What a waste!

I’ve written about this before but I think it bears repeating because things have changed somewhat. I’m talking about junk mail. I would suggest that it is worth reviewing you junk load at least once a year. Why? I’ll come back to that.

First, I’ll redefine what I think junk mail is. It is mail that arrives unasked for that gets stripped of its plastic wrapper and goes straight into the recycling bin. The wrapper goes into general waste. Very, very, very occasionally something turns up that turns out to be useful but generally, not.

So, what’s the problem? It’s two seconds work to strip and bin.

The problem, of course, is that you are then paying to have that waste disposed of. Think of it as legalised flytipping. You might think that it doesn’t cost so much but in an office of twenty you will often find that a good part of the recycling bin is full of unwanted adverts, unread magazines and the stuff that comes tucked inside them. And from an environmental point of view, tree have died, been processed into paper, printed and then gone straight into the bin. Much of the stuff isn’t even good for composting due to the gloss and colour.

The other thing is, important stuff can get lost in among the junk. I found my voter registration form this morning whilst I was picking up piles of junk mail to photograph. (I’m working from home and therefore don’t have access to the recycling bins dotted around the office.)

In fact the stuff in the photograph bears looking at. Some of it is addressed to the former occupant of my house – four years gone. When I remember I send these ads back with ‘No longer at this address’ scrawled across them. I have been doing this for four years. I’m still getting stuff. This is complete junk and a total waste for the sender too.

Then there are take away menus. This is inevitable. I live in a student area. Students live on takeaways. Leafletting my street every other month is cost effective because the student have probably lost the menus in that time. My method with these is to immediately throw away anything not in ten minutes walking distance. I used to keep the local ones. Now I don’t. I throw away all the local ones too and look the menu up online. If they don’t have a website they don’t get any business from me. (It must be said that the Bilash (red (meat) and green (vegetarian) menus) is an excellent take away but I do resent the number of leaflets I get from them.)

There is the Natural Collection catalogue. I’ve bought stuff from them, on and off, for years. I thought I asked them to stop sending me catalogues last year when I did a concerted campaign to stop my junk but I can’t find my email so maybe not. An amail has gone today. The send me regular alerts on at least two of the email addresses anyway. I don’t need the paper copy.

And then there is Christian Aid. This was the charity I donated my sponsor money to when I lived on £1 a day earlier this year. Now they email me regularly and send me lots of paper. I get the emails. I don’t need the paper. I hadn’t even opened them. They were just sitting on the junk pile. Now I’ve taken them apart, put the freepost envelopes for reuse and binned the rest. I know that any charity wants more supporters and more money from their current supporters but I would actually prefer them to spend the money I donate on helping people in need, not printing and posting stuff to me. I get the emails! In the past I made a one-off donation to a charity that I suspect spent all my money on sending me letters asking for more cash. They didn’t get any more cash. An email has gone out to Christian Aid.

The point is, in a year a business will have contact with a great number of new organisations. A good number of those will take the opportunity to send their marketing to you in paper form. Those need to be culled. Also, we asked a number of membership organisations to only send one magazine. We are a small office. We can share. At one point I think we were getting six copies of The Environmentalist. The problem here, I guess, is perhaps adverisers need a certain number of paper copies to go out before they are willing to buy space. Whatever. You are probably going to have to remind some organisations to which you subscribe that you really meant, ‘Only one please.’

Times are difficult and the one thing that doesn’t go down in a recession is the marketing budget but that doesn’t mean that any organisation wants to pay for getting rid of junk paper. So, to add to the improvement log:

• Rather than just bin the rubbish, spend a day asking people not to send paper marketing – you can offer your email address as an alternative
• Revisit the organisations that are sending you magazines. Ask them to keep it to one for the whole organisation or none at all and read it on line.
• Talk to the people who send you catalogues. In some cases the paper catalogue is useful but often it is much easier to search and buy on line. Again, cut the number of catalogues received from each supplier to one or none at all.
• Make sure that the residual paper is recycled.

Climate change again

Climate change has been in the news again recently.  The Express notes that La Nina is in force in the Pacific and will gradually strengthen as the year ends leading to another potentially bitterly cold winter. The Telegraph reported in June that there may be a “little ice age’ in store based on astronomers’ belief that the next sun spot cycle will be less intensive than normal or fail to happen.

