In another life, I could happily have been an architect. I even looked into it at one point when choosing a university course, until I realised how long it takes to qualify and decidedly to focus on journalism instead. So I don’t get to build them, (except in Lego) but I still have a healthy [...]
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Feeding the five thousand
Two years ago anti-waste campaigners fed 5,000 people in London from food that was otherwise going to be thrown away. On friday they’re repeating the stunt – and you’re invited. If you can get down to Trafalgar Square on Friday, 18th of November, between 12 and 2:00, lunch will be served. Better make that 12:00, [...]
Let’s hear it for the uglies
Here’s a little sample of the carrot crop out of my back garden – aren’t they magnificent? Okay, I’ve not prepared the ground properly and left my carrots to dodge the pebbles on their way south. And I could have been more diligent in thinning them out. Still, they’re more interesting this way, in my [...]
The top ten littered brands in the UK
Keep Britain Tidy have announced the results of the litter league of shame, the top ten most littered brands in the country. Drum roll please: 1. McDonald’s 2. Cadbury 3. Greggs 4. Wrigley 5. Coca-Cola 6. Mars Incorporated 7. Unbranded fish&chips/kebab/pizza 8. Marlboro (Philip Morris Int) 9. Lambert & Butler (Imperial) 10. Subway Interesting to [...]
How much food can one household buy?
I was in the library last week, and found myself browsing the periodicals. Out of curiosity I picked up The Grocer, Britain’s leading magazine for food retailers. Wow. What another world. I definitely recommend scanning a copy next time you’re in a library or a newsagent. Reading The Grocer brings home the desperate search for novelty in [...]
In search of the biodegradeable shoe
I have reached the end of the line with my footwear. I can see daylight through the heel of my trainers, and when I went to London in the rain last week, I realised my favourite work shoes are no longer waterproof. My wife will be quietly pleased to see them go, but they’re the [...]
10 facts about food waste
Here are some things I learned from Tristram Stuart’s book Waste: uncovering the global food scandal. 84% of British households don’t believe they have a problem with wasting food, despite the evidence to the contrary. WRAP may or may not survive the great coalition quango cull, but here’s why it should: WRAP’s research into household [...]
Waste: uncovering the global food scandal, by Tristram Stuart
The food crisis, which was back in the news again last week, may not be quite what you expected. Global agricultural systems are struggling to feed all seven billion of us, but the biggest problem isn’t yields or climate change, and it may not be biofuels or speculation or rising meat consumption, although all of [...]
Keep space tidy: the space debris problem
Having written about the Atlantic trash patch earlier this week, I thought I’d highlight another little known pollution problem: space debris. In 2008 the European Space Agency released this image of the known pieces of debris orbiting the earth. Of the millions of fragments out there, about 18,000 are larger than 10cm and trackable, and [...]
The North Atlantic garbage patch
The Pacific gyre has received a fair bit of attention in recent years – the great floating ‘seafill’ spirallying between the US and Japan. Last week scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute confirmed that there’s one in the Atlantic too. A new study compared 22 years worth of water samples and found a comparable [...]
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