Christmas

Running out of thyme – and the end of #BuyNothing September

The Everyday Radical1 Comment

I ran out of thyme this week. Sorry folks, it’s just too good a pun not to write about.

I’ve got quite a respectable stash of these herb and spice jars. I think it’s loosely based on a list from one of Jack Monroe‘s books of essential ingredients to have in your store cupboard. As someone who’s always striving to cook from scratch more creatively, it’s handy to rarely have to buy extra herbs and spices to add to recipes I’m trying out. They’re all supermarket bought though – the glass jars are recyclable but the lids almost definitely not. The label says “check locally”, but even if they were the right kind of plastic to be recycled, I expect they would get lost in the sorting machines at recycling plants and end up in landfill (I promise I’m going to write some more in the Recycling 101 series soon about all these random recycling thoughts).

My plan has always been to replace things with zero/low waste options as and when they ran out. So off I trooped to SWOP with my empty thyme jar to see what could be done. Sure enough, there’s a herbs and spices section, so I refilled my little jar using one of their funnels from a big jar of dried organic Spanish thyme… and held my breath at the till, expecting to pay a major eco-premium (plus an organic premium).

A 17g jar of own brand dried thyme in Asda costs 69p. A Schwarz brand-named packet (now in cardboard, not glass jars anymore it seems) is £1.37 for 11g. My refilled jar (not completely full but probably close to 17g) was 35p. So the lesson, boys and girls, is that eco and low waste is NOT ALWAYS more expensive… it’s pretty hard to predict which products are going to be cheaper and which are going to shock you with their prices, but I guess it’s all a learning game. And learning takes thyme. Ahaaaa. (I’m here all week).

Meanwhile, it’s now October! (Hurray for autumn!) Which means that Oxfam’s #SecondHandSeptember campaign is over. I wrote about this here – essentially it was a campaign to encourage people not to buy new clothes for a month, to raise awareness of the environmental impact of fast fashion. It was quite interesting watching the social media chat around this. For huge amounts of people, not buying anything new for a month is not a challenge at all. Loads of people people very rarely or never buy new clothes, for financial reasons as well as environmental. But some people are really interested in fashion and really want to wear the latest trends. I find this hard to understand to be honest, but no doubt there are some people who would find my book collection weird and extreme, and see it as a waste of trees (this is another post I will write one day – but I am procrastinating on it in a BIG way…) Anyway, I think Oxfam got the promo slightly wrong and were mainly preaching to the converted, but I’m not sure what the alternative is, and anything which raises awareness of the harmful impact of fast fashion on the environment is of course a good thing.

We were aiming for Buy Nothing September, or ever again… so how is my pledge to buy nothing new for myself or the small one until the end of the year going?

Well, pretty good actually. I’ve bought groceries, toiletries, food and medicine for the cat. I’ve bought some more clothes on eBay for the small one – he’s moving into the next size bracket so everything is getting too small all at the same time. I also bought myself a second hand copy of the novel of Les Miserables to read in my copious spare time, after going to see the staged concert of the musical last weekend at the Gielgud theatre. And just as an aside – OMactualG – beg, borrow or steal a ticket to get the chance to see this if you can, it was amazing. And it got me thinking about revolution and rebellion and being more radical, hence my desire to sit quietly at home and read the book…

Anyway. It’s been Mr Everyday Radical’s birthday this month, and I did buy him a new book – The Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace-Wells, which is about the impact climate change is going to have on our planet unless we take radical action. Uplifting stuff. I must confess I have a bad habit of buying him books as presents that I want to read myself. But that book is the sum total of new consumer goods that have entered our house in the month of September. (My mum also bought new shoes and some socks for the small one – does that count? Generous Grandma privilege remains sacred, I think).

Then on 1st October my son’s buggy broke on the bus, I had a huge meltdown and had to buy him a new travel buggy at Mothercare to use while we get it fixed. I also bought him a fluffy onesie for the winter in the sale. Because I buy new stuff when stressed. I also bought a Wispa to share with my mum, to help us recover from the bus trauma. The small one’s 2nd birthday was also 1st October, and he’s had some lovely presents (some new, and plastic – which is fine by me because they’re not single use, they will be passed on and I refuse to ban people from buying him stuff because that would make me mean and a rude twat, frankly). But I think on balance we are doing pretty well.

I’m working up to Christmas… I want to buy this for him SO much, because he would LOVE it, but it feels like it would be practically against my religion. Hmmm. I was going to do another installment of Motherhood, Consumption and Guilt one day wasn’t I? Watch this space.

Magic and Sparkles?

The Everyday Radical2 Comments

Anyone thinking about Christmas yet…? I realise that talking about Christmas in September may be almost as controversial as Brexit, but as far as I’m concerned, once the Quality Street tins are in the shops, all bets are off. Anyway, I’m following The Organised Christmas plan this year, in an attempt to get into good habits for future years, when there’s more child-related madness, and possibly more children. The idea is that you get everything done by December 1st, then just concentrate on having a nice time. Super Mum stuff, really. We’ll see…

But the problem I have here is that I sort of hate a lot of what Christmas has become. I love the eating and drinking, watching films, going for wintry walks and being with family (mostly!). I just bloody hate the consumerist crap and all the useless, pointless s**t that we are encouraged to buy that we don’t need. Back in the days when I was more spiritually invested in Christmas, it used to really upset me that all this consumption was a far cry from the “real” meaning of Christmas. Now I’m less attached to the religious aspect, but even more bothered by the environmental impact. All that extra food wrapped in plastic, all those plastic toys which might be played with for a few minutes and then discarded, destined for landfill or incineration. (Funnily enough I feel less guilt-ridden about the empty wine bottles, but we can talk about glass recycling another time. And please, God, can someone find me a plastic free cheeseboard selection? Because that’s one sacrifice too many for me right now).

So I’m searching for good news stories about what companies are doing to mitigate the impact of Christmas and I came across this – Marks and Spencer are banning glitter from their cards, crackers, wrapping paper and calendars this Christmas, in a bid to reduce the volume of microplastics ending up in the ocean. They’re following in the footsteps of Tesco, who’ve switched to plastic-free glitter for their Christmas range of plants, trees and flowers, and Aldi, who’ve banned glitter from their Halloween range this year. Hobbycraft have launched biodegradable glitter and promised to be totally plastic glitter free by 2021, and Waitrose have made a similar pledge to Mark and Spencer, but by 2020. Even Strictly Come Dancing have banned glitter. So it’s great that companies are paying attention to consumer pressure on the plastic issue and taking action.

So why can’t we just, well, ban it completely? It’s not like straws where there’s a credible need for some people to use them (interesting stuff on this here). Does anyone need plastic glitter? I don’t think so. There’s a petition here calling for a total ban – please consider signing it, cos we all know how much notice this Government takes of petitions…

I’m thinking that, like so many aspects of the Christmas consumption-fest, we’ve been conditioned to think that we need sparkly stuff to make it “Christmassy”. But we just don’t. We need family and community and love, and ideally a bit of feasting. I want to read some more stuff about the history of Christmas, how we got to where we are now and how far away now we are from the original mid-winter Saturnalia festival. One thing I’m sure of is that we need to radically think our ideas of “magic and sparkles” if we want to celebrate our festivals in a way that’s respectful to Mother Earth.