the inspiration for today's post which is about Ecotherapy.  

Ecotherapy is about creating connections with nature to help make you feel better. The concept is a newly emerging therapy for people in Western cultures who are depressed or suffering from other mental illness.  Spending time in nature is invigorating and good for well being and even if you are not clinically depressed, there is evidence to suggest that it can be an effective part of a treatment regime.

If we are connected with nature and understand how we and planet earth is interconnected with the greater universe, then we potentially have greater personal sustainability and also a greater understanding of why we must maintain natural systems.

Image source: Wikimedia

There is a very good discussion on the SustainableMan website which clearly explains the current disconnect we have with nature.  For those of you that still don't recognise it, this is probably the first thing to overcome when starting to get your head around the change required to feel connected with our environment.  A connection with nature will help cement the idea of strong sustainability.

Ecotherapy in your life could be just getting out and gardening or going for a walk in a natural environment, it also could include getting involved with other people in outdoor community projects like community gardens, beach clean ups, tree planting or volunteering for DOC.  Contact your local residents association or local or regional council to help you connect with these groups.

To listen to a BBC podcast on Ecotherapy click here.

Don't forget to tell us what each blog post inspires you to do!

Have a great week.

Picking the low hanging fruit

Any thoughts on last weeks post about the dog biscuits and seeds innovation?  We would really like to hear your thoughts.  Here is the link again.  Please read it and share your thoughts.  There are no right or wrong answers and you don't have to be one of our students to post, so for the other people out there following this, we'd love your thoughts!

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What can you do right now - at work or at home for little or no cost?

This week we look at things you could do right now.  This list will not be complete.  We'd love you all to suggest at least one more thing to add to the list.  Lets inspire everyone to make simple changes.

• Block drafts - use draft stoppers (you can make these out of scrap material filled with sand for example, or the leg of an old pair of trousers, again filled with sand or maybe even other scrap fabric and seal doors and windows with that spongy tape.
• Turn the lights off when not in use
• Turn off your computers at night
• Change your light bulbs to more energy efficient ones
• Stop using the clothes dryer - hang wet towels/bedding and clothing on the line
• Stop printing receipts, and don't offer your clients an option - email them and tell them why
• Recycle all cardboard and paper - see if your wholesaler if you are working at a veterinary clinic will take back old boxes to be used for future orders.  
• Install curtains or blinds over windows for more insulation 
• Stop driving places that are closer than 2km from your home or work.  Walk or Bike!
• Try taking the bus some days instead of driving
• Have a competition with your family and friends or other businesses and see who can reduce their energy usage by the greatest percentage each month.  Do the same with fuel use too.  
• Plant a few lettuces in your garden.  You don't have to be green fingered to grow a few veges!

What other little things can you think of that can be done for little or no cost?

What changes have you been inspired to make this year?  

We look forward to hearing from you!

Have a great week.

Is this innovation really sustainable or is it greenwash?

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You have all been reading this blog for three and a half terms now, so its time that it got interactive!

Have a look at this video

This video is about a dog food company in Slovenia that has added live seeds to dog biscuits so where the dog does his business, a seed can grow.  

They suggest picking up dog faeces in public areas, but that in an area that has not been designed for public use (eg an old industrial site)  maybe you don't need to and that by using their biscuits you can beautify this landscape.

Is this marketing hype and greenwash, or a really good idea? What do you think?

Consider:

• The idea of not picking up dog faeces - do we want dog faeces lying around even in less used areas?
• Think about the microorganisms in dog faeces and land/water contamination if faeces aren't picked up
• The types of seeds used - what might be good choices given they are growing out of dog faeces? if the biscuits were imported or the seeds imported is there a biosecurity risk?  In NZ, would native seeds be better - will they grow out of dog poo?  
• Could the picked-up faeces be safely put in the garden elsewhere and the seeds allowed to germinate?
• Is dog faeces good compost - like we know sheep, horse, cow and chicken faeces are?

We look forward to your ideas.  Comment directly on the blog or in Moodle and we will summarise them (no names will be used) 

Paper Towels

This week Otago Polytechnic have launched a joint initiative with the Dunedin City Council to compost paper towels.  The trial will be re-evaluated after 3 months.  Paper towels can't be recycled with standard paper recycling as they are wet and also they are a different quality paper (often already recycled).   This is an exciting initiative for the polytechnic.  Remember if you are on campus to reserve the paper towel bins for only papers towels.  Any other rubbish contamination would jeopardise the initiative.  

