Sustainable(ish)

** This episode is supported by Little Freddie , the UKs leading sustainable baby food brand.  Parenting is bloody hard work isn't it? When you're up to your eyeballs in dirty nappies, sleep deprivation and anxiety around keeping your very own small person fed, entertained, educated, stimulated and everything else we're apparently supposed to be doing, adding in trying to do it all a bit more sust...

​DID YOU KNOW? The UK is one of Europe's least wooded countries - the average woodland cover for EU countries is 37%. Here in the UK we're lagging massively behind at around 13% If we are to limit climate change to below 1.5C by 2050, an extra 2.4 BILLION acres of trees needs to be planted Reforesting the world could capture around 2/3 of man-made carbon emissions Trees are the ultimate multi-task...

​DID YOU KNOW? A land mass larger than China is used to grow food that is never eaten 25% of humanity's water is used on food that is never eaten Food waste accounts for around 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions (2-4x greater than aviation) If food waste were a country it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the USA and China 50% of food waste occurs in the home All of t...

In an ideal world, when it comes to the weekly food shop, we’d all have a local zero waste shop, and have the time to visit our local greengrocers, butchers and bakers. BUT for most of us, the reality is either a mad dash round the supermarket while the kids are whinging at us, or an online delivery. And sadly, shopping sustainably at the supermarket is really, really hard. So when I heard about a...

Of the six highest impact things we can do as individuals and households, switching to a renewable energy tariff comes in at number four, behind have one less child (I am unclear how this actually works..), going entirely car-free, or taking one less transatlantic flight. And ahead of going vegan or switching to an electric car. It is hands down, the easiest high impact environmental action you ca...

When we see lists of things we can do to help the planet, one of the most important is often missing, and it's this - campaign. Make your voice heard. It's one of the most powerful things we can do, but I think for lots of us (myself included), the idea of 'campaigning' sounds a bit intimidating. The dictionary definition of activism is:"the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring...

DID YOU KNOW...? Buying green energy for your home or business is one of THE most impactful things we can all do to help the climate crisis? Switching to a renewable tariff for electricity and carbon offset gas could save up to 3.5tonnes CO2 per year The average person's carbon footprint living in the UK is around 13.5 tonnes CO2 per year, so you could slash your footprint by a quarter with this o...

It seems somewhat fitting as we approach August, the traditional holiday month here in the UK, to have a little look at flying…DID YOU KNOW: 2-5 % of global greenhouse gas emissions are a result of aviation Yet only around 5% of the global population actually use aeroplanes Meaning that as consumers, a plane ticket is about the most carbon intensive thing you can buy If you are one of the 5% of th...

This episode is published in collaboration with CozZo * There’s a BIG focus at the moment on plastic pollution isn’t there? Since Blue Planet II aired it feels like it’s an issue that has really caught people’s attention and is something that we’re all wanting to do something about. Which is obviously great, but plastic pollution is just none part of the bigger issue of the climate crisis. And act...

So today’s episode is all about period pants. "What are period pants?" I hear you ask!  Well, they do exactly what they say on the tin – they’re pants you wear when you’re on your period – they have an absorbent gusset (I'm totally still immature enough to snigger at the word 'gusset' #sorrynotsorry) and soak up and lock away the blood. So all you have to do is pull on your pants, no pads shifting...

If you're anything like us the kids start to clamour for a paddling pool as soon as the weather gets above 18C and we have one sunny day, we get one, spend hours (and use lots of precious water) filling it, they play in it for about three seconds, and decide it's too cold, or the sun goes in. It then sits there collecting dead bugs and grass and leaves for a week or two, then somehow gets a punctu...

DID YOU KNOW?We only have around 30- 40 years of fertile soil left in the UK? And golabally optimistic estimates are around 60 years. The problem is that modern agricultural practices take out more from the soil than they put back in, leaving it depleted of the nutrient that plants need to grown. And as 98% of our fod comes from the soil, this should be causing more of a stir than it is. The answe...

I had the great pleasure of chatting to Tillie Mabbutt recently for Episode 37 of the Sustainable(ish) podcast , where she shared with us her amazing business Frome Eco Party Packages , and her top tips for anyone wanting to start up a similar thing near them. She's very kindly helped me to collate this little "How to.." guide with all the info in one place to make it super easy.  Why you might wa...

