What we eat

A very short post this week, as its a few days late, after I took a trip to Dunedin to attend our 2011 students graduation.  A big congratulations to them all!!

Recently I have been spending more time examining what we eat - the list of ingredients.  Yoghurt has been one that has really taken my attention recently.  I used to think yoghurt was yoghurt, but think again.  Take a look at the long list of ingredients in a common yoghurt brand and you'll soon see what I am on about!  

I have recently taken to buying some less processed, boutique brands - more costly but because they are generally thinner in consistency I actually use a lot less on my breakfast so am buying no more than I would previously have so it reduces my calorie intake too.  The interesting thing is that this more natural yoghurt actually tastes like yoghurt too - the yoghurt I remember as a child. 

The next step of course is to make my own!

Have a look at this link: http://grist.org/food/not-your-grandmas-yogurt/ which talks about this very topic. 
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Not too long ago I read a book by Wendyl Nissen, called "A Home Companion - my year living like my grandma" and it highlighted things like this about the list of ingredients in common foods including what could only really be described as industrial chemicals.  In that book I remember being astounded that Twisties had a shorted ingredient list than I think it was BBQ flavoured chis. 

This weeks challenge:  Next time you go shopping, take the time to read the ingredient lists on some of the food products you buy.  And make choices based on choosing food that has less ingredients, therefore is less processed. Wendyl Nissen suggested choosing foods that had no more than 5 ingredients in their ingredient list. 


PS: I make no judgment at all about the brands pictured here.  I suggest you look at all brands on the shelf at your supermarket and make you own choices. 

The power of consumers

Every week I have so much material I don't know where to start!  I am also conscious of being overwhelming to everyone and instead of inspiring you, having the opposite effect!

The reality is there are so many great things happening and by supporting those things you can make a huge difference, that not only helps the environment but makes you feel great too.

As most of you are consumers, actually I am sure all of you are, it is important to realise the great power you have. It is what you choose to buy or perhaps even more importantly what you choose not not to buy that will help drive change. For example: if you continue to purchase battery produced eggs, there is still a market, so they will continue to battery farm (until government legislation stops it).  However, if you stop now and make a conscious effort to buy free range, the battery egg market will dry up.

Global brands
I found this opinion piece by Joe Bennett in our local newspaper titled "The irresistible allure of the global brand, apotheosis of capitalism".  It's not very long and is well worth a read. I thought it nicely summarised the allure of global brands but clearly showed the folly of it.

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School of Veterinary Nursing Uniforms
Part of the reason I chose consumer power for this weeks blog post, is that we have been quite rightly challenged by a student regarding our sourcing of our uniforms that we require our students to buy. The point raised was - "all this sustainability stuff is all good, but then you go and source uniforms from China". I totally see the students point. In fact the week before I had already brought this up with my Head of School. It is important to remember we are still in the change phase but we are in discussions with how to bring the design and manufacture of the uniforms to a New Zealand home, made with sustainably sourced fabrics. This is a work in progress and will not happen overnight. We would welcome comments from our readers on this subject:

1. What would you expect from a sustainable uniform?

2. How much extra would you be prepared to pay?

3. As sustainably sourced fabrics that are themselves sustainable, they last a lot longer and we would want to ensure that they got used for their full lives and then recycled back into new clothing. Would you support a lease model for clothing where you pay a fee + refundable deposit, so it can be used by future students or do you prefer to keep the item?

4. If you prefer to keep the uniform and use if once your studies are completed - how could we design it so the uniform was something you are more likely to keep wearing.

Any other comments are welcome! 
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Your own wardrobe

And that leads me to our clothing in general. Have a look at your wardrobe - where do you purchase from? What is the supply chain of your clothes - do you know? I know I looked at mine and have decided I am going to now make a conscious effort to make less purchases, but purchase items that will last, so the added cost is mitigated. It should also reduce the space needed in my wardrobe. I have recently read articles about the toxins used in clothes production too or the toxins used in producing the raw materials, e.g. cotton and that sends alarm bells too when you look at the increasing rates of cancer in the modern world. 
 
This link from treehugger listing the details of 10 sustainable designers in New Zealand. it gives a good starting point for thinking about sustainable purchases you can make in New Zealand around your wardrobe.

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A consumer challenge!
This week I issue a challenge for the week to make conscious decisions about your purchasing, not just clothes and eggs, but anything you plan to purchase this week.