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And the relevance to this blog audience, who are primarily off-campus?

Whether you are based on-campus or off-campus, as most of you are, this is a great initiative and it could be timely to look into for your paper towel disposal methods at your own workplace.  In veterinary clinics hand washing and drying, as well as table wiping, is far more frequent  due to the nature of the work.  This can generate significant amounts of rubbish if paper towels are used.

With the launch of the Otago Polytechnic initiative the challenge for you and/or your workplace, whether it be a veterinary clinic or another work place, is to  encourage you to undertake an evaluation of the method of hand drying and look for improvements and efficiency's.  

For hand drying:

• What do you use to dry your hands?
• What is most effective?  Remember completely dry hands is the aim.  
• Maybe you share a hand towel - is this suitable?  Are there any health and safety considerations?  The considerations may depend on the particular workplace.
• In a small workplace everyone might have an individual towel - does this work?  Could it work for your workplace?  Who washes the towels?  When are they washed?  What are they washed with? Is it a full load?  How are they dried?
• Perhaps you use one of those towel dispensers that rolls up the used towel.  As I understand it these are less and less available as an option and I imagine they were pretty energy intensive in terms of collecting them, dismantling, washing and putting back together.  
• Perhaps you use hand dryers.  How effective and efficient are these?  Could they be replaced with a more efficient type that actually dries your hands?
• Paper towels. Are they bleached or unbleached?  Where are they sourced from?  How many are used? How are they disposed of? Can they be composted in your area?  
• If you use paper towels, how can we effectively reduce the number used?  You need 2 or 3 to dry your hands effectively right? Have a look at this TEDtalk which begs to differ. 
• Evaluate the financial cost of each option - is the option also cost efficient?.   

For table wiping:

• What do you use?
• If its paper - is it bleached or unbleached?  Where are they sourced from?  How many are used? How are they disposed of? Could they be composted with the disinfectant you choose to use?
• Could something reusable like a CHUX cloth be used and then washed?  
• What is the energy and time cost of washing and reusing vs paper towels?  What is the financial cost differential?  Is there any risk of residual contamination on a reused cloth?
• Does the disinfectant used have any environmental risks which preclude washing a cloth? 
• If the disinfectant used does have environmental risks, refer to this blog post.  

By using these questions as a starting point you can start reviewing the cost of what you use currently vs other options  both financially, environmentally and also in terms of health and safety and time efficiency.

The best option is likely to vary between workplace and region.  The key is to work out the best option for the specific situation considering all these factors: cost, safety, environment, source of the initial product, size of waste stream.  I am sure you can think of more.  

We look forward to hearing your thoughts.  If anyone wants to share an evaluation they have completed on this or another area of their workplace (doesn't need to be a veterinary clinic) we would appreciate the opportunity to showcase (and credit) your work/story.

Alcohol

I am sure you are wondering about the title and why would this have anything to do with the topic of FutureFocusVet.  What has inspired this post is the Nigel Latta series currently running on Tuesday evenings on TV1.  Episode 3 inspired this blog.  You can watch episode 3 here.  And I would highly recommend it.  

Why am I blogging on it?

1. Students (as a group of society) are well known for over indulging in the drink.  But so are many professionals, so within any industry that you, our students, will be entering into - you may be exposed to it in the workplace too.  
2. Alcohol is a Class A drug - just like Tobacco but also other harder drugs 
3. Alcohol is a carcinogen, and no level is considered safe in terms of risk.  Every small bit increases risk.  
4. Cognitive function and productivity is affected by Alcohol.
5. New Zealand has a binge drinking culture.
6. So many families are affected by violence and other abuse fueled by alcohol.
7. The companies that produce alcohol are largely overseas corporates - yep, all those quintessentially NZ brands are owned by companies like Mitsubishi and Heinekin, so the profits go off shore.  
8. Advertising and sponsorship is still allowed by alcohol companies (unlike tobacco) including of sports teams.  Marketing is insidious and often targets underage drinkers, which gets them hooked.  
9. The costs of alcohol in NZ annually in terms of illness, car accidents and so on is thought to be approximately $5 billion - that is over $13 million per day.  Yes it is true that they put money into education - but compared to the costs to society, the investment in education is limited.

