Go Greener Tips

Unless you have been living on another planet recently, you will know that environmental and sustainability issues have been a hot topic. Twenty years ago, very few people even thought about where their food, tableware or other products were sourced from. It was a case of what do I want and where do I get it. This attitude is not sustainable however, and a shift in thinking is needed especially in these times of weak economy and global warming. Taking some time to think about where you get and how you consume your food can have a surprisingly big impact.

Local Producers. We have become complacent about being able to buy things like bananas all year round and having access to every spice under the sun. However, a huge amount of these products are flown thousands of miles from other countries and this causes problems. Not only does the transport release vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, due to burning fuel and having to use a food and wine cooler to keep the produce chilled all the way, but also local food suppliers struggle to compete with low foreign costs. If you don’t want to see local businesses going under, make sure you support them and shop local as much as you can.

Fight Packaging. It is staggering just how much packaging is used to make modern food attractive and increase their life-span. A single cake might be singly wrapped, inside a little box with a plastic place-holder, which is cloaked in cellophane and transported within a cardboard box, with the other cake boxes. It is often the case that such packaging is completely redundant, so do your bit and try to buy loose or sensibly wrapped goods.

Ethically Sourced Accessories. More than just the food you buy can influence the planet when you eat. Everything from the cutlery you use to the little wine gifts bought for yourself or other can have just as much influence and the consumables themselves. Ask yourself where this ware has come from, is it something that could be made from a more sustainable textile, and is this a disposable product when I could be purchasing a reclaimable one? A good example of this is chopsticks as the disposable kind accounts for acres of lost rain forest every day.