Why "getting Brexit done" misses the point

It is no surprise to me that an Etonian of Boris Johnson's generation and political leaning wants nothing more than to "get Brexit done" Just as he and others like him have been educated to get good qualifications, employed to earn obscene amounts of money and elected to achieve an objective or "rather be dead in a ditch".  Brexit itself has become so singular in its goal and definition that we all seem to have forgotten what we wanted it for in the first place.

This single agenda goal is symptomatic of the major flaw of capitalism - the pursuit of profit above all else. As a sustainability professional I've made a career from explaining the benefits to businesses of taking a more holistic view. Its generally not an easy sell - for the majority of business leaders are also the type of people who have had lifelong encouragement to pursue narrow goals. Academia, sporting wins, profit margins, career accolades, self interest and wealth, more often than not at the expense of everything else.

It seems as though the current political situation in the UK is such that we are all either "for" or "against", "leave" or "remain", "winners" or "losers" defined in binary terms that are easy to explain. But none of the outcomes of this general election will be so extreme or so simple. This is an election with a polarized agenda and yet at best striving for a marginal majority.

We have learnt nothing from previous attempts to "get Brexit done" as we have learnt little to nothing from banking collapses, austerity measures and the final death of the high street.  Businesses and governments alike chase these narrow goals - more money, more profit, efficiencies, speed, lay offs, outsourcing, privatization....

And the manifestation now of this relentless pursuit of wealth and power at all costs? Babies are dying in boats to get here, the economy flounders, jobs are lost, kids sleep on hospital floors and the prime minister hides in a fridge.

My argument is that these one dimensional targets and the people who strive for them, aren't working for us any longer.  I hope that my children never know poverty, hunger, fear or pain, but I need them to be empathetic enough to understand it when they see it. And for them to recognize that inequality is not a given, nor a deliberate, decision based outcome, driven by "Ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive", "drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless" people.

I want my kids to do well at school, and pass all their exams, but I want them to have friends, and love nature and art, and for them to know how to fail.
I want them to love sport, but to know that winning is an outcome not the goal and that activity and competition and team playing are good for our health and humanity.  I want them to know that love and charity will provide more purpose than money in your pocket and that to know weakness is to know how to help others.
I want the businesses I work for to value their employees, pay fair wages, respect the environment that supports them and give back to the communities that they operate in.
I want my government to understand that society is a complex, changing, breathing thing that must be viewed as a whole.

Is that too much to ask?

Sanna Marin, the youngest sitting Prime Minister says "the government's responsibility is to create stability in society" Jacinda Arden stands for a" government that looks to the next 10 years not the next 3 years" and
Nancy Pelosi says "each generation is responsible to make the future of the next" Their messages are about society, sustainability, stability, the future, long term goals. A stark contrast to our seemingly rolling monthly goal that speaks of delivering an outcome that not everyone wants. And our third general election in five years.

Leaving the EU has been sold under many guises and every one of them is financial.

Because let's not forget that Brexit isn't being led by you and me.  It is being led by those people who have been taught to pursue singular goals that benefit themselves and no-one else. Saving face, coming out on top, profiting, power, these are motivators that they understand.

I don't see anyone who represents me in this election. I don't see anyone with a multi faceted agenda that I think will fix this. So I can only vote with my values. And for the political party I think is most likely to look out "for the many, not the few "(catchy line) even if I find their leaders to be more of the same short term, goal led, self-interested old men.

Voting is our greatest freedom and choice. Whether we vote tactically, or in line with our values, or to deliver on an outcome, voting allows us to express an opinion on how we want our country to be run. I don't have an opinion on how you make yours. But to vote for a one dimensional agenda and expect that the those behind it are anything other than self-serving is a mistake in my view.

Living without Plastic: The End

As I said at the beginning, we’ve been considering our plastic footprint for a while and had already taken a few steps to reduce the plastic we buy, trying to find swaps and alternatives.  And that's the reason that we wanted to take part in this challenge - but it really has been a lot more challenging than I would have expected!!!

Knowing that I couldn't win the competition didn't really make too much difference as this was about what changes we could make as a family for the better - forcing us to be super strict for a finite period of time, and seeing what stuck. 

If you’ve read any of the other entries from the week, food packaging  has been the biggest issue – it is basically impossible to get hold of a plastic free cucumber (a vegetable that already has a skin!), eating healthily doesn't necessarily mean low plastic and you have to be on guard all the time to avoid ending up with plastic you didn't ask for. Snacks are essentially a no go, and who knew a Greggs was good for the environment! 

