Makes a Change - Organic, Fair Trade and Natural Parenting

How to Help Save Our Bees

I must admit that I've got a particularly soft spot for bees. Without bees we'd lose the majority of our crops - yet in the past two years we've lost one third of our UK bee colonies!

There's a number of explanations, but there is good evidence to show that the deaths are being caused by a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids.  Neonicotinoids work by disrupting neural pathways in an insect's central neural system - which in bees is extremely complex.  Working in a very large group as opposed to as an individual, bees rely on their complex interactions and communications (such as the "Waggle Dance") to be able to survive as a colony.  Low-level contamination by neonicotinoids doesn't necessarily kill an individual bee, but by reducing each worker bee's ability to communicate the hive loses its coherence and ability to function.

The Soil Association has a list of household chemicals which contain these deadly chemicals and should be avoided.  It's not just farmers who are using these pesticides - they're available at your local garden centre!

The Soil Association is also asking you to take a few minutes to contact your MP to ask for the suspension of sale of neonicotinoids, and to press for more research into bee colony deaths.  To find out more about this campaign, click here.

Please do write a letter, or an email.  Help save our bees!

Using Waste to Make New Stuff

In our recent visit to Kenya we saw some amazing ways in which unwanted items are being used in innovative and unusual ways.  This happens all over developing countries and it's great fun to see what people can make of "rubbish".  Even here in the UK it's happening in small ways (think of Bob Flowerdew for a start!), but more often we are offered products made in developing countries from unwanted materials.  It's all good, and we actively support it with several products on the Makes a Change website such as our organic cotton kids' tees with re-used fabrics and our greetings cards from reclaimed materials.  Those of you who have seen us at shows will also have seen our great carrier bags made from newspapers collected by a street children project in India, who make them into bags to sell to UK retailers, like us, thus giving themselves a regular income and a step up back into society.  They're great fun and clearly show they're re-used - sometimes even the crosswords are filled in!

I love (because I'm a bit sad!) trying to save things to use again, and having children makes this really easy.  Peter's "messy play" box is filled with scraps of card, fabrics and other offcuts which he turns into "works of art" for example. 

But that's one thing... this is quite another.. check out this website with some amazing examples of how to re-use common waste materials!

http://www.afrigadget.com/

Ecological insecticide allows you to extinguish nature in a nature-friendly way.

Loving this...

It's been an interesting summer.  Regular readers will know that Philip and I tied the knot this July in an eco-friendly way.  Because we held the reception in our own back garden, I spent a lot of the spring trying to make it look pretty.  We were also growing our own flowers for the tables (which didn't quite work out, thanks to an enormous storm the day before which destroyed all our tender sweet peas) but one of my biggest fights was with aphids.

Not being that great a gardener, I planted sweet peas right next to climbing roses, and it turns out that sweet peas attract aphids as much as roses do.  This left me with a dilemma.  Did I spray the roses and sweet peas simply because I REALLY wanted a good display, and cuttable flowers? 

In the end I chose not to and I was interested to find that for the first time in several years I saw ladybirds in the garden - lots of them.  Sure, there were a few weeks where the aphids were well in control, but in the end it made not a spot of difference to the flowers, and the balance between predator and predated quickly sorted itself out.

 Of course, nature had its way in the end with the rain and storms, but thanks to lovely Felicity at The Organic Flower Company all was fine and beautiful in the end.

Homes Powered by Poo

Manchester is leading the way in new forms of power, using the ultimate renewable resource - human waste - to manufacture biomethane which will be used to power houses and council vehicles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8100159.stm

Greencone - Super Household Waste Disposal

It has been said - more than once - that I am a waste geek.  It's fair to say it's right.  So when a friend mentioned the "Green Cone" to me I was rather interested (well actually excited!).

The Green Cone is (yet another) way of getting rid of organic household waste, ie compostable waste such as veg peelings, but also rubbish that cannot normally be composted such as meat, fish, bones and dairy produce.

Although these can go into a Bokashi bin, the Bokashi contents need to go somewhere, so for a family which doesn't have a composter because they don't have a big enough garden to use the material on, it's no good.  Plus, although the bucket is small, it's still big enough to be too big for some kitchens - and the fact that it needs cleaning, which is not a nice job, frankly, puts others off.

The green cone's footprint is from around that of a small compost bin (there are larger sizes available as well) so will fit into almost all gardens, even really tiny ones.  The part on top of the ground is attached to a hidden cage underneath which is dug into a hole.  This stops rats from being able to get to the material and allows waste to decompose and simply sink into the soil, safely, cleanly and completely.

The Green Cone website claims it has the following benefits:

·  Waste food can be disposed of immediately.

·  Clean dustbins.

·  Remaining household waste clean for recycling.

·  It's easy to set up and maintain.

·  Saves 20% of household waste being collected.

·  Less waste means fewer lorries on the road.

·  Reduces need for landfill and large-scale treatment plants.

·  Reduces methane production which is a greenhouse gas .

 

Take a look at http://www.greencone.com/home.asp?lang=1

Helping Butterflies and Moths in the Garden

  The BBC news website has an article on how butterflies and moths have been affected by the last few years of wet summers.  It got me thinking as I'm just sowing seeds in my garden and have chosen plenty of butterfly and bee friendly wildflowers (readers of my blog will know how passionate I am about trying to help bees and butterflies).