So as you can see above these are the drivers of change.  Continuing as we are is not sustainable.  The social and financial costs are too high.  There are also potential environmental costs too when we look at large tracks of land being put into a monoculture of grapes for example, not to mention the energy costs of making and recycling glass bottles and cans.  

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What does it look like when alcohol is sustainable?

We all know the truth -  Our money is going overseas when we buy most brands ijn New Zealand. Worse yet, alcohol causes cancer, and can even be linked to cancer at low levels of drinking. It kills off brain cells, and it wrecks families and friendships. So, what does it look like if we are sustainable consumers of alcohol?

1. Advertising for all alcohol is limited or even banned
2. Individuals choose to drink socially and responsibly - it becomes a stigma to binge drink and over indulge.  THis also reduces the waste stream produced.
3. Children are educated from a young age about the risks (as early as year 7 or 8) as parents cant be relied on to do this.
4. People buy locally produced alcohol to support our local economy and reduce energy use from transport overseas. 

If you drink, drink responsibly and understand the industry and consequences.  Definitely take some time out to watch the Nigel Latta series and consider getting your pre-teen children (and older) to watch it with you.  It will form a great opening for a conversation .  

Please feel free to post your comments, ideas and feedback.  We love to hear from you.  

Antibiotic resistance

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Antibiotic resistance is a hot topic at present and is one that is very relevant to sustainable practice.

Antibiotics need to be preserved for when they are really needed.  If we don't do this, we risk epidemic bacterial diseases, with nothing to fight them with. The impacts of this on our society and economy are huge. 

Many of us are already aware that all medical and veterinary professionals are being encouraged to prevent antibiotic overuse.  It is believed that the exponential growth of antibiotic resistant bugs is due to the overexposure of people and animals to antibiotics. This overexposure could develop from situations such as being prescribed antibiotics when they are not required. Exposure to antibiotic residues in food and water are also a serious concern as is only taking half the dose or not finishing the course prescribed. 

Things you should know

1. Antibiotics are not suitable for treating viruses so if you or your pet have a cold or flu virus (with no secondary bacterial infection), then supportive treatment like heeping well hydrated, resting and taking anti inflammatory medications are all that will be required. 
2. Most elective surgeries are sterile and can be completed without risk of secondary bacterial contamination - therefore routine use for every surgery should be reviewed by the the professional in charge.
3. In many cases antibiotics are prescribed by veterinary and medical professionals without real  evidence that they are required, or they may be used prophylactically in a situation that does not necessarily justify this practice.

Questions to ask yourself?

• Have you ever insisted on antibiotics for yourself or your animal from the medical or veterinary professional and they have given in to your request?
• Have you ever been given antibiotics and not finished the course?
• Are routine antibiotics (such as post routine surgery) given in the veterinary practice you work in?

If you've answered yes to any of these questions, you may have seen a situation that had the potential to lead to an increase in antibiotic resistance. 

Consider doing the following:

• Ask your medical professional  - why to I need antibiotics?  
• If you are prescribed antibiotics, take the whole course as prescribed
• As an animal owner, ask your veterinary professional - why does my pet need antibiotics? 
• If your pet has been prescribed antibiotics, give the whole course as prescribed.

In a veterinary clinic you might be working in, prescribing medications is the veterinarian's responsibility, but you may be able to open a dialogue to discuss antibiotic use. For example, you can consider surgical asepsis of the environment, staff and patient and suggest to your practice owners that it would be prudent to review routine antibiotic use. Come with evidence about how it would improve finances and safety for people and animals.

In a farm situation it is much the same - its the veterinarians decision to prescribe medications, but as a tech or animal owner, you might see antibiotics being used and wonder why, or if they are actually needed.  Talk to the veterinarian in charge and get them to explain it to you. 

Antibiotics do play an important role in our healthcare, after all, it was the invention of antibiotics that stopped many epidemic diseases in their tracks like smallpox and cholera.  However, there are serious risks with their use in terms of our future ability to fight disease and with virtually no new antibiotics being discovered, we are at risk of developing resistance to the ones we currently use and if those are no longer effective, our future health is at risk.

If you want more, Read about antibiotic resistance here

Free Green Apps

Last night I finally got around to reading the latest issue of Good Magazine (at least a month after it arrived!).  If you don't already read this and this topic is up your alley, its worth looking into.  Its great value and you can get an annual subscription through FlyBuys too. 

