The latest news, stats and facts on key environmental issues. The latest news from Sussex Green Living.
I recently completed a Carbon Literacy course with the Scottish Community Climate Action Network (SCCAN) who produce some excellent teaching resources. They focus on actions we can all take and as a result and based on a Scottish idea, I made an enquiry about the possibility of a formal car-sharing scheme at Horsham Rugby Club.
South Downs painting by local artist John Thompson
Scotland seems to be ahead of the game in looking at the big picture, using the joined-up thinking that needs to happen now to address the current crises in resources, economy, nature and climate.
Last month’s Film at the Horsham Green Film Festival was made in Scotland: ‘Riverwoods’. This wonderful film opened with shots of Alaska’s bountiful nature, then moved across the same latitude to Scotland with its acres of treeless uplands, a legacy of the clearances of the traditional small mixed farms to make way for large scale sheep grazing.
But why are there no sheep at Knepp’s rewilding project? Read more
Around 21% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from our homes. With the increase in energy prices that we have seen, making your home more energy efficient will lower your energy bills. Good for the planet and your pocket!
Many organisations talk about energy saving tips, but they often require a big financial outlay with buying a new boiler or retrofitting your house. These are great ideas and will have a big impact on your energy consumption, but if you can’t afford these right now, here are some lifestyle tips you can make that won’t cost you a thing. Read more
When I was invited to write an article on my experience with bumble bees, this title came to mind. I like to think it’s part of Christopher Bollas’s ‘unthought known’ territory – something you’ve carried around in your mind without ever really realising it. And as it turns out, the phrase is rather apt: Darwin referred to them as the ‘hum bee’ – because they ‘hummed’.
Flowers are a precious part of our life-events, but are we aware of the significant environmental and human costs of the demand for cheap flowers at all times of the year?
Until the 1970s, bought flowers came from British farms, while today, most are grown commercially in Holland, Columbia, Ecuador and Kenya, routed through Dutch auctions. The flower industry has a massive carbon footprint, from heating greenhouses to refrigerated transport, a vast chemical footprint from pesticides, herbicides and preservatives, some banned in the UK, polluting soil and water, poisoning pollinators, impacting flower workers and their communities, many producers are not Fairtrade.
2022 marks 50 years since the conference which led to the designation of 5th June as World Environment Day. ‘Only One Earth’ was the motto for the 1972 Stockholm Conference and half a century later, do we doubt that this planet is our only home, whose finite resources are running out?
World Environment Day 2022 will be held again with this same theme, ‘Only One Earth’, to highlight again the need to live sustainably in harmony with our ecology by bringing transformative changes through policies and our own choices, moving towards lifestyles more in line with the natural cycles of Nature.
Don’t we all love to see spring lambs in wildflower meadows, and sheep in green fields?
In total contrast, who wants to see a factory producing acrylic? A synthetic produced mainly in India and China, it’s made from chemicals so dangerous that special regulations have had to be made to prevent explosions at the factories manufacturing it.
Acrylic seems to have replaced real wool in much of our clothing. However it is not biodegradeable so minute harmful particles of it are becoming increasingly present in our oceans, in foodstuffs and in human and animal bodies. There is now even some suspicion that there may be carcinogenic risks associated with wearing acrylic next to our skin.
Image Credit: Billingshurst Dairy
Checking out at the supermarket, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she could bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologised and explained, “We didn’t have this ‘green thing’ back in my earlier days.” She was right in that my generation didn’t have ‘the green thing’.
Back then, we returned glass milk, lemonade and beer bottles to the shop, and were sometimes given a few pence in return. The shop sent them all back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so the same bottles were used over and over again.
No doubt you have heard that for a healthy planet, we should use peat-free compost, but do you know why, or what exactly is peat?
Peat is soil made up of organic matter that has only partially rotted down. The lack of oxygen and the acidic nature of waterlogged peat bogs prevent bacteria and fungi from breaking down the dead plant material. It is formed over millions of years, at a rate of only 1mm thickness per year, but we are currently extracting it at a rate much, much faster than that! By ‘mining’ peat we are both damaging the ecology and adding to climate change.
We are delighted to report that a second reuse shop has opened in Billingshurst. The first being Horsham *
Background
Biffa have a opened a small Reuse shop at the Billingshurst Recycling Centre to save bric a brac, homeware, bikes (sold as seen) and furniture, including garden furniture, from going to waste. Items can be donated at this site as well as there being a shop outlet for patrons to purchase items which have been donated.
The goal is to take items that could potentially go to waste and give them a new lease of life at affordable prices, reducing the amount of household goods that end up wasted whilst allowing people to buy affordable, good quality furniture, garden items and homeware without getting into debt.