Today I’m chatting to Helen and Joe, co-founders of EcoTales , who have been friends since meeting each other at school at the age of 12. EcoTales is a podcast for primary school children that aims to share nature knowledge and inspire future generations to love and defend the planet. And it does it brilliantly through stories and songs helped by a cast of 26 animated alphabet characters. There’s...

In this episode I’m chatting to Celia Pool one of the co-founders of DAME – a sustainable self-care brand on a mission to turn our bathrooms green. Did you know that globally we throw away 100 billion sanitary products every year? Which is enough to circle the globe 250 times. Plastic tampon applicators are a big part of the problem –being used for just seconds but taking hundreds of years to degr...

Every year an estimated 300,000 tonnes of used clothing goes to landfill in the UK.In the UK we buy more clothes per person than any other country in Europe. It takes over 2000 litres of water to make one single cotton t-shirt.17% of young people said they wouldn’t wear an outfit again if it had been on IG.These are shocking stats aren't they? I’ve heard most of them before, but that still doesn’t...

If you've not got time to listen to the podcast or read the whole post, scroll to the end for the 'take home' points! Ecobricks. Plastic bottles packed with clean and dry plastic that can then be used literally as building bricks for a whole variety of structures. They seem to the the marmite of the plastic pollution fight with advocates citing them as a great way to keep plastic out of the biosph...

I'm not sure about you, but I've sat behind my phone or my laptop on social media watching the youth climate marches, and the Extinction Rebellion protests with a mixture of gratitude, and awe, maybe a little bit of envy. And I've also curled up inside at the thought of going along myself. I feel like this stuff NEEDS to happen, that it's so important that we stand up and show the world, the gover...

If you've not got time to listen to the podcast or read the whole post, scroll to the end for the 'take home' points! When I was first approached to ask if I would be interested in interviewing the Susie Hewson, the founder of Natracare about their new safe to flush wipes my instant response was a resounding "No".I felt quite strongly that we should be discouraging the use of single use wipes, and...

How do you feel when you open your bin to throw something away? Or after you've done your weekly shop? Smug and self-congratulatory at just how little single use plastic there is? Or like most of us, guilty and overwhelmed by quite how much there is? Teresa Walters was faced with a whole bin full of unrecyclable plastic after Christmas in 2017 and decided that enough was enough and that she was go...

Did you know that on average kids in the UK receive around £350 of toys a year? I was pretty shocked when I read this, and indignantly though to the myself "there’s no way that applies to my kids", especially as we buy the vast majority of their toys secondhand. But when I stopped and thought about Christmas and birthdays and those times when they drag me into the toy shop and my resistance levels...

In today’s episode I'm chatting to Tara Button, the founder and CEO of Buy Me Once, and author of A Life Less Throwaway. After receiving a Le Crueset saucepan as a gift, Tara set out to look for a website that sold "the Le Crueset of everything" - meaning products that are made to last, and that will be cherished and are capable of being passed on to our kids and grandkids. When she couldn't find...

Welcome back to Sustainable(ish)!Today I’ve got an interview lined up for you with Tom Neish who is the founder and head honcho of Yora pet food , a new pet food brand that claim to be the world’s most sustainable pet food. So what makes them so sustainable I hear you ask? Well I’m glad you asked. It’s because the food is made from insects! The message seems to be slowly getting out that we should...

It's pancake day - hurray! Which means it's the start of Lent tomorrow - traditionally 40 days and 40 nights of fasting before Easter to remember Jesus' time in the wilderness. Now I’ve never really done Lent, but it’s a time of year when some people choose to take on a challenge and give up something they enjoy - whether thats chocolate, or sugar or alcohol, or something else entirely. But how ab...

Today’s episode is all about Growing Your Own. It’s the stereotypical image of sustainable living isn’t it? The kind of Good Life image of being self sufficient in veg, and the temptation is to go all out right from the start, take on a huge allotment plot, and then before we know it it’s taken over our lives. Sara Venn has been on the show before back in Episode 4 where we talked about the power...