One problem I've always had, though, is what to do about Cabbage Whites which lay their eggs on my broccoli and can completely devastate a plant in a day or so.  I linked through from the BBC article to the Butterfly Conservation website which said that nasturtiums - the ultimate kiddie plant - is a good alternative food source - so I'm going to get Eco-Boy to help me to sow some of those around the veg plot this evening!  After finishing the Easter Bonnet, anyway!  So then I can pick off any of the caterpillars and put them onto the nasturtiums without feeling as though I'm going to be killing them.  Brilliant.

Recycling Plastic Bags from Just About Anything!

I'm so excited (yes, I'm so sad!!).  I've just found a brilliant website of a company where you can send used poly bags for recycling.  Why is this good?  Well it's now pretty easy to recycle plastic bottles and carrier bags, but other bags such as those on loaves of bread, or bags used for veg in the supermarket are a real pain as other than using them as doggy bags it's really tough to do anything other than landfill them.

Polyprint will accept parcels of the correct types of plastic and will recycle them into new plastic items.  Clearly this is not as good as not using them in the first place.  Taking a bag for two courgettes or a melon seems pointless, but sometimes it is just not possible to avoid them.

The types of plastic bags that Polyprint will take are:

• Bags used to cover electrical appliances or furniture
• Bread bags (shaken out)
• Bin bags (clean)
• Bubblewrap
• Can & drink pack outers & joining rings
• Carrier bags (unless degradable e.g. Tesco)
• Cling film (clean)
• Compost sacks (clean)
• Courier bags (without paper labels)
• Drycleaning garment covers
• Mailing wrappers (without paper labels and unless degradable)
• Polythene recycling categories 2 and 4 (as marked on the film)
• Thin bags used in supermarkets for fruit & veg
• Toilet roll pack and nappy pack outers

The plastic bags that they can't recycle are:

 

• Cereal packet inners
• Crisp packets
• Degradable bags (of any type) - including Makes a Change's mailing bags
• Greeting card wrappers (cellophane)
• Magazine wrappers from book stalls (polypropylene)

While most of the companies who make Makes a Change's organic and fair trade baby products limit the packaging that their products are shipped in, we do end up with quite a lot of plastic wrapping which needs to be disposed of.  We tend to save it and use it to wrap our organic baby toiletries in case their bottles get damaged in the post and also to pad out larger orders sent in boxes, but sometimes we have bags left over which will now get sent directly to Polyprint for recycling!

 

Take a look at http://www.polyprint.co.uk/recycling.html for more information!

Reduce Fat (in your sink!)

Did you know that pouring fat from cooking down the sink solidifies as it cools, causing blockages in your sink waste and further down the line in the sewage pipes?  If it reaches the treatment works it still needs to be removed - wasting resources and wasting what is really useful bird food!

Instead of pouring it down the drain, mix it with suitable leftovers, or bird seed and peanuts, to make a free bird fat ball!

Suitable foods are:

• Fresh (NOT mouldy!) cheese
• Unsalted nuts - CRUSHED
• Currants or raisins
• Oatmeal

Use an old clean yoghurt pot, make a small hole in the bottom and thread string through and knot to hold in place.  Half fill the pot with the old fat over a plate in case some leaks out of the hole at the bottom (warmed to make it runny but not to hot to melt the pot!), and mix with the other foods.  Allow to cool and set then hang outside by the string.  Alternatively just mix the lot together and when cool tip it onto a bird table. 

Remember that meat fats such as that from sausages and bacon will set hard, whereas fats which start runny, such as veg oils, will not set.  This can still be mixed in but may be  better using the birdtable method as it will probably not stay in the upside down yoghurt pot!

DO NOT OFFER WHOLE NUTS OTHER THAN FROM A SMALL MESH FEEDER, ESPECIALLY DURNG SPRING, AS THEY CAN CHOKE BABY BIRDS

Here's One I Made Earlier (with loo roll inners!)

Hurray - Spring is in sight (well I'm being optimistic about it being after Christmas anyway!).  So we're now saving the cardboard rolls from the middle of the loo rolls which we will use to plant our carrot seeds in.

Why?  Because carrots don't like to be disturbed once they start to grow, so the cardboard inners can be used like a plant pot, then planted directly into the soil.

Now all we have to do is wait for the Spring to actually come - and start the eternal slug fight!

Bin there, Not Chucked That

We've just had an interesting letter from our local council. 

We currently have two bins - one for landfill, and another which takes paper, and tins and plastic bottles.  Our house also has a box inside into which we put all cardboard - not just brown boxes but everything from toothpaste tube boxes to cereal packets.  This gets taken to the recycling centre when we pass which is about once a week.

Waste food which can't be composted such as cooked foods, meats/fish and bones goes into the Bokashi Bran Bin (which makes fabulous house plant food).  Everything else goes into the composter.

We use cloth bags for shopping so no problems with carrier bags hanging around.  The only thing I can't get my head around is tetrapacks and plastic film which I avoid buying where possible anyway, but currently there is no way to recycle these with our council.

So back to their letter.  They are going to give us all a garden waste bin (hurrah) but wondered whether we preferred a collection of our landfill wheelie bin once a week or fortnightly.  There's been a lot of coverage of this in the press over the past year or so but I just don't really understand it.  With a bit of basic planning and forethought we maybe create the equivalent of one carrier bag of waste a week or less. 

Is our house just odd, or am I missing something?