The Lazy Environmentalist

I am in complete adoration of the Lazy Environmentalist blog. All of his June pieces have been very interesting. The piece on eco-transport and the new media zeitgeist are good reads and link throughs. Lazy Environmentalist My apologies about lack of entries lately. Working hard to get the $/£ to but those Eco products! Though, I confess, I have longed for the harshness of bleach to whiten my ever greying sinks.

After our California trip, it's nice to be back in London where there's a Smart Car on every corner and Vespas instead of Hummers. And the national papers seem to be attacking SUVs in cities more and more regularly. I recently saw a bloke drive through a red light at a busy pedestrian intersection in his Range Rover, while on the phone, as an ambulance was trying to get by him while he continued his big-car mayhem, oblivious.

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Why isn't all packaging recyclable?

It's been an interesting week trying to buy household products and food only made from recyclable packaging. A mixed bag. Literally. For example, I just made a rocket (arugula) salad with fresh mozzarella. The rocket I bought from Waitrose last week was in a recyclable bag made from recycled plastic. However, the rocket I bought from Sainbury's today was in a bag that did not have the recyclable sign, nor was it made from recycled plastic. The Sainsbury's mozzarella was equally guilty. However, Sainsbury's does use some bags that are recyclable, mainly for their organic products. Less confusing were the products in cardboards boxes/cartons and aluminum packaging. All clearly recyclable. And almost all of the plastic packaging we bought was recyclable apart from a few random items we bought at Marks and Spencers and the lunch spot Eat. Things like salad containers that looked like they were candidates for the recycling pile turned out not to have any recycling symbols...

The problem with flying

Everyone who knows me knows that I hate flying. It's loud, uncomfortable, confining and if things go wrong there's no way out. (I'm an advocate of parachutes under seat, not inflatable vests.) But the real reason I hate flying these days is the environmental impact. a) Apparently you're better off driving to your destination, alone , even if it's thousands of miles away, than being on a full plane. That's how bad the fuel consumption is. b) Planes dump their emissions in the most delicate part of the stratosphere and there's nothing to help mitigate the damage. For all of the pollution cars create, we have our plant life down here to help soften the blow. c) They are noisy, booming things and no matter where we go, we seem to be able to hear one or see one, even the far hills of Scotland. d) The amount of packaging they use per passenger is amazing. When my husband recently flew on a short haul flight to Amsterdam, he asked the air steward if they recy...

Relieving your travel guilt with carbon neutralization packages

Brother Ren, who shall now be called Research Ren as he is better at it than I am, has sent in this guilt-alleviating website which allows anyone to purchase carbon neutrlaization packages. + Carbon Neutral Question you may have: What is a carbon neautralization package? Is it something that can only be purchased at Star Trek conventions? Answer: These packages plant trees to help absorb the nastiness left in the air from your flight to the Maldives. It will also calculate how much CO2 you emit on flights based on your destination as well as CO2 you emit with your car mileage. It's a smart site, easy to use and I feel more green-angelic just for looking at it. We're taking the Eurostar/TGV to a wedding in the south of France in 2 weeks rather than flying but we still have all of those air miles to make up for from our London-NY-San Fran-LA-London trip so looks like we'll be using this site's offerings to help to plant a small forest somewhere. (Though I do wonder how ...

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