The terms of the challenge that we established at the beginning of the week have also been much harder to stick to than I would have thought.  I initially thought that we would be able to achieve more - but the first step has been all consuming:

1. Try to eliminate all pointless plastic.

Going into the week we were thinking about plastic bottles, plastic cutlery, takeaway coffee cups - which for us are easy to avoid - but food, and the amount of plastic packaging on food has totally blindsided us.  Sneaky single use plastics like the wrapping around multi pack tins, the sheer quantity of plastic in the fruit and veg aisles at the supermarket, the unasked for plastic bags that wrap everything.  I was really keen to stick to shopping for myself for the challenge but moving forward I'm going to look into a veg box delivery (and I thought I couldn't be any more Cheshire) They are often prohibitively expensive but I'm going to research suppliers and might finally find a plastic free cucumber!

We’re also going to try growing our own – we already have quite a lot of herbs (basil, mint, thyme, rosemary, chamomile, oregano) and quite a lot of fruit (apples, rhubarb, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries) growing in the garden, but my beloved spinach is high on my list of things to try and grow because I eat a lot and I haven't found any plastic free alternatives to the supermarket bags.

2. Consider all plastics that have a short use phase.

We’ve been so busy with the task above, we haven’t put as much thought into this as I would have liked.  The good news is that a by product of our shopping on the high street has meant that we haven’t bought as many “additional” items as if we’d been in the much more convenient supermarket - the focus has meant we've automatically been much more considered in the items we pick up.

The big win in this category is that we’ve finally done what we’ve talked about for a long time and confirmed a doorstep, glass bottle milk delivery which we are all very excited about.  With a young family, we get through gallons of milk every week so this should have a real impact on the number of plastic bottles we are throwing away, the kids absolutely love it and I'm currently in the market for a cute, totally Instagram-able bottle holder to keep at the front door.

We were concerned about yogurt pots as we all enjoy yogurt and the kids ones can be quite small, although we try and buy the larger sizes. having just said that we were much more focused and considered away from the supermarket(!) our high street experience meant that we stumbled upon a brand new yogurt maker in a charity shop for £3!  We haven’t had the time to experiment this week but we will be making our own yogurt in future which again should eliminate some of our weekly plastic waste.

3. Try and replace plastics that have alternatives.

This was probably the simplest of the categories and I had to shop for it which I really didn't mind(!)

We’ve already made a number of swaps – and in the last couple of years those swaps have been made for us - in the case of plastic bags costing money, or instigated by Horwich Farrelly in the case of reusable cups for coffee and water.

Cotton buds without plastic and paper straws are simple, they are easy to come by and practically the same price.  As well as flannels for the kids (instead of beloved wet wipes) I've started using a washable cloth instead of cotton wool pads that come in a plastic bag.  Some of the beauty items have been harder than I was expecting but I’ll be traialling brands such as Neal’s Yard and Lush moving forward, as well as some online brands like The Beauty Kitchen and I'll keep making my salt based scrubs and using bar soap in place of shower gel and hand soap dispensers.

It's been a great mix of wholesome, silly, challenging, disgusting and there have certainly been moments where I've said "I don't care" - see bottled water on the 10k, spinich and cucumber, and an undisclosed biscuit or two.

Breaking the wet wipe habit has definitely been the hardest thing for me. We don't change nappies any more but I've clung on to them for years for face and hand wiping, nose blowing, cleaning up after the kids eat, especially on the go, and generally polishing the kids when I need to.

But, the soap and flannel solution has been fine and after the initial shock the kids seem happy with it too.

If anyone can tell me whether the wet wipe use or the frequent flannel washing using energy and flushing microfibers into the water streams is better or worse for the environment that would be great. I hope I can still use the wipes...

In conclusion! 

Things we’ve changed for good:
Glass milk delivery
No more soap dispensers
Greengrocer for one off fruit and veg items
Bamboo toothbrushes for the children
No more cling film

Things to try:
Make your own yoghurt
Veg box delivery
Bake fresh bread more frequently
Sustainable beauty brands
Less snacking and therefore packaging

And we'll be learning more, sharing more, talking more about day to day ideas, solutions and alternatives to #BeatPlasticPollution And I can't wait to see what content Horwich Farrelly employees come up with to win the competition prize to get to the forefront of tackling the issue and finding out more in Belize! 