This venture has been soft launched by Biffa and has not been actively promoted to residents at this stage. Read more
Last month London Fashion week was held. There’ll be another in June.
Fast fashion is absolutely one of THE most polluting and damaging industries on the planet, second only to oil, and here in the little UK we are actually one of the worst countries in world for creating most waste clothing. The dying process alone uses huge amounts water that is sorely needed for food crops, and is often discharged into rivers without being cleaned up – much like our raw sewage is now being discharged into Sussex rivers.
Yes, we can donate clothes, but increasingly it is becoming like plastic rubbish- often “recycled” by transporting it to another, poorer country where it lies in a heap, unusable, partly because the cheap mixed fibres are unrecyclable. Natural pure fibres like linen, bamboo, hemp, wool and cotton can be re-used more easily (as can unblended clothes made only from polyester.) Read more
An Interview with founder and CEO Carrie Cort – April 2022 When did you first gain an interest in the environment? I have lived in villages, had dogs and loved […]
Smarter fashion lesson
Clearly, it’s important for us all to use less of everything for so many reasons- resources are becoming scarcer on our small island – and on our small planet too, with its billions of people.
We hope this goes without saying but please only buy something if you need it!
When we do need to replace something, however, there are several ways we can help to guide companies to understand that we would like them to ‘go green.’ One of those ways is for us as customers to sign up to Easyfundraising, where there are over 6,000 retailers ready to make a donation – including eBay, Argos, John Lewis, ASOS, Booking.com and M&S – and it won’t cost you a penny extra to help raise funds for Sussex Green Living.
All you need to do is:
1. Go to our Sussex Green Living spot at easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/sussexgreenliving/ and join for free.
2. Then whenever you shop online, go to Easyfundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping. Read more
Did you make it to the Transition Horsham Seed Swap last weekend, at the Kinder Living Home Show? If so, you will know that there was seed available from local allotmenteers, gardeners and Garden Organic … as well as a lot of talk about how things grew last year!
If you missed it – never fear! Come to the Seed Swap Part 2 at the Spring into Spring event on March 26th at Sussex Green Hub.
Some of the growers are members of the Horsham District Seed Circle, (launched during lockdown 2021.) And Transition Horsham distributed seed from Garden Organic to Seed Circle members and asked them to grow it with as little impact as possible. Each grew different crops, used the produce, then saved some seed to bring back to Seed Swap 2022.
Calling all climate commandos!
We’re facing the greatest human challenge of the 21st century in attempting to avert the extreme climate collapse which is endangering all the living beings we share this beautiful green and blue sphere with.
We CAN all make a difference no matter how small we may feel. We human beings are capable of great destruction but also of great compassion. Please join us at our Sussex Green Hub at the United Reformed Church, RH12 1PT (near Wilko off West Street and the Lynd Cross pub and opposite St John the Evangelist) on the last Saturday every month 10am – 4pm. Here you can attend our Carbon Clinic which as been designed to offer tailored advice and feedback to make your everyday living more sustainable and help keep our planet steady at 1.5°C global mean surface temperature (GMST). Read more
The new Leader of Horsham District Council, Cllr Jonathan Chowen, has made a series of new cabinet appointments, including Cllr James Wright as Cabinet Member for Environment and Rural affairs, […]
As the time of seasonal exchange of presents approaches, many people may be considering gifting an animal.
The number of dogs and cats in the UK has shot up to 12 million of each. They undoubtedly make great pets and bring enormous pleasure but these large numbers bring difficulties as well as delights. The UK is now one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, as anyone over 50 will attest. From rockpools and meadows brimming with life we are now thrilled by a single butterfly.
According to the RSPB, UK cats catch around 100 million prey items every year. I’ve lost count of the number of nests raided by cats in my own small garden. Nestlings are particularly vulnerable as they can’t escape a cat, even one with a bell round its neck. Similarly, ground nesting birds’ nests are innocently destroyed every spring by dogs off leads.
So what can be done?
In Australia in 2015 cats were reported killing 75 million native animals per DAY so many towns now have cat curfews, outside of which stray cats can be shot. I’m not suggesting anything this extreme, but I wonder if cats in the UK could be sold with a “conservation rating”, similar to an energy rating on a washing machine? The rag doll breed, for example, has little killer instinct and doesn’t roam far. Many cat owners are horrified at the destruction their cats inflict and pet shops could inform customers of the cat’s likely potential to kill. Animals sold with a conservation rating could help customers choose the right one – similar to the way we might choose allergy-free dogs! Read more
Beneath our feet is a world that many do not even consider to be part of us, yet within two handfuls of healthy soil are more living organisms than people […]