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There are so many great ideas and stories, but this week I thought I'd share some of the FREE Apps they suggest for becoming more eco-aware.  

• Project Noah - A guide to world wildlife that can be used in the field that's suitable for kids  .  
• EcoChallenge - This app contains ecochallenges to improve daily sustainability. 
• What's on my food - Because not all pesticides are equal, this app highlights the ones that are potentially more dangerous and therefore better avoided.
• Battery Doctor - This app ensures your device is running as efficiently as possible and can help improve battery life and therefore daily power usage too. 
• The Plant Doctor - This app can be used to send plant symptoms to a professional plant pathologist for diagnosis.  There is also the Yates app, which has clear pictures of common diseases symptoms of edible plants and advice of treatment.  
• Conscious consumers - Find hospitality businesses in town that are making a difference.  You can also join their Facebook page too.  
• Go Green - This app has useful hints and tips you can use everyday to reduce your environmental footprint.  
• iRecycle - Has over 1.5 million ways to recycle materials as well as updates on living a little lighter on the earth.  
• Pollution - This apps provides a list of pollutants in your area in the air.  
• Good Fish Guide - This app explains what fish are ok to eat as stocks are plentiful, what you should avoid due to over fishing.

If you search "Green Living"  and "Sustainability" at the App store you will find many others. 

Do you use these Apps?  What do you think of them?

Have you got others you'd like to suggest?

Tell us about them here.

Have a great week

Sharing - across workplaces and in your community

Welcome back to term 3!  This weeks blog I thought I would introduce the concept of sharing.  

At the very core of sustainable practice is sharing:

• Sharing is good for social aspects - to share you have to talk to other people!  
• It is good for the financial bottom line - if you share resources, you reduce investment required in plant and equipment.  For example you could buy a top of the line ultrasound machine, spending a little more capital, but share the costs of it over 3 veterinary clinics and have it last far longer than the slightly cheaper version you might have brought for just one practice.  
• It is good for the environment - if you share there is less stuff needing to be made, and to dispose of at the end of its life.

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Have a look at these pod casts to consider more about sharing:

• Story of Stuff - Sharing Part 1 
• Story of Stuff - Sharing Part 2 

Getting started:

At home:

• Share some produce that you have grown with friends, family and neighbours.
• Share a lawnmower, power drill or gardening equipment between neighbours.
• Share a second car between neighbours - perhaps often one car sits in your driveway most of the time but on occasion you need 2.  If all households had one car and then there was a communal share of a second car.
• Share clothes with friends.

At work (veterinary clinic examples):

• Consider sharing large outlay items - ultrasound, digital radiography, CAT scan machines. 
• Share staff - perhaps there is a veterinary nurse who has a part time role but would like a full time role and a neighbouring practice needs a part time nurse - collaborate and create a full time job.

Tell us about sharing that you undertake either at home or work.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Have a great week. 

Pet food and sustainable practice

This week - pet food.  A friend of mine shared this link on Facebook and it stimulated me to blog on pet food.  I m going to steer away from the raw feeding vs commercial foods debate, and focus on the sustainability aspects.  