1. For everything you go to purchase this week -firstly ask "do I actually need this?"

If the answer is YES

2. Does the product have good credentials in terms of cyclic production? Social and ethical production? Local production? If the answer is no to any of these, is there an alternative that you could choose that does meet these criteria?

Have a great week. I look forward to your comments this week on this subject of consumer power and perhaps the pressure we feel as consumers.  I would also like to hear about the choices you made this week - it will provide inspiration for all of us. 

Kind Regards

Francesca

Some great marketing!

Just a little light relief in the form of some advertising encouraging you to use public transport:

World population, what the world eats and the story of stuff

This week I have spoken to a group of Animal Care students at the Christchurch block course with regards to why Otago Polytechnic have taken this seriously and why it is essential we all take it seriously too.  The reading can be depressing but rather than view it that way, once you believe that we have no choice but to make some pretty big changes there is huge opportunity to do so for the betterment of the environment, ourselves and even for financial gains too.

My job when I spoke to that group of students was to convince them to join us on this path to a better future.  

The links below are all ones I wanted to show the class, but due to a very slow internet connection in CHCH I promised I would post them, so I thought for the benefit of everyone, I would add them to this weeks blog:

World population: 7 minutes of sobering viewing about the population explosion. 

What the world eats: A photo essay of different families weekly food intake in a week. 

The story of stuff: This particular link shows how the worlds economy currently works on a linear system, which produces vast quantities of waste and promotes a throwaway society.  It is this linear model that needs to be redesigned to be cyclic.  

I look forward to your thoughts and feedback on these.  

I promise next week we will get back to tangible things you can do to make a difference.  Remember you can send me ideas or even written blog posts for further posting!!

(Image source - Story of Stuff website)

Have a great  weekend

Kind Regards
Francesca

Recent learning

I have just returned from my Graduate Diploma in Sustainable Practice block course.  It was three days of intensive learning.  It is impossible for me here to share with you all that learning or all the musing that is going on in my head.  But what I thought I would do is share some of the case studies we were exposed to, and you can link to the websites for more information.  These are all businesses attempting to be sustainable in business. 

Wanaka Wastebusters 

This was set up by a group of locals wanting to get recycling going in the community.  It was set up independently of the council.  They are passionate about reuse and recycling.  They know, as we all do that recycling is not the answer to a sustainable future but it is a step in raising its awareness in the community.  They are also able to employ people locally and through the shop enable items with more life in them to be able to be purchased.  Among the things I learnt there is that polystyrene is actually recyclable.  They compress it down and it is made into more polystyrene.  So if you local council does not offer this service then contact them and apply some pressure.  I also learnt about glass recycling.  If glass is not separated into colours it is recycled by being ground down into gravel.  If it  separated then it can be quickly, with less energy be made into new bottles.  Check what your council is doing.  They are also involved in raising awareness nationally about sustainability.  Currently they are running the finals for Unpackit 2012 - where you can vote for the best and worst packaging.  This is designed to raise awareness of over the top packaging used today and also some innovative solutions that are now available.  Visit their website to vote now.  

Glendu Station 

John McRae of Glendu Station was fantastic to listen to.  He told his story of why he has gone organic and begun the story on some of his innovations and what drives him.  Fascinating guy to listen too and definitely want to chat to him more.  For the CRAT students, I am hoping to get a taped interview with him because he has some real food for thought about managing parasite disease for example, with minimal use of drenches.  The awesome permaculture garden was inspirational.  I wish I had a little more land to dabble in that.  

Rippon Vineyard 

With its thoughtfully designed vineyard and compacted earth function centre

Ziptrek Ecotours 

Their attention to detail in getting it right for the tourist and the environment was awesome.   The amount of bullying they are having to contend with from other tour operators who are trying to protect their patch, disappointing.  Good on Ziptrek in Queenstown for standing up to it though!

Interface flooring 

This story was sensational.  Leased carpets, using carpet squares that don't need to be glued and random patterns so the squares can be easily swapped from high to low wear areas and vice versa and all the carpet squares can be fully recycled and used again.  Inspiring!

