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Where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing

The Everyday RadicalLeave a comment

Gosh, it’s nearly two weeks since I last posted. Sorry, people. I am a very good example of how NOT to maximise the success of a viral post… (this is the ragey post I wrote at the beginning of October which got retweeted a lot and nearly 1000 views – seems it resonated with a lot of people who are fed up of mothers and women in general being judged for every single thing they do).

Anyway… since we last met, dear reader, my very limited spare writing time has been taken up by some freelance work for the NHS, writing and rewriting a few business cases. I am enjoying it a lot – it’s not exactly got me hankering for the old days of 50+ hour weeks in a front-line operational job, but it’s good to get the brain cells whirring again (and earn some actual money, of course, which is always nice). So if you follow me on social media (Twitter or Facebook – no Instagram, ever), you’d have known there was a blog hiatus on the horizon, sorry if you missed it. I’ve also got another super secret writing thing going on, but it’s super secret and staying that way. Literally not one single human that I know in real life knows about it, so there.

I’m finding it a bit frustrating at the moment, to be honest, having so little time for writing. But it seems I can’t simultaneously do paid work, unpaid work, have a clean house and sleep, let alone keep a toddler alive and fed (and feed a husband too, of course). So something has to give at the moment, and it’s the clean house and the unpaid stuff, of course.

I have been plugging away at the eco switches in the background. I’ve been to SWOP today for Faith in Nature shampoo and conditioner. I confess I’ve given up on shampoo bars for now – fed up of looking like a scarecrow. I could have persevered but I didn’t want to spend tons of money on different bars to see what worked for me. I feel that refills is the next best thing – although it has occurred to me today to tweet SWOP to ask them what happens to the 5L bottles they get from their supplier and whether they’re sent back and refilled. I maintain that there’s no such thing as truly zero waste, I don’t think…

And dishwashing! The obsession continues. I took the plunge and switched to Splosh dishwasher tablets, and I’m really happy with them. They come in this snazzy little tub:

The tablets are covered in a water-soluble film, which looks a bit like plastic but definitely isn’t, and they are cruelty free. They came in a box padded with a bunch of things that looked alarmingly like styrofoam, but this apparently is a starch-based packing peanut, which is biodegradable.

I also bought hand wash, washing up liquid, kitchen and bathroom cleaner refills, to use in bottles I’ve kept, and refillable Splosh laundry liquid. I’m happy with the laundry liquid but it seems to be disappearing pretty fast, so I’m considering halving the amount I’m using per wash to see if it’s still effective, as I would with the dosage recommendations for powder or tablets.

My Splosh account tells me I’ve already saved 19 bottles. I was a bit concerned about the refill pouches, but the blurb on the website is convincing – the combined effort of using very concentrated products and pouches reduces plastic use by 90%, and the pouches can be returned for reprocessing with only a 2.5% waste rate from this process (they call this “zero waste”, but of course it’s not… but it’s miles better than new bottles every time, made out of virgin plastic then plunged into the over-burdened recycling system to end up goodness knows where). Splosh say that their customers have saved 257,511 plastic bottles from going into the waste system this year, and they’re aiming for one million next year.

I’m pretty happy with the Splosh switch. Nothing’s perfect, of course, except living in a cave and eschewing all modernity (tempting sometimes!) But it felt like the right choice, after quite a bit of research.

Next switch – not sure. Check out Tortoise Happy‘s blog if you want some inspiration while waiting for my next post. She’s doing well in her challenge to make 12 eco-switches before the end of the year.

There’s loads I want to write about – XR, climate change and feminism, eco-anxiety, Christmas… Anyone want to sponsor this blog so I can spend more time on it? (*wishes for fairy godmother*

Until next time – keep on truckin’.

(Here’s the Splosh refills all neat in the cupboard like a row of books).

The story so far – 1 month in

The Everyday Radical5 Comments

People buy birthday cakes for their baby’s one month birthday – this is actually a thing. The things I discover through Google image search… I’ll say it again, louder for the people at the back – over-consumption is the problem on this planet!

So I started this blog a month ago and I thought I would just do a little stock take of where we’re at so far. 18 posts, 34 followers, 1188 views over 768 visits from 27 countries and 39 comments. Definitely some people who I don’t know IRL reading, which is very exciting – good to know it’s not just my friends humouring me!

Some promised posts I owe you, which will be coming fairly soon: trying to find out what really happens to my recycling in Greenwich, watching people arguing on the internet about paper bags, giving up micro-rice, following up on #smokegate with Greenwich Council, No Buy July and getting over my hatred of eBay. Also the famous singing dumper truck, Ecobricks and my baby clothes stash of shame.