Lets now look at some specific sustainability issues of Pet Food

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Drivers of change

• Humans want a more whole food diet, therefore start looking at one for their pets
• Pet owners want to provide environmental enrichment for their pets - food is one way to do this (chewing, hiding it so they can hunt for it and so forth)
• The majority of pet owners look for convenience as well as wanting to do the best by their pets.
• The food miles travelled by commercial brand pet foods are huge, and even bigger when you consider the individual components travelling to the site of processing.  However it is worth noting: Shipping has by far the lowest footprint of any type of transport, what we really have to be worried about is people getting in their cars to drive to the supermarket and transporting products by truck across country (country of origin and country where product will be sold).
• Unsustainable sourcing of some products e.g. Marine products, but also need to consider the unsustainable practice of growing mono culture crops over large areas (e.g. grain sources)
• Meat production for food is highly energy intensive (more than processing and packaging)
• Processing is highly energy intensive.  
• Increasing numbers of domestic pets in the western world - which means increasing demand for pet foods.
• More disposable income of pet owners to sped treating pets keeping them alive longer - and specialised nutrition is used for many of these
• A growing movement for raw feeding, but only anecdotal evidence to support it
• Increasing corporatism of commercial pet foods - under ownership of some of the main food companies in the world e.g. Royal Canin by Nestle, Hills by Colgate Palmolive, Eukanuba by Mars.  Increasing corporatism is changing money distribution making the rich richer and the poor poorer, which is breaching system condition 4 let alone other breaches these multi-nationals make all the time.  
• The continued funding of the veterinary profession by the premium pet food brands - very real potential for bias towards premium commercial pet food brands
• Research funding dollars come from the multi-nationals, which own the premium brands, so it is difficult to find truly unbiased research 
• People are convinced by the marketing hype that the only way to give your pet the best is to feed a premium brand commercial pet food so are put off exploring other options and also the overall sustainability of what they are feeding, as giving their pet the best nutrition is the primary concern.  
• The unsustainable marketing juggernaut that is pet food sales and marketing.  
• New emergent diseases that can be associated with the advent of the commercial pet food industry - acknowledging  though that other diseases have all but disappeared (e.g. rickets)
• Up to 50% of food produced for consumption in the western world ends up wasted - people no longer find this acceptable.  
• Lack of unbiased evidence-based educational resources for people who choose to feed whole foods, similar to the education provided to parents about what to feed children. 

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Vision when 4 system conditions are being met

• Locally sourced food from sustainable sources - think rabbits/chickens rather than beef and fish for lower environmental impact.
• Use unpoisoned vermin and pests such as possums (in NZ) as part of the diet
• Less processing - therefore less waste, less energy intensive
• Energy used is renewable
• Less miles travelled for food from production to consumption
• Pet owners travel by sustainable methods of transport (walk/cycle) to purchase pet foods or products to be fed to their pet.  
• Better use of waste products from human consumption - so less waste from that industry
• Research that supports and guides pet owners in local food feeding to their pets
• No or limited packaging - any packaging ideally compostible or recyclable and then compostible (e.g. cardboard making a closed material loop).
• A swing towards pets that provide a food source for humans e.g chickens, rabbits and/or limits to the number of cats/dogs per household or going back to only keeping pets that have a purpose, on top of companionship e.g. cat that keeps the rodents away, a dog used as part of a waste disposal system.
• Allowing pet owners to take more control of their pets health, rather than relying on commercial multi-nationals - clear guidelines on how to effectively feed their pets using local food, following quality unbiased research
• Pet food producers operate on carbon neutral, zero waste basis - this will require significant change.  
• All pet foods required to state carbon footprint
• All faeces from dogs/cats are disposed of in a way that is not damaging to the environment.  

There is so much more to this discussion - this blog is really just touching on it and trying to open up some discussion.   There are ins and outs of all of the above.  If you want to dig more into this then a suggested purchase is Time to eat your dog by Robert and Brenda Vale.  What is interesting to note in this book is that if you compare a dog fed a dry food diet compared to one fed an appropriate "human" diet, the footprint of the dry food diet is roughly half.  What does not appear to be in this book though is the marketing juggernaut associated with the dry pet food which surely must have an impact.  

For me, just what I have researched and written here tells me that the focus needs to be on thinking carefully about pet ownership and making sure we select wisely if we decide we need a pet to one that could be eaten or has a function in society such as for rodent control or as  guide dog and that very statement I have made is going to be significantly challenging to the people this blog is for!

Looking forward to your thoughts and feedback

Have a great week.  

Veterinary Cleaners and disinfectants

I hope you all read last weeks blog - I was surprised I didn't stimulate more feedback!  I am not anti pedigree pets, but I do think we need to look at what we are breeding from a sustainability perspective, including ethics, and we also need to focus on improvements and actions to improve the health of these animals.

This week, lets look at cleaners and disinfectants.  While this is a key area of veterinary practice, it is also valuable for everyone - from the home to animal care facilities, or any other business.

Drivers of change

The aspects affecting reasons to change are: 

• Deteriorating water quality
• Products that are damaging water quality or having other environmental impacts
• Products that are damage the staff coming in contact with them - e.g. contact dermatitis, respiratory problems and so forth
• Use of high level disinfectant products in areas that don't actually need high level cleaning - e.g. at home you shouldn't need anything more than a cake of soap for 99% of personal hygiene.

Meeting the system conditions

To meet the system conditions we need:

1. To avoid taking limited resources from the Earth's core - e.g. oil use for manufacture and transport is an issue;
2. To avoid creating products that the environment can't decompose efficiently and sustainably;
3. To avoid damaging ecosystems with the manufacture or contamination of products into the environment - e.g. products may contain things like Palm Oil, which is produced in a way that cases massive destruction of rain forests;
4. Ensure people are able to meet their needs - that they are safe using the product, that the product effectively kills unwanted pathogens, and that the product is fit for purpose (i.e. don't want to use high level products for a low risk area).  
5. Finally the company that produces the product should look after the 4 system conditions during production and distribution as well.  

Auditing your own disinfectant use:

Have a go at auditing the cleaners and disinfectants used in your work or home, or both. For each disinfectant, look at:

• The level of protection required in a particular area vs the level of protection of the product claims;
• What bugs must the product kill?  At home - unless someone is sick it might be better to just reduce the pathogen level by using plain soap;
• What is the toxicity to animals?
• What is the toxicity to humans? - You can get an idea of how toxic it is by how much protective gear is required when handling it;
• What is the toxicity to water ways - think carefully about this.  If it says the half-life is two days, that means half of the active chemical is still in the environment after two days, a quarter after four days and so forth.  It really needs to be non toxic at every stage.
• What are the breakdown products? Are they benign like water? Or are they something more hazardous?
• What is the level of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) - the aim is for these to be zero;
• What are the ingredients? If its palm oil, where is it from? 
• Where is it made?  If its not NZ, is there a local alternative?
• What are the company's policies and actions around sustainable practice - eg is the water that goes into the factory cleaner when it leaves? Are the people looked after? Does the company invest in reducing impacts on the environment? 
• Think about the cost per diluted product of say 100ml to complete a true comparison
• Look at the plastic volume too - can I purchase it in bulk and reuse small containers or is it only in small containers?
• Can you think of other questions?

Some examples:

When you look at high level disinfectants, Virkon, Accel and F10 come out better than Trigene and Safe4 for example

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In some areas of a work place or at home, you can often get away with natural cleaners using baking soda and vinegar rather than something commercial. If you must use a commercial cleaner go back and look at the questions above.

Continually re-evaluate - maybe its an annual task to bring up the audit and check that all things are considered if new products are added. 

Set a goal at your home or workplace that the water leaves your house in the same state as it entered, but ideally better.  This makes you think about everything going down your drains and in some cases you might consider a filter system prior to it being released into the water system.  

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Lets get some collaboration going

We at Otago Polytechnic School of Veterinary Nursing have set up a very rudimentary comparison of some common veterinary disinfectants.  You can all access this and edit it at this link. It needs more disinfectants adding and more of the blank spaces filling.  The more collaborators we have the better this comparison will be and the outcome will hopefully be that we all choose more sustainable disinfectants, leading to cost effective disease control, better safety for staff and less environmental contamination.  

Have a great week and we look forward to hearing about what you discover in your non veterinary cleaners and disinfectants and seeing some additions to the veterinary cleaners and disinfectants chart above too.  

Unethical and Unsustainable or not?

After last weeks blog, we received a comment on our Facebook page from a veterinary nurse who was working in a practice that ticked all the boxes for a future focussed veterinary clinic. Well done to that practice!  I am hoping to be able to interview that veterinary nurse at some stage this year so watch this space.  If anyone else has got some stories to share, please let me know.  

A Boxer - a pedigree breed with a very long list of inherited diseases
Wikimedia commons

This week my blog is inspired by a conversation I had with a colleague over the sustainability and ethics of pedigree pets.  Remember, all pets have environmental impacts such as high carbon footprints from transportation of food or waste, in fact just one family Labrador Retriever has the same environmental impact as an SUV  If this topic interests you, this book would be worth a read.  But this time, we are talking about something different; the sustainability of producing pedigree pets that require a great deal of veterinary care to address inherited diseases. 