Biodiesel in Queenstown 

An innovation of the Centre for Sustainable Practice at Otago Polytechnic and a number of other parties.  Hugely successful using B20 (20% biodiesel, instead of the standard 5%).  Already after 1 year they are looking at having a pump in Wanaka and have the goal of B100 (100% biodiesel).  There are lots of arguments around biodiesel, both for and against and I am not getting into those here, but there is no doubt reducing reliance on imported fuel and reducing carbon emissions are steps in the right direction and for this alone this is a fantastic project.  It was quite scary that during the block course it was mentioned that imported fuel prices are expected to double in the next 5 years as supply reduces.  This and the concept of peak oil, really puts perspective the urgent need to reduce our reliance on imported fuels. Ethanol and electric technology are of course other ways to do this and these technologies are still being developed.   

Product Stewardship 

Not a case study but an important concept.  This concept involves everyone who handles a product taking responsibility for it.  So to use something that is commonly happening right now - trading from a big box TV to a flat TV.  The product stewardship concept means that you take responsibility for correct disposal.  This means paying for it to be recycled so all the components can be reused.  There are arguments about when this fee should be incurred - at purchase or at disposal but at the end of the day, what is important is that we close the loop and ensure each product we use is put fully back in the cycle, not sent to landfill. 

Just a taster of my last week.  I look forward to sharing more of my journey in this programme in future posts!

Catch you all next week.

Francesca

Everything is cyclic

I thought for this week, I'd post about another fundamental of sustainability.  I haven't heard from epi-global from last week, but a comment from another party has suggested two websites to visit.  I will do this and plan to report back very soon!

But this week, I wanted to get everything thinking about the cyclical nature of everything.  Two weeks ago I posted about there only being ONE EARTH and everything we will ever have is already on it - its just that things change forms which is one of the fundamentals of sustainability.  The cyclical nature of everything on the earth is another of the sustainability fundamentals. 

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This link here on the Center for Ecoliteracy provides some nice simple descriptions of the different cycles and provides this good summary:

"We need, says Center for Ecoliteracy cofounder Fritjof Capra, to teach our children — and our political and corporate leaders — fundamental facts of life:

• Matter cycles continually through the web of life.
• Most of the energy driving the ecological cycles flows from the sun.
• Diversity assures resilience.
• One species' waste is another species' food.
• Life did not take over the planet by combat but by networking." 

Thinking about one species waste is another species food and then thinking about the waste the human race produces is scary stuff

When thinking about diversity and the articles you read almost daily about the loss of species on the earth

When you think about capitalism it is kind of like combat as opposed to networking - make more, use more, have more.  That what everyone strives for in a capitalist society, and I don't think I am immune to this.  Its hard to avoid it, but when you start considering the sustainability fundamentals you have to start reconsidering the way we do things.

On that food for thought I will leave you to your weekend............

Next week I will attend the block course associated with the Graduate Diploma in Sustainable practice.  The agenda looks amazing - I am quite sure though it will be completely exhausting (so I will completely sympathise with all our distance students at the end of their block courses).  I am looking forward to posting a blog on it next week!

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For those of you studying in the School of Veterinary Nursing this year, you will have access to a document called "Towards a Sustainable Future" which works through the fundamentals of sustainability and then helps to guide you in how you might  implement it into your lives and workplaces.  If you haven't already found it - have a look for it on your programmes Moodle home page!

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The biodegradable plastic bag...............

Recently I was shopping at Farmers and the product I purchased was packaged in a Farmers branded bag which I immediately felt guilty about and thought I should have said no I don't need one. But some text on it caught my eye and I wanted to investigate. It states on it:

100% degradable

www.epi-global.com

This bag is totally biodegradable

Please reuse this bag in the interests of the environment

ELLDEX

www.elldex.com

I am aware of many bags that state 100% biodegradable but this still means 100's of years of biodegrading so I thought that I'd start a bit of investigation.  This blog post is not going to give the answers, but I will take you on a journey as I start to research this. 

Plastics and plastic bags should be of interest and concern to everyone in every household and every industry.  Look around you now - plastic is likely to be everywhere.  Even the wooden modular box on which I stand my computer (for my standing desk) has a plastic coating on it.  Our recycling bin is full of plastics and you only have to look back at previous blog posts to see the issues with plastic (especially look at the one about bottled water).

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Bio-degradable plastic packaging

Firstly I went to the epi-global website and had a look around.  Its a good website and worth visiting, remembering that its a business making money.  I couldn't find all the information I wanted so I was keen to start a dialogue with them.   

Sending web inquiries has variable responses in my experience so I will report back on the response if I get one, as I have only just sent it.  Below I have copied the initial communication as I thought you might be interested in the questions I initially want to ask.  When you get engaged with sustainability you increasingly find you have to ask lots of questions and dig deep for concrete answers. 