Living without Plastic: The middle bit

Today I collect the kids from school and nursery and we pop to the green grocers to pick up some more courgettes..... The kids are always hungry at this point in the day and they are delighted to each choose a piece of fruit.  This is different to buying packaged apples and making a group decision - they deliberate and touch and chatter - and end up each choosing the same type of apples! (which is exactly what they would have complained about if I'd bought a bag of 6 apples in Asda next door!)

This has been such a simple swap - it's the same car park, the shops are next door, why haven't I been doing this before?  (I mean, they don't sell wine here so I do need to pop into the supermarket after all, but I don't do that every day......*lie*)

But what a lovely snack we've enjoyed! Food has been the real crux of this challenge for us as a family – particularly when there seems to be a confusing overlap with plastic free and healthy.  But this week has made me reassess the snacking culture I've bought into - with the treat tub very much in the "hide the plastic" category, and biscuits and crisps (and the healthy kiddy substitutes) off the menu, it's been amazing the difference in the treats we've enjoyed.

Lots of fruit, veg sticks, home made humus, cheese from a block.  Snacks and treats are chronic for single-use plastic - something that is enjoyed for minutes and if not properly treated, will never, ever go away.

I've read online recommendations that for crisps, sweets, biscuits, in fact anything in plastic packaging like cheese or meat, buying a larger size makes a difference to the amount of packaging overall therefore reducing the plastic footprint.  Just say no to multipacks - and indeed anything that has more than one layer of plastic packaging.

But for the future it doesn't even have to be about abstaining from plastic altogether forever, but changing some behaviours that mean we're responsible for a little less plastic can't be a bad idea. These dippy cheese snacks left in the fridge are so unnecessary and wasteful - and there are easy swaps.  There is still plastic on the breadsticks and the triangles are individually wrapped, but this felt like a simple way to reduce 3 wasteful plastic trays.

So snacking is sorted, vegetables are sorted, and wine was never in question - as we head to the final stretch I'm feeling much more in control of our plastic footprint and much clearer on what we'll change for good. 

Living without Plastic: Day Three

Today is the Manchester 10k and it is scorchio!  Here is an unflattering photo of me finishing the run and unapologetically enjoying my single use plastic bottle of water! An exception to the plastic free week! 

I’ve certainly been thinking this week about “the lesser of two evils” – my swaps have been making me think about our food choices particularly.

Being at an event like the 10k that raises funds, awareness and hope for so many amazing people and charities is an incredible, humbling experience.  But in some places on the verges along Chester Road you can still see the plastic pollution from last year’s race.  So many people, and so many bottles of water from which people take a sip and discard (although this year the heat meant that most people poured the whole thing over their heads!)

We challenge ourselves in our lives, the pace is frantic, we're expected to eat well, be successful and fulfilled, feed our children with superfood and opportunity, enjoy active social lives, be tech savvy but not smart phone addicted, work out every day and Netflix 'n' chill. So it makes sense that plastic has snuck into our lives while we were busy worrying about something else. And it helps us to eat on the go, enjoy healthy, ready chopped veg, meet our daily hydration quota and not smudge our on trend lip while relaxing with an espresso martini.

But what's the true cost? Where does this end? How much do we understand about the plastic that is polluting our food chain, destroying the ocean and costing the planet?

You think a lot when you run.

After a few celebratory drinks I head home for a family BBQ and say a huge thank you for the fact that wine comes in glass bottles and is therefore 100% within scope.

We enjoy our giant prawns and paper wrapped sausages and between us we scoff a giant watermelon - this weekend has been not only plastic free, but we also lived a little slower.  And that's been great too.

Living Without Plastic: Day Two

Today we're doing the big shop for the week ahead.  This would usually be a Sunday afternoon supermarket trip to maximise the freshness of food for the week – but our shopping today will involve the butcher, the greengrocer and the fishmonger and they are not open on a Sunday.

I'm dreading it and we have a WONDERFUL time. It's a sunny day and we’re very lucky where we live to have some good independent shops and a pedestrian street where the shops are all close to each other. I honestly don’t think it takes us any longer than if we went around the supermarket.

In terms of cost I think the individual items – particularly meat and fish are more expensive but we are much more focussed on the shopping list we started with – I am not distracted by superfluous purchases (apart from some gigantic shell-on prawns in the fishmonger!) and so the total for the meat, fish and veg ends up about the same as our usual cost.