Breeding of many pedigree dogs focuses mainly on physical appearance such as short noses, wrinkled skin, broad shoulders, short legs, long ears and many others. Some of these physical attributes are not ideal for the pet and are linked to undesirable health complications such as luxating patellas. In addition, focusing on appearance rather than fitness has led to breeding animals that carry genetic predisposition for disease, just because they look especially nice. Boxers are a good example as they are highly predisposed to heart disease but because it often doesn't show up until breeding age, the animal may have already been bred and passed on the problem to a new generation. For those of you that wish to read more on this subject, there are many articles available online. Here are some examples:
1. Pedigree dog predisposition to cancer
2. Canine Inherited disorders database
3. Genetic diseases of cats

A Bulldog - this breed cant even give birth naturally due to the very narrow hips compared to the size of a puppies head.
Wikimedia commons

While there are breeders out there who do try to breed lines of pedigree dogs that are healthy and not predisposed to specific diseases, it is challenging to select for completely disease free lines without loosing the phenotypic (physical appearance) traits which are so important to the kennel club rules. In addition there are many unscrupulous breeders out there who will breed unfit dogs just to make money on selling offspring. Many prospective dog owners don't know exactly what to look for when choosing a pedigree breed.  

Hereditary conditions in pedigree pets, especially cats, dogs and rabbits, form the basis for a significant amount of profit in companion animal veterinary practice. Third eyelid flap surgery, total hip replacements, surgery to correct patella luxation, skin fold pyoderma treatment, dental surgery, heart disease management, cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy, inflammatory bowel disease diagnosis and treatment............the list goes on.  So many diseases have a genetic basis and are common in our pedigree dogs, with different breeds having predisposition to different sets of diseases. 

A Maltese - you rarely see one of these without at least a Grade 1 luxating patella identifiable at the puppy stage.
Wikimedia commons

So in summary the issues are: 
Social/Ethical - breeding dogs that are fundamentally unsound that suffer more pain/illness than is necessary,  breeding these dogs and selling them to the public is socially and ethically unacceptable. 
Financial - increased financial burden on owners
Environmental - increased need for surgery and/or medications which create a large waste trail.  

So, as companion animal veterinarians and veterinary nurses, do we just accept the status quo and keep treating these dogs without taking action or do we take a more ethical and social approach and take some of the following actions:

1. Educate clients on this issue, advise them away from pedigree pets but if they are going to choose a breed, help them choose a good breeder and a healthy pet. 
2. Lobby kennel club and breeders to change breed standards to allow these diseases to be bred out.
3. Work with genetic technology companies to develop tests to screen for the genes that carry specific diseases.
4. Lobby for licensing of breeders, or as a profession set up a license system and market it well so that breeders want to be a licensed.  

Would this put veterinary clinics out of business?  If the businesses aren't future focussed, yes probably, but if they are future focussed and looking ahead at the drivers of change they will foresee that by being more social and ethical, clients will be more loyal to the business. In addition, a future focused business is focused on wellness and preventative medicine rather than just treating illness. How good would that be?

Have a great week

Meeting the needs of veterinary nursing staff

This week I thought I'd raise some of the challenges and solutions around the people side of veterinary practice - focussing on veterinary nurse employees in this blog rather than the veterinarians or clients.

What are the drivers for change?

As I see it, the drivers for change in this area are: 

• Under-utilised veterinary nurses - the skills that they learn in training are not being utilised
• Under-valued veterinary nurses - employers of VNs think of them as dispensable and/or not able to contribute to the practice value
• Lower than optimal wages - in many cases VNs get lower than the published living wage
• Lack of say in a veterinary practice situation
• Hours of work - often not family friendly, and little opportunity to work as a group on solutions
• Employers do not always take the time to interview/train staff in a way that ensures they are a good team fit and that they bring skills (clinical and personal) that enhance the team.  
• Higher than optimal staff turnover - staff leave due  to the factors listed above in many cases and the high cost of training new staff puts pressure on the business finances and prevents the business from growing and developing new services. 

These drivers of change contribute to violations of system condition 4 - which describes how it is important to ensure peoples' needs are met. The above list is a general overview of what I see as common factors in most practices but certainly there will be exceptions where practices are already doing many of these things. 

What is a vision for veterinary nurses in practice when system condition 4 is being met?

