Rekindled

Selfish: putting your own needs above the needs of others.

When you buy cheap clothes, you are putting your own needs above the needs of the sweatshop workers.

When you buy cheap bananas, coffee or chocolate, you are putting your own needs above the needs of the farmers who grew them.

When you buy factory farmed meat, you are putting your own needs above the needs of animals.

When you buy chemically farmed vegetables, you are putting your own needs above the needs of the soil and wildlife (we’ve all heard about the plight of honeybees).

When you buy cheap furniture, you are putting your own needs above forest ecosystems, including plants, animals and even people who depend on the forests to live.

Can you honestly say you are never selfish?

Rather than bombard you all with several tweets about offers this week, I’ve decided to put them into one blog post.

Clothes/Fashion: Ascension’s winter sale is now up to 60% off, with final reductions next week, and People Tree’s sale is now up to 75% off! Gossypium’s winter sale also continues with reductions on women’s, men’s and kids’ clothes.
This a great opportunity to get some ethical fashion at very affordable prices. New season items have also started to arrive so you can start to get ready for spring.

Gardening: Thompson and Morgan have got a great offer on potato planters. Get 3 planting bags plus 5 tubers each of Charlotte, Swift and Vivaldi, for only £14.99 (saving £6.17) – everything you need to get started growing potatoes! Plus they also have have a month by month What to Sow and Grow guide – very handy! It includes fruit, veg and also flowers.

Skin Care/Costmetics: Green People have some great BOGOF offers at the moment, including baby lotion, shower gel, body lotion and shampoo. You can also get free delivery on your first order. So Organic are offering 5% off all items with code VAT10.

Why is it that some large corporations seem to think they can do whatever they want in order to increase profits?  Their sole purpose seems to be making more and more money and they can end up behaving in ways that are completely unethical.

For example, Nestle (and other companies) continually breach international marketing guidelines on baby milk, leading to infant deaths and suffering around the world.  The International Marketing Code (1981) states that any marketing activity should not undermine breastfeeding, and yet many companies continually breach this code.  Nestle has consistently been the worst offender.

Breast milk is the best possible food for babies and the World Health Organisation recommends that babies be exclusively breastfed until 6 months of age whenever possible.  It contains all the nutrients a baby needs, as well as antibodies that help prevent childhood illnesses.  Increasing breastfeeding rates would help to decrease child mortality.  In addition, there is growing evidence that children who are breast fed are less likely to have health problems in their adult life.

In developing countries there are two further problems with the aggressive marketing of baby milk products.  Firstly, many mothers have to use dirty water to make up the formula.  There may be no facilities for sterilising the water, and even if there are, many people are unaware of the need to sterilise the water due to lack of education or illiteracy.  Secondly, formula costs money, unlike breast milk which is free.  If a family is living in poverty the mother may dilute the formula to make it go further, which leads to infant malnutrition.

So what exactly does ‘aggressive marketing’ mean?  Here are some real-life examples:

1. Supplying baby formula free of charge in hospitals to new mothers. Giving away baby milk for free is a good thing, right?  Unfortunately not.  Once a mother stops breastfeeding then her body will stop producing milk.  Once mother and baby leave the hospital, she has no choice but to continue using formula, but now she has to pay to feed her baby.  This practice was banned by the World Health Authority in 1994.
2. Selling baby formula with labels in the wrong language. This means that parents cannot read the information about formula, let alone the instructions for how to mix the formula correctly and safely.
3. Giving free formula as humanitarian aid/disaster relief. This again causes the same problem as (1), and is often labelled with the wrong language as per (2).  In an emergency situation there many not be enough clean water or fuel (to warm the milk) to make up the formula safely.
4. Undermining breastfeeding by making health claims about formula. For example, adverts for baby milk formula often mention the health benefits of the product – but compared to breast milk it is nowhere near as good.
5. Directly promoting to pregnant women and new mums. For example direct mail, free samples, parent clubs etc.
6. Promoting to health professionals. E.g. providing free gifts or even commissions.  This is banned by the International Code.
7. Lobbying governments against measures to promote breastfeeding.

So what can we do to stop this?  Well, as ‘consumers’ our main power is in how we spend our money.  So if you disagree with a company’s actions, stop buying their products.  I have decided to boycott all Nestle products.  There is a list of all the brands that Nestle profits from on the Baby Milk Action website.  I have just found out this week that the Body Shop, which up until now has been my favourite place for make up and skincare products, is one of these brands, so I now have a big dilemma.  I can’t decide whether I should add Body Shop to my personal boycott or whether that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, since I believe that the Body Shop itself has high ethical standards.  What do you think?  Leave a comment to let me know if you are joining the boycott too.

For more information see:

• Baby Milk Action
• The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN)
• World Health Organisation: Breastfeeding
• Patient UK: Breastfeeding – The Benefits

Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. I just thought I’d share with you all some of the fantastic ethical sales that are going on at the moment. Because ethical products can sometimes cost more than equivalent products on the high street, this is a great opportunity to save some money but support the causes you care about, whether it’s fairtrade, organic or recycled, or all three! Obviously I have written before about how the most important step in eco-friendly shopping is to buy less stuff in the first place, but if you are looking for some sales bargains, or you are just stocking up for the year ahead, then think about buying ethical products from sites like these:

Ascension, my favourite eco fashion site, have up to 50% off in their end of season sale for women, men and kids. Their clothes are not just ethical but really cool and stylish. They sell a mixture of own-brand and eco-designer clothes and accessories.

You can get 20% off at Terra Plana with code HOHOHO until 31st December. Terra Plana shoes are soooo gorgeous, I love browsing their website.

Gossypium have a fab range of organic cotton basics and casual clothes, including undies (why are organic cotton undies so hard to find?).


As you can see, People Tree have a 10% discount code APXM09 until 31st December. They have also got reductions on loads of items. All their products are Fair Trade, and many are organic.
Not really an ethical/fashion site but if you like to grow your own veggies like me, you may be planning next year’s plantings, in which case Thompson and Morgan have a free P&P offer with code AF91216 until midnight 28th December. They have a good range of organic seeds.

If I hear of any more good sales I will let you know.  The best way to find out about offers like these first is to follow me on twitter.

Yesterday I had a very pleasurable morning wandering around Brighton while my hubby Chris was doing a charity bike ride for the MS Trust. I don’t know Brighton very well, but using the AroundMe iPhone app I discovered there is a market every Saturday morning in the North Laine area, which was only 20 minutes walk from our hotel opposite Preston Park. It was a gorgeous sunny morning so I strolled down to Upper Gardner Street, where the market was just getting going. It was small but there was a range of interesting stalls selling antiques, vintage and second hand clothes as well as handmade bags and jewellery. I made a beeline for the second hand bookstall where I picked up 3 books I wanted for £7.50: Fast Food Nation, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, and Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Next I headed through North Laine towards the seafront, where I found an Oxfam Boutique. It was lovely with wooden hangers and everything, but strangely none of the clothