Going green, one step at a time

Local fruit and veg shops and markets offer packaging-free alternatives to superstores where almost everything is in plastic. Photo taken at Fulbourn Fruit Shop. 

About 50% of journeys <2 miles are taken by car in the UK. Short car journeys increase pollution and carbon emissions. Swapping one trip a day from car to walking or cycling would reduce yearly carbon footprint by 0.5 tonnes (Environmental Change Institute study) and also benefits physical and mental health. If car journeys can't be replaced, consider carpooling with others going to the same place.

Hear from my hero Sir David Attenborough about how reducing meat consumption and switching to a plant-based diet would prevent habitat loss. In another quote, "It may sound odd but the more plants we eat, the more space there will be for wild plants”. Processed red meat also increases the risk of bowel cancer. Mussels are a lower-carbon, high-iron alternative to beef if looking to switch rather than remove meat entirely. 

Choosing to travel by train instead of plane for short domestic flights reduces carbon emissions by 60-70% when travelling between London and Glasgow or Manchester respectively (Source: DEFRA, summarised in Lease Fetcher article). Train prices also need to reduce to support this transition.

Bring your own reusable bags for weighing fruit and veg to prevent using plastic or paper bags. Photo taken at Fulbourn Fruit Shop. 

There's a growing range of bamboo and biodegradable products such as toothbrushes, ear buds and brushes. Photo taken at EcoBee shop, Fulbourn High Street. 

Our downstairs was noticeably colder than the rest of the house until we bought some inexpensive adhesive foam draught excluder seals and these excluder rolls. Save heating, energy and £. 

Picked up a great tip to decant any left over water from the kettle into a thermos flask to use later. We try to only fill the kettle for what we need but when there's spare water the thermos flask has definitely saved us energy. 

Second hand clothes can be bargains and are often unused or in very good condition. Charity shops and online platforms like Vinted are worth exploring. Clothing waste is a big issue. 

Reduce junk mail and plastic clothing bags entering your home with a simple sticker on your letterbox. My bugbear are weekly plastic clothing bags that often cannot be recycled and only a fraction of the profit generated goes to the charity. Also, you can opt out from unaddressed mail using Royal Mail's form. 

Setting up water butts in our garden has saved water (and money). When these run out, saving sink water (without chemicals) in a washing up bowl can be used to water plants instead of going down the drain. 

Food waste (including production and consumption) contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest emitter. Check out the tips from Energy Saving Trust for reducing food waste at home. 

Food and garden waste can be recycled via the local council or at home in a compost bin. Our compost bin provides a weekly source of organic fertiliser (leachate) and 3-6 monthly compost for the garden for nutrient-hungry plants (blackcurrant buses, roses). 

Great to see bread in paper packaging! We were discussing this only days before seeing it's now available. Hope other brands will also switch from plastic to paper. 

Many shops now sell packaging free soaps and other toiletries. Plastic hand gel dispensers often contain pumps that cannot be recycled so we switched to soap bars. They last way longer!

Bazoo is a carbon negative company who produce toilet roll made from bamboo instead of trees. Really soft and highly recommended! Find out more on Bazoo's website. 

Along with 250,000 others, we monitored the amount of plastic waste our household generated in a typical week. The study results showed that UK households throw away ~96 billion pieces of plastic per year, the majority of which cannot be easily recycled. This prompted us to do what we can to reduce plastic use. 

Perfect to reduce usage of new paper. 

Upcycled felted wool jumper patch (from Ebay) was used to make the patch to repair a hole in the glove. 

Freecycle is a fantastic platform that connects people to share unwanted items for free that may otherwise go to landfill. Simply take a photo of your item and post it to your town's page. 

Upcycled felted wool jumper patch (from Ebay) was used to make the patch to repair a hole in the glove. 

I've become an expert superglue repairman and just wanted to show off my repaired sunglasses! And various toys and items dropped by our kids. 

Attend a repair cafe in your local area, run by volunteers who will try to fix your broken item. Cambridge Carbon Footprint run cafes in our region but these are popping up across the country! Fantastic idea. 

We have become a local TerraCycle drop-off point for toothbrushes and washing up gloves. There are loads of recycling programmes for items that otherwise end up in landfill. 

1. Know what your local council can recycle

2. Separate out mixed materials (e.g. remove plastic windows from paper boxes)

3. Clean the items after doing your washing up (no extra water needed)

4. Avoid wishcycling (putting non-recyclable items into recycling bins)

Some councils have very helpful A to Z searchable guides to what items can be recycled and which bin they should be put in such as Cambridge city council's guide. Ask your council to do this if there's nothing like this for your area. 

John Lewis runs a recycling scheme called BeautyCycle for empty & clean cosmetic containers and will give you a £5 voucher for every 5 items recycled. The plastic is repurposed such as for building playgrounds, as highlighted in the nice video at the bottom of their homepage. 

We recently discovered that Superdrug stores accept empty medicine blister packs for recycling so these aren't going into our bin anymore. 

We also recently discovered that Ryman stores accept old pens for recycling. We're trying to switch to pencils and re-usable pens to reduce waste.