Image source: Otago Polytechnic School of Veterinary Nursing

If system condition 4 is being met in the veterinary practice:

• Veterinary Nurse skills are being fully utilised - the veterinary nurses are managing all aspects of routine fluid therapy, dental prophylaxis, collection of ECG tracings, radiography, preparing for surgery, caring for hospitalised patients, implementation of care plans, nursing management, nursing consults, nursing preventative health clinics, puppy preschool and kitten kindy, as well as providing basic nutritional and behavioural advice.   
• The employers of the practice highly value the veterinary nursing staff and involve them in practice decisions.
• Veterinary Nurse wages are always above the minimum living wage with some even offering shares in the business to enable employees to share in the business profit.  This further enhances the veterinary nurses feeling of being valued and of wanting to improve the business they work in.  
• Veterinary nursing staff are given one paid day per year to volunteer in the community, 
• The business implements a flexible work policy to make it easier for employees with children or those with outside interests to work around their other obligations.  
• Valued staff are able to consider innovations such as how a complete restructure of daily practice activities might improve efficiency, profits and staff wellness.
• Staff turnover is low due to high job satisfaction and all of the above, allowing the practice to grow from strength to strength with new initiatives to get clients in through the doors of the veterinary clinic.

Do the above factors match your vision?  What would you  add or take away? 

Can this really be done?

Yes! The approach to achieve the ideal conditions above is to show how each improvement (from the current state to the ideal vision) will improve profits/the bottom line.  Here are some examples of what can be done:

• Improve staff job satisfaction and thus prevent them from leaving - Each time a staff member leaves/resigns from the practice it takes the equivalent of 1 year's salary in costs to hire and train new staff back to where the previous staff member was. Here is a uk based article that explains this further.
• Keep staff happy and healthy - If staff are happy, they take less sick leave, are more productive and this rubs off on clients.  Read this link for more information on this. 
• Give incentives for high productivity - Share profits with employees.  There are many articles that show this to be very good for profits/the bottom line.  Here is a newspaper report on John Lewis and Waitrose in England who has done just that.

The above changes are not only good for individual staff members, it is good for the veterinary profession. Carefully consider these changes for your practice and let us know what happens. 
Even if it is something you have already done, or are considering. Let us know.  We'd love to hear your stories.

Have a great week.

Local and/or Fair trade

For our first solution-based post this year we are going to look at how purchasing local and/or fair trade products is a way to be socially sustainable. We know that production of some common products is resulting in inequitable trading standards and environmental conditions, especially overseas in developing countries.  Remember that system condition 4 is about being socially responsible.  In addition, if products are both local and fair trade, then they help us reduce reliance on oil, which is a breach of system condition 1. To review the system conditions click here. 

Otago Polytechnic as part of our goals to improve sustainable and socially equitable practices, is working towards becoming a fair trade tertiary institution. You can read the guidelines here. Your workplace could become a fair trade business too.


Switching to local/fair trade products is easy as many products are readily available. Make changes where you can by enquiring if there are any fair trade options for the products you need to purchase. Even small changes will make a difference. You might start with products such as biscuits, sugar, coffee, tea and chocolate as well as cleaning agents, and even home cosmetics, shampoo, and soaps. 

Another thing to consider is if products are free from palm oil which is frequently harvested unsustainably from tropical forests, irreversibly damaging the environment and reducing habitats for many species of animals. Some palm oil is produced from sustainable sources so it is good to check before buying. 

Finally, are the products locally produced and are they environmentally safe? Keeping these questions in mind will help you to make better decisions about what products to buy.

Where can you get fair trade/local products?
OfficeMax, which is a common supplier of office products, have listings of fair trade tea, coffee, sugar and hot chocolate. Many of your local stores also stock fair trade products. Try asking your shopkeepers to stock more fair trade products and that may cause them to start changing as well. 

To find products that are Palm oil free review this link which is a list of palm free products compiled by the Auckland Zoo. 

To focus on supporting local businesses you could consider obtaining supplies from your local wholefoods supermarket where you can reduce packaging by refilling your shampoo bottles and containers for many household cleaners. Here are some links to these in the main centres: 
Dunedin - Taste Nature 
Christchurch - Piko Wholefoods 
Auckland - Huckleberry Farms, multiple locations 
This link will help lead you to suppliers in other locations 

How do I make this change as a junior staff member?
Talk to the person ordering - explain to them the rationale.  Most people want to do the right thing and if they can see a benefit to the bottom line, they will be even more influenced to make the change.

Does this have a marketing advantage?
Yes!  If your clients are aware you are trying to make a difference then they will want to support you over a neighbouring business who isn't.  Make the change, market it on your website, advertise it in your next newsletter and put a sign up in the waiting area.

Dont forget to let us know what you are doing in your business and what difference it is making!

Next week - We look at adhering to system condition 4 in reference to the veterinary nurse and technicians.  

Have a great week!