The real advantage to shopping this way is that the children love it.  They are in and out of the shops, enjoying the fresh air, getting a quick run around.  Everything in the shops is at their eye level, they aren’t hemmed in by huge towering aisles and they interact with the produce in a way that they would not otherwise have.  They pick up a courgette and an aubergine and can feel their skins, and the difference between them – which in most supermarkets would not have happened.  Although I’m not sure that they were as keen on the giant prawns as I was.

We take tupperwares with us and the meat and fish is put directly into these.  It feels a bit “attention seeking” to ask for the produce in this way, and the more I try to explain why, the more I feel like a giant cliché.  But I persevere and by the time I get to shop number 3 it feels more comfortable.

The green grocers is less rewarding than I was expecting – a lot more of the fruit and veg are wrapped in plastic than I had hoped.  I'm 3 shops in though and evangelical about my plastic free mission so I have a good conversation with the green grocer about it.  Apparently the plastic on cucumbers for example is just the way that they come from the farm.  He too punnets up the fruit – things like blueberries, grapes, strawberries and raspberries, to create a unit price for each of them.  He will transfer them into brown paper bags for us but I can’t choose how many grapes I get – it has to be a punnets worth.  But he will reuse the plastic packaging so its a win for us both.  Tupperware come in handy again here for the blueberries and raspberries that would have been squashed in the brown paper.

We end up going home without spinich, lettuce, cucmber and tomaotes as there aren’t any plastic free – but we’ve got some beautiful looking, giant vegetables which look to be a much higher quality than you’d typically see in the supermarket.

As I unpack without unwrapping a thing I feel like we're doing something really here. The kids are happy, I'm excited about the food choices we've made and the conversations I've had.  I feel more wholesome somehow, more connected to the actual food, rather than a consumer buying another package.

But its only day two.... 

Living without Plastic: Day One

Today I’ve done a plastic sweep of the house and hidden away all the plastic things I can – which in itself has been an interesting exercise!  I’m sure there will be more that I will come across, but the house is now looking a little bit less plastic. Below is just from one kitchen drawer!

Stationery is a plastic category I hadn't really considered – and I’ve used today as a good excuse to clear out the kids craft cupboard.  Will they miss the pens and notice they only have wax crayons and pencils this week? (edit: they did not) It's really highlighted an entirely unnecessary  household item.  Just look at all the dried up pens and random lids that as part of the clear out are good for nothing but the bin! Non recyclable, practically single-use plastic (unless the kids look after them perfectly and a quick Google shows I can buy 100 felt tips for £5! No one could really be expected to value them too highly? They will have been overwhelmed by pens at some point)

In further preparation for the week I’ve really enjoyed researching (and purchasing) some plastic free alternatives – so we’ve switched the kids’ toothbrushes for bamboo, invested in some reusable food wraps and swapped our teabags (you can find a full list of plastic free teabags here: https://www.countryliving.com/uk/create/food-and-drink/news/a3291/plastic-tea-bags-environment/)

And we’re ready!  Day one is my day at home with the kids – the quandary of lunch for the children is solved simply with waffles, fishfingers and baked beans!  Who knew that living without plastic could be so simple?  Yet not necessarily that healthy!  Thinking about the plastic packaging that we’ll be trying to avoid, the equivalent "healthy" meal for the children that I cook often – salmon, mashed potato and green beans, suddenly doesn’t look so healthy for the planet (plastic vacupak, plastic bags for the veg....)

Today we’re taking a trip to the local health food shop to investigate some plastic alternatives – and I’m surprised – I thought this would be my plastic free haven – but again, I’m finding that plastic free isn’t necessarily healthy!  I was hoping we might find some pasta or pulses that didn’t come in plastic bags but unfortunately not.  And the unpackaged soap bar that I was happy to find was then helpfully put into a plastic bag without me realising.

Tea for the kids resulted in another unhealthy experience – a sausage roll from Greggs!  I’m sure it’s been in plastic at some point in its journey, but for us the end users, just a paper bag.  The kids basically love being plastic free.  We had some leftover carrots and green beans in the house, so that assuages my mum guilt a little.

Having failed on sourcing plastic free pasta, I’m cheating on dinner – we have glass jars of pulses on the shelf in the kitchen so technically there’s no plastic this week (although there will have been when it was purchased) with some leftover tomatoes and a jar of pesto.  I would ordinarily make my own pesto – but rather than buying plastic bags of basil, a mesh of garlic, wrapped parmesan and a bag of pine nuts, the "unhealthy" shop ought jar fits with our plastic free living. #mindblown

Today has been harder, and make me think more than I ever would have thought. Only 6 days to go..... 