"Hi

I am the sustainability champion at my workplace (and I work in education so what I learn is disseminated to a wide range of people) and I just wanted to find out a bit more about your product

• What is the time frame for biodegrading?
• What do you mean by biomass because I am struggling to reconcile the definitions on the web with plastics breakdown?
• Do you have any peer reviewed scientific articles that I can access to read more about this technology.
• Does the technology have uses in hard plastics or only soft plastics such as food wraps and plastic bags?
• In terms of the whole situation of oil supplies being limited and as plastic is a product of this industry as a company what are you doing to find sustainable packaging solutions for example?

Many thanks for taking the time to respond..........."

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I then visited the Elldex website.  I coped this quote off the site "We are committed to providing packaging that benefits the environment, with a variety of environmentally-friendly products manufactured from recycled, re-usable, degradable or bio-degradable materials."

It seems that they purchase the EPI-global technology and then their business is to provide packaging solutions for the Australasian market.  I decided at this stage not to contact Elldex for more answers.  I will wait for epi-global to respond first. 

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The Elldex website had a suggested link of this website: http://www.savetheplasticbag.com/ 

Off that website I found this:

"85% of plastic bags used in the United States are made in the United States. Plastic bags are made out of polyethylene. In the United States, ethylene is made of ethane which is extracted from natural gas. As a result, 85% of plastic bags used in the United States are not made out of oil.

The ethane must be removed from the natural gas anyway to lower the BTU value of the natural gas to an acceptable level. Ethane burns too hot to be allowed to remain in high levels in natural gas that is delivered to homes and businesses for fuel. There is nothing else that the ethane can be used for except to make ethylene. If ethane is not used to make plastic, it will have to be burned off, resulting in greenhouse gas emissions.

Using the ethane to make plastic does not in any way reduce the amount of fuel available for transportation or power generation or increase our energy imports."

There are also some interesting figures on this page about space and breakdown products of paper vs plastic.

Remember of course that this website is run by people that don't want the plastic bag banned, so as long as you read it with an open mind it contains some interesting facts and figures.  I have read on many other websites about the paper vs plastic debate and there is also interesting reading to be had about the environmental costs of producing paper vs plastic bags. 

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Reducing packaging

At the end of the day packaging has environmental costs in production, transport and during breakdown in landfill so our first priority should be to reduce our use of it.  Anything that needs to go into a rubbish bin - recycling or landfill has an environmental cost.

So what can we do?

• Always carry a reusable shopping bag
• If you must get a plastic bag at a shop - choose a shop that uses bags with biodegradable technology and reuse it as much as possible before putting it in the bin.
• When thinking about purchasing plastic bags for your work place ask yourself some questions such as:

1. Do you actually need them?
2. What are the possible alternatives?
3. If you do decide to purchase research the green credentials such as biodegradable and also made from recycled plastic are good things to look for. 

• When purchasing products for you workplace to sell look at the packaging - are there alternatives with more environmentally friendly and less packaging?  

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Composting

Going back to the  epi-global website there is a section on composting.  Although it states that the technology is not accepted for composting, it does indicate the products are bio-safe to use: Quote from the website

"Standards exist for plastics to be designated as compostable. EPI’s TDPA® incorporated products do not meet these standards, primarily because they do not biodegrade quickly enough in a compost environment. Nonetheless, operators of a number of managed compost facilities accept bags using this technology as an affordable alternative to generally more expensive technologies that meet the standard requirements. Properly designed bags utilizing TDPA® technology disintegrate to meet compost quality requirements and, while they do not biodegrade quickly enough to meet compostable plastics standards, this can be an advantage as they sequester carbon in the soil and contribute to soil structure and fertility."

So I thought I'd also try my own experiment and put the plastic bag pictured above in our compost bin.  I'll help it along a bit by shredding it up and keep my fingers crossed that it doesn;t kill my worms!  I'll let you know.........................

 The shredded plastic bag on my office floor

 

The bag in our compost bin.  Feels quite wrong putting plastics in there but I am willing to try for the benefit of science and the planet! and then below I have stirred the compost a little so the plastic is spread a bit more.  I'll do that again next time I am in adding organic waste and I will post more photos over coming weeks as I notice the bag disappearing.  The big question is will it happen in my lifetime?

Have a great and sustainable weekend

Francesca