Some really interesting stuff has come up in the comments too, so thanks to everyone who’s engaging. Things I am thinking about and plan to write about in due course:

  • The Government’s 2018 Waste Strategy and what this means for the recycling industry.
  • The efficacy and impact of putting pressure on Councils about recycling, and on supermarkets about packaging. And petitions – are they worth the effort?
  • What’s the carbon footprint of driving stuff to recycling centres and does it negate the benefit of the recycling?
  • What’s the ecological impact of different plant-milks and what would the global implications be if we all became vegan?
  • Someone commented, brilliantly, that plastic is the cover and distraction from dealing with society’s real issue of over-consumption – what can we do about this, and the bad bits of capitalism? (is it all bad?)
  • Is food labelling meaningless? What welfare standards can we trust – not Red Tractor, for sure.
  • Should we give up takeaways?
  • Should I keep some chickens, or get a goat?

Other stuff to follow-up: home-made gift tags and cards (and toddler craft scissors…), chasing Center Parcs about their eco-sins, more research on eco laundry and dishwasher tablet solutions, the mighty Sir David Attenborough’s speech as Glastonbury which I still haven’t watched, and maybe buying a yoghurt-maker.

I also need to do some really boring research on how to use WordPress more effectively – if anyone has any knowledge to share about plugins, layout hacks etc., I would be grateful.

Also after recommendations for: vegan restaurants in South-East or Central London and brands of bamboo toothbrushes and shampoo/conditioner bars.

Should I do a Facebook page? (Nooooooo Intagram or Pinterest.)

If you’re liking what I’m doing, please do share, comment, retweet and all that stuff. I’m enjoying blogging and it’s great to see the audience increasing.

Peace and Love

xx

Stinky little bottom – or, #plasticbandwagon poos.*

The Everyday Radical4 Comments

A vast array of poo-related songs have been created in our house over the past two years, plus many re-writes of well-known songs with bum-related lyrics. A personal favourite of mine is the tune of Jingle Bells with the words “stinky bum, stinky bum, very stinky bum, oh what fun it is to do a great big stinky poo…” etc. And one of my all-time greatest parenting memories so far is singing alternative stinky bottom lyrics in harmony to the Thula Mama song ( a Zulu lullaby) with one of my very beloved mum friends.**

Anyway. I’m a bit late to the party on the whole sustainable/eco nappy thing. I always intended to go for reusable nappies (or “cloth bums”, as some people insist on calling them). But the truth is that I found the first few weeks and months of parenting so incredibly tough, for a variety of reasons, that I never managed it. I’m sure it’s not all that complicated to get a system set up for the reusable ones, but it just felt overwhelming to me and I could never quite get my head around it. If we have small person #2 (should we?), I am determined to crack it, although I do have some qualms about the impact of the additional laundry – yet more to be thought about here. I’m not sure it’s worth the financial outlay to make the change now for small person #1, especially as I think we’re quite close to potty training (what larks await us…!).

We did try out biodegradable nappies, but they cost a fortune, and leaked. We tried biodegradable nappy bags, but they also cost a fortune and seemed pointless if the nappy therein isn’t biodegradable.

We use Waterwipes, which are chemical free, and never flush them, but of course we now know that they contain plastic (80% polyester and 20% viscose, according to Friends of the Earth – this article looks like the final word on the subject of wet wipes, I haven’t read every word but will do eventually and maybe do a follow-up post if there’s anything interesting to say).

I’ve sort of justified it to myself on this by acknowledging that our black bin waste doesn’t end up in landfill. Our borough incinerates non-recyclable waste at an energy recovery facility. So this statement that I keep seeing that every single disposable nappy ever used is now in landfill isn’t actually true. But even so, no matter how clean these facilities purport to be, clearly they will have some negative environmental impact.

So anyway, enough excuses, let’s cut to the chase.

I did a wipe-free pooey nappy change yesterday and no one died. I used the front of the nappy to get rid of the worst (always do this anyway), then loo roll for the rest, then a damp flannel for final wipe and dry flannel for drying. The main hassle factor for me is having to do this on the floor in the bathroom to be near the loo, rather than upstairs on the changing table which I still use as my knees are still knackered post-pregnancy. But I think it’s probably worth the pain, so I’m up for making this a long-term switch and using up the Waterwipes stash while out and about. I think we will also save up for some Cheeky Wipes, for this purpose and also for post-meal carnage clear-up.

So I guess this very long post is aiming to show that these decisions at a household level are not totally straightforward, despite the #WaronPlastic rhetoric. But I think I’ve made the decision for us to ditch the wipes, and I’m seeing lots of other people making it too, which can only be a good thing for the planet.

(And it’s probably cheaper in the long run too, I will do the maths on this at some point, just for fun),

*John B, Blandwagon Poos – it’s so funny you might wet yourself, although you have to be pretty rad and cool to like drum n bass.

Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics - 40 x 50 Cm Art Print/Poster

**Thula Mama is the brain-child of Helen Yeomans, a franchise of singing groups for mums with their pre-walking babies, running all over the UK and beyond. Lush acapella harmonies, coffee and cake – kept me sane in the early days for sure. Spotify playlist here, YouTube video here (just made me cry a little bit). Also CDs available, highly recommended for long car journeys, as well as the 3am shift.

P.S. I’m on Twitter, @TheEverydayRad1. I’m a bit lonely. If you want to see photos of my cabbage pasta and lentil ragu, and other random stuff I share, follow me!