Living without Plastic: Preparation

As part of our CSR initiative for World Environment Day to #BeatPlasticPollution Horwich Farrelly will be asking employees to take a plastic free challenge - eliminating as much plastic from their lives as possible and documenting their journey in a creative way.

The prize is spectacular - a week volunteering on a beach conservation project in Belize for 2 people. Unfortunately I can't enter the competition or win, but I was excited to experiment with the concept and see whether we as a family could go plastic free for a week.

As sustainability professional, I've been aware of the plastic challenge for over a decade and as a family we've done a small amount to avoid plastic where possible - we don't purchase many plastic toys for the children, we never buy plastic carrier bags, we re-use old plastic tubs to store toys/ use for crafting, we avoid providing the classic plastic party bags full of cheap plastic toys, we use paper straws and cups for parties, we take packed lunches to avoid pricey over packaged shop bought lunches, we cook from scratch where possible and we grow some of our own fruit and vegetables.

Conscious that we're still not doing enough, since the beginning of 2018, we're been been making a monthly plastic pledge to eliminate one unnecessary plastic thing each month - hand soap dispensers in plastic bottles, switching to washing powder in a box rather than liquid in a bottle, swapping shop bought body scrubs (with potential micro beads) for home made salt scrubs and investing in some plastic free chewing gum.

But we both work, we have three children under the age of 5, we shop for convenience, we used disposable nappies for all the kids, we still have a wet wipe dependence we can't shake and we know we could do better.  So when the opportunity to trial this challenge came up, we jumped at the chance.  It should be challenging and we can't get rid of plastics completely but bringing the issue to the forefront of our minds will be a great way to think about the changes we can make day to day.

My first step in preparation was to look at a typical trolley after "popping to the supermarket for a few bits" and categorising into plastic and non plastic (plastic on the left, non plastic on the right)

So straight away, one small trolley load and I'm gob smacked by how much plastic we consume without even really thinking about it.

I've never previously questioned the plastic window on fresh bread before - but that seems very unnecessary!  The soup cartons sit on the plastic side based on their lids, and tetra-pak is recyclable, but it still contains plastic lining similarly to coffee cups.  The fruit and veg seems to be the biggest issue here - as a family we eat pretty healthily, but fruit punnets, salad bags, bags of apples etc are all packaged for convenience.

Our environmentally sound house cleaning products still come in plastic bottles, although Method have considered the plastic life cycle of their products and the bottles are all made from recycled plastic and fully recyclable.

On closer inspection, I've incorrectly categorised my multi pack tins. Again, something I've never even thought about. The multi packs work out cheaper to buy - but are covered in plastic to keep them together.

A big plastic purchase here is the dustpan and brush. I wasn't thinking at all - you can buy metal dustpan easily. BUT even if I had been thinking, some online research shows a price tag of £15-£20 - as opposed to my plastic traitor that came in at £3.

So my trolley load started me thinking about the terms of this plastic free challenge. How seriously are we going to take it? Could we cut out all plastic? What do we mean by single use? Are the plastics recyclable?  Are they reusable?

The terms of our challenge

1. Try to eliminate entirely all pointless plastic: plastic straws, coffee cups, fruit and veg wrapped in plastic (especially if they have their own skin), single use bottles or packaging, wet wipes(gah!)

2. Consider all plastics that aren't "single-use" but that have a short use phase: shampoo, toothbrushes, food containers like ice cream tubs.

3. Try and replace plastics that have alternatives: plastic bags, cotton buds, make up and beauty products, chewing gum

4. Don't throw anything away!  For the duration of our plastic free challenge, I'll be hiding some of the bottles and products that we use daily to give us an idea of what we're aiming for, but I'll use them up once the challenge is over.

5. Think more about reusing plastics - a drinks bottle might be designed for a single use, but can we use them again and extend their life span?

There are some really useful resources online to help thinking about plastic consumption and what can be done to reduce your footprint - I'll be reading up on these and getting some ideas this week in advance of the challenge!

http://globalgoodawards.co.uk/pointlessplastics/
https://myplasticfreelife.com/plasticfreeguide/
http://www.pfree.co.uk/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/17/is-it-possible-to-live-without-plastic-readers-tips-for-for-tip-free-living