I remember reading about this in the New Scientist quite some time ago now. One of their conclusions seemed to be that this would give us some breathing space to sort out our carbon emissions. Reading comments on any climate related story however, causes me to despair for that scientific and logical hope. The main sentiment seems to be that warming is a government plot but, if not, this gives us more opportunity to ignore the issue.

Joanna Haigh professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London, cautions that "Even if the predictions are correct, the effect of global warming will outstrip the sun’s ability to cool even in the coldest scenario. And in any case, the cooling effect is only ever temporary. When the sun’s activity returns to normal, the greenhouse gases won't have gone away."

Whilst on the subject of skeptics, the results from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project are out. This was set up by climate skeptic, physicist Richard Muller following the email hacking scandal. As Real Climate reports the intention was to, ‘create a new, independent compilation and assessment of global land surface temperature trends using new statistical methods and a wider range of source data. Expectations that the work would put teeth in accusations against CRU and GISTEMP led to a lot of early press, and an invitation to Muller to testify before Congress.’ The BBC reports that, ‘The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change.’

The big news from this study is that actually the earth is getting warmer or, as Mother Jones reports, ‘But Muller's congressional testimony last March didn't go according to plan. He told them a preliminary analysis suggested that the three main climate models in use today—each of which uses a different estimating technique, and each of which has potential flaws—are all pretty accurate: Global temperatures have gone up considerably over the past century, and the increase has accelerated over the past few decades. Yesterday, BEST confirmed these results and others in its first set of published papers about land temperatures.’ The graph below shows how well the figures match:

And yet, the comments don't change. There's a lot I might blame the government for but imagining climate change is not one of them. Sigh.

Woodbrooke - a truly sustainable place

Last week I led an EMS Implementation course on behalf of the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC). It was a very interesting course with some thoughtful and hardworking delegates. It’s always exciting to lead a course like this, hearing of people’s experiences, problems and achievements. What made this course rather special was the location. We ran it as a residential course based at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Selly Oak, Birmingham. It was formerly the family home of George Cadbury, the chocolate maker.

The Quaker ethics are embedded in the service provided so the place was both friendly and welcoming and very beautiful. We all ate together in the communal dining room overlooking the grounds. The food was wholesome and tasty and catered for meat eaters, vegetarians, and those with food intolerances. I’ve rarely eaten so well and so healthily. At the end of each meal we took our plates and stacked them ready for washing, emptying food waste into a bin, none recyclable material (butter wrappers) into a separate (small) box and put our cutlery into a container of hot soapy water which would make the cleaning process more efficient. There was minimum waste, not least because you were welcome to keep returning for seconds and didn’t, therefore, take more than you turned out to need.

During the breaks in the training day not only was coffee and tea available but herb and fruit teas together with home baked biscuits and cakes. Yum. The water was not commercially bottled but filtered tap water in reusable glass bottles, again a much more sustainable option.

Our training room, the Eva Koch Room, was lovely. We had comfortable armchairs rather then cold plastic chairs and tables. It made for a very relaxing experience with a view through the sash windows of the glorious autumn garden.

I don’t know what everyone else’s rooms were like. Mine was small but very cosy and they left my towels alone. I can’t count the number of hotels I’ve stayed out where I’ve followed instructions so that they shouldn’t wash my towels and they’ve taken them anyway. It was so nice to have a room that was not messed with, other then the coffee and tea being refreshed.

Much of the activity at the centre is Quaker based but wider education and accommodation is very much welcomed. When we arrived there was a class of children learning to work together and we were not the only outside adult training course they have.

They work hard to be sustainable and invest in sustainable refurbishment. At present they have a box where you can donate to cover the carbon footprint of your travel. The money raised will contribute to installing solar water heaters. This together with the egg timers in the showers (my showers were always over before the sand ran out) will reduce their impact again. All but one of us arrived by train/taxi because this is a very accessible place, within walking distance of Selly Oak station, unless you are carrying a laptop, clothes for three days and a lot of course paperwork. The grounds are wildlife sanctuary and a haven of peace for the residents. Who knew there was such beauty just off the A38? Certainly my taxi driver didn’t.

I think training facilities, conference centres and hotels could all learn a lot from Woodbrooke. I’d certainly like to work there again. (Hint).