You have clout!

…it is easy to forget what power you have through the choices you make. Retailers are in a competitive marketplace and will respond to consumer pressure – witness the greater availability of FairTrade and organic products over the last few years.

So we can change things for the better if all of us in One Planet Worcester use the combined power of our spending to make our city more sustainable. Here are just a few examples of simple choices and actions that would help, together with some links to more detailed information on some of the hot sustainability topics.

> When you shop – do you feel too hot?

You know how it is – freezing in the street, you are wrapped up to the gills – you go into the store and you boil! What’s more, the shop doors are wide open, so the boilers are bursting, trying to heat up all of Worcestershire. We wouldn’t let that happen at home, so why do the shops do it? It doesn’t make sense and we all pay for the energy waste as the shop pass on the fuel cost in their prices.

One Planet Worcester believes the shops should close their doors in cold weather and turn down the heat to a moderate 20oC or so.

If you too think this would be sensible, here are the One Planet Worcester Action Points.

Next time you are in a shop on a cold day and you feel uncomfortably warm, say you agree with One Planet Worcester and politely ask an assistant, or better still the manager, to “Please, shut the doors and turn down the heat! We want to live in a One Planet Worcester”
Click [ here ] for more details.

> Let’s banish the bag!

Other towns and cities are doing it. We all know what a menace plastic carrier bags are once they get out there into the world. They blow in the wind, get caught in trees, lie around in hedgerows, or take forever to rot in the landfill. Who knows where they end up – they have even been found in the stomachs of turtles and albatross chicks as far away as Antarctica. And they are made from oil – what a waste!

So the One Planet Worcester Action Points are

Next time the shop offers you a plastic carrier bag, proudly produce your own shopping bag, politely decline the offer and say “Please, for the sake of a One Planet Worcester, stop giving out free plastic bags!”
Click [ here ] for more details.

> How far has it travelled?

You know the feeling – you just fancy some king prawns or a bunch of red roses. But we live miles from anywhere that a king prawn lives, and it’s the middle of winter. So there is the dilemma! We all make choices, but these come at a price for the planet. And what kind of world will we leave for our grandchildren?

Moving stuff around so we can always have whatever we want, whenever we want it is wrecking things, not just for us but for the plants and animals that share our world. The challenge for all of us is to focus on the difference between wants and needs and sometimes the

One Planet Worcester Action Points are

“I’ll eat something grown near Worcester, and I’ll wait for the roses to flower in my garden next summer – and I’ll feel good about my choice!”

Click [ here ] for more details.

> How come the T-shirt’s that cheap?

It isn’t really!
Cotton sprayed with pesticide – dead bugs, birds and fish
Watered from lakes – deserts created
Picked by a child – school days missed
Shipped to the east – burning of oil
Milled in a factory, machined in a workshop – sweatshop labour
Freighted to Britain – more greenhouse gases
Cut-price marketing – supermarket profit

It is costing people and planet, but not us in our pocket.

You know the One Planet Worcester Action Point!

Pick organic fair-traded cotton products when you can and pay the true cost.
Click [ here ] for more details.

> That garden chair – where did it come from?

If it is made of tropical hardwood, it could come from one of earth’s fast vanishing rainforests. So how can you get comfortable in the garden without guilt for an orang-utan that lost its home?

The One Planet Worcester Action Points

Look for the FSC sustainablity label when you are buying any wood products.
Click [ here ] for more details.

> When wrapping’s a menace

Some products need protection and must be wrapped. However, there are plenty of examples of excess packaging, designed for marketing as much as for convenience – you know the sort of thing – a few items of fruit on a polystyrene tray, shrink wrapped in film, with a cardboard sleeve and a sticky price label. It is expensive, wasteful and environmentally damaging.

Polystyrene and plastics used in wrapping are derived from petroleum, are difficult to recycle and go into landfill. In Britain, packaging takes up to 17 per cent of the annual food budget and generates 4.6 million tonnes of household rubbish a year.

Yet often right beside the heavily packaged items is the open box of loose unwrapped fruit that are cheaper and can be taken home in your shopping basket.

One Planet Worcester Action Points

Avoid buying items that are excessively packaged
And let’s get behind the WI, members of One Planet Worcester, by calling on supermarkets to only use compostable and recyclable materials in their packaging where required.
Click [ here ] for more details.

> Livestock’s Long Shadow

This report from the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation states “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from global to local.” The livestock industry generates more greenhouse gases than the entire global transport industry. Livestock now demand 70% of all the world’s agricultural land and the supply of new land has run out.

If you eat meat and diary every day but your food is mainly local and unprocessed you will require 1.6 hectares to sustain your eating habits. If you are vegan you will require just 0.5 hectares. So you can be part of the solution by changing your diet to eat less meat and dairy products.

One Planet Worcester Action Points

To start, try a meat free day each week and explore a new world of taste - Click [ here ] www.vegan3counties.org.uk is the website of the One Planet Worcester member group where you will find help and advice.
For some funky dishes - click [ here ] ( www.jaydave.com )
For the full story - click [ here ]