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Our Village Green shout out

Let's shout it out to the wonderful Nicki who has made sustainable shopping convivence to her local communities. One of the most common comments I receive when talking to people about waste reduction in their homes is that it is too expensive, that they cannot reach local refillable shops or that life is just too busy. My work in the litter picking community allows me to meet and stumble across many who are just trying to do the right thing for the sake of the planet. Waste reduction is one of the most important ways we can help repair our planet by reducing what goes out in our house hold bins.  This bins are picked up by the council and taken to either the incinerators, landfill sites and recycling business Envirosort. For those of you that have never been to Envirosort in Norton I recommend a visit, the waste that 335000 homes produce will really shock you and that's just the green bins. 

I was invited to attend Hagley Village green event this month that is a green living fair offering community members options to reduce their waste. Katherine invited me to take the children litter picking around the Hagley park area where the children found a drinks can dated back to 2012 among buckets filled with food on the go packaging litter.

I would like to introduce "The Village Green" initiative to my local like minded busy community as this service really puts sustainable shopping at the forefront of our busy lives making convivence shine on your doorstep, If we all used this service in our communities around Wyre Forest district, Hagley, Ombersley the service can operate a free delivery too.  Villages could have an arranged date that they would deliver refillable shopping to our door steps. Who's in? There are a lot of supplies we all use on a daily basis and to be able to have these wasteless is a winner for me. #sustainable #wasteless #ownyourwaste

Her website Our Village Green Homepage (sumupstore.com)

A welcomed wasteless business find

My husband and I decided to go for a breakfast in Worcester today as we needed to buy my niece an 18th Birthday gift. We parked the car and walked toward the high street and found a lovely little café that offered coffee and breakfast. As we ordered we could hear children playing upstairs and my husband asked if they ran a playgroup. The lady behind the counter said it was a stay and play area and I remembered reading in the Worcester news about them. As an environmentalist you can see so many day to day businesses wasting unnecessary waste/packaging due to convivence and lack of sustainable knowledge. My coffee was delivered and I noticed a cup that I had never seen before that came with a saucer, nosey as I am I turned it over to find it was made by a company called Huskee, they sell reusable coffee cubs, lids, plates, bowls etc made from recycled coffee husk organic material that is produced at the milling stage of coffee production. Talk about a wow factor, this made me look around to see exactly what this business is doing and what a welcomed surprise.

Let me introduce you to The Wildling collective play cafe based in Worcester. They are leading the way for business and working to provide sustainability to the community and their customers visiting. I have to say working with many schools and businesses as a consultant to reduce waste and improve waste management working practices I find that everyday you can still learn more. This little gem of a café is definitely leading the way and flying the sustainable flag for us all to follow. 

Their children's play area is made from wood with not a plastic materials to be seen, decorated elegantly with the warmth of natural materials everywhere. The children are served their meals and drinks in Liewood pla bioplastic dinner sets that are so cute. Their cafe areas has a small shop offering sustainable items for children to a baby wall full of baby/toddlers pre loved clothes for sale with reasonable affordable prices. Mom's can donate baby clothes and receive a toddler play session in exchange. The Wildling Wood consists of equipment such as a magic sensory tree, stepping stones, a reading corner, a slide, a rope bridge, a log climber and a variety of other obstacles.

The café has made sure they only use reusable items that are made from recycled sustainable materials. It really has the wow factor and shines a light on what our city businesses should be doing to reduce their trade waste. I would like to salute The wildling collective business owners for creating such a wonderful sustainable business to Worcester. 

 

read more here New children's play café, The Wildling Collective, opens | Worcester News 

Their links are 

(1) Facebook

The wildling collective 🌱modern play cafe (@the_wildlingcollective) • Instagram photos and videos

The Wildling Collective

Where do you start your plastic free lifestyle?

 Where do you start your plastic free lifestyle?

I think most people find it scary to "Go For Green" as the stigma around eco friendly lifestyle is that it's expensive. The hardest is definatley coming out of your routine and changing habbits is difficult for anyone's busy convenient lifestyle. We all live a busy life, I should know I have three children, with working, school runs & sports clubs time was aways against me. The supermarket had the easiest and convenient all in one place shop in 10 minutes and Job done. 

When I started litter picking and mixing with other like minded people in 2018 who put the planet first by living a wasteless lifestyle, I said exactly what I hear now 5 years on from other families. "It's too expensive and I can't access the refillable/farm shop option" and "where do I start"!!

In 2019 I challenged my family to the Plastic free July campaign where we were not allowed to buy anything if it had plastic packaging. As a family we did our last shop on 29th June where the kids panic brought snacks thinking "Mom is going to starve us, as there will be no food for us to eat" When we returned from that shop I asked them to place the shopping on to the table where we unwrapped 2 bin bags full of plastic packaging, some of which was recyclable but others unfortunatley went in to the black bin bags.

Whilst this was a fun challenge it was also very difficult as I was trying to change the way we lived over night in a kind of rush to help reduce the families waste to landfil or puting waste in to the circular movement. So my advice to anyone is to just start by changing one thing and see how you feel. For me the joy came when I had reduced my family to two black bin bags a fortnight and half a green bin of recycling instead off two full black and green bins each fortnight for the council to take. 

The supermarkets for me now are just expensive especially if you are trying the quickest time consuming shop option. I can have all the lists I need but a supermarket has the power to sell you things you don't need and I always buy more than I need or want. As a family we plan meals, house chore rota and dog walk responsibility. We do one shop a month for the meal plan and only purchase fresh products like bread, eggs, milk. I find keeping the cupboards orgaised I can see what I need to use up first so I don't double buy and planning meals to what is in the cupbaord saves me a fortune. 

If you are reading this blog as you too would like to join the "Go For Green" lifestyle I would like to challenge you to sorting out your food cupboards first. Lableing and stock rotating your food to ensure you use what you already have. Plan you first week's menu then organise to shop for what you need not what you would like, as it makes life easier. I bet you save money and time this week with a plan.

Here is my families week planner and my 16 year olds excel spreadsheet organiser that helped me with the shopping list and save on shop costs too. 

I would like to thank you for reading my blog, there are many tips throughout the blog to help you start to make your lifestyle alot easier and cheaper. Have fun it really is a rewarding challenge.

From Karen

Where have I been since June 2021 well I'm back!

My last post was in June of 2021, life has thrown some curve balls my way in family life however my ethos has always continued to live sustainbly. 

So what have I been up to?

Well in March 2021 I was lucky to have my litter educational program commissioned by my local district council and have been flat out in schools since. This taking me back to work after being a stay at home mom for many years. The program has currently seen 4522 kids from the district take part in the litter workshops in a hope to shape our future adults to be more litter aware than the current adults we have out in the community who litter. The program is growing and the feedback has been incredible. I am very lucky to be a litter heroes ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy too and recieve fantasic support from their team. Since 2018 I have volunteered in schools and community groups educating over 14,000 kids taken on a litter workshop. 

www.littlelitterwarriors.co.uk

During lockdown I started making soaps from natural oils that were environmentally friendly too. This has also kept me busy and my soaps are now in 12 local community outlets. 

www.7soaps.co.uk

So now your up to date 

I have to say that I am always surprised at the lack of speed for sustainablity changes within society, whenever I talk someone new i'm always suprised at their lack of education when it comes to the state of the planet and the local community they live in. I always find myself stepping back 5 years and going back to basics to explain what is fact right now. This i can read two ways, yes it can be fustrating however i read this as everyone has to start somewhere. If I can get them to change one household item to a more sustainable solution then thats their first step to changing ten items. 

The difficulty right now falls under afordabiliy, accessabilty and convience in day to day lifestyles. The only way to move forward is to educate where possible in a hope that households find their way. Some of these changes cost no money at all and if you search on the internet you can see what can be achieved. One great site is Let's Waste Less | Worcestershire County Council there are some great tips on reusing, reducing and recycling. You also have my blog of how i have changed my household over the years since my plastic free July 2019 household challenge.

Take a look

 

This Pandemic is making it very difficult to be sustainable

 Lockdown and the pandemic 2021

We have now been in this pandemic since March 2020 and throughout our lockdowns our family like most took on homeschooling, getting whatever shopping was available, helping our local heroes and like many loss of household income. My morning inspiration today is Fathers day and without my incredible husbands support this pandemic would have been a lot harder. 

Our family has experienced lots of challenges from the children having no social engagements with their friends, homeschooling and generally trying to understand at the ages of 10, 12 & 14 a pandemic. My children at first enjoyed not going to school and whilst I was enjoying less clothing to be washed chore after a few weeks I could see their frustrations starting to show. I will say that I am incredibly proud of them and their ability to adjust has been something I will always remember.

When March 2020 lockdown hit our NHS resources to keep our doctors and nurses safe was at it's rock bottom and seamstresses were called on to make PPE. The community was calling on anyone with  a sewing machine to get on board. So out came my machines and off I went sewing for the NHS heroes. This is where my children seen me working hours on end to help and they took on the household chores and cooked meals daily. The kitchen became the hub of the home once more and food was freshly cooked or baked with the resources we had on a daily basic as supermarket ques were not for me.

The homeschooling work became routine and we even added on a project to weed the pond area and create a bee friendly flower patch. Our local garden centre was delivering so we set about in the great outdoor building and creating a garden lockdown haven. Nearly two years on and the bee friendly area is blooming and bee activity has returned.

Two months before the first lockdown I set up a natural soap company with a dear friend and whilst the garden was blooming I started to dry the bee friendly flowers and roses from around the garden so that our soap making workshops had some dried flowers that our clients could use to decorate their
soaps. So many flowers were dried out during this time that I could now sell these as wedding confetti which once again helps our wonderful environment. The soaps were another keep busy in lockdown project as we started to branch out into local farm shops. Being environmentally friendly the soaps are naturally made with products you would find around your kitchen such as Olive oil & coconut oil. We worked on our 7soaps packaging to ensure 100% sustainability and have beautiful compostable packaging that also has a duel purpose of becoming the soap dish too for the duration of the soap bar. check out www.7soaps.co.uk to read more about our 7soaps lockdown journey.

 

7soap has many stockists around the wonderful communities in Worcestershire

So lets fast forward and confess

Lockdown shopping

Lockdown seen many families shop where it was convenient and safe to do so and unfortunately my household seen single use plastic return.  I like to call single use plastic pointless plastic as this grab a snack lifestyle is just so easy to do. My bins were filling up with shop packaging waste and I hated returning to convenience shopping. Two weeks ago I emptied the kitchen cupboards to try and bring my plastic free lifestyle back in to my daily life. I was absolutely devastated at the results however I'm more determined to stop supporting these pointless plastic unsustainable companies making millions and my money will be spent supporting local eco friendly companies.

Retuning to planet friendly living has to be a priority for every household and as a community litter picker I see first hand just how wasteful this generation is. I for one will be teaching my kids living this way is going to be a must for their generations future.

My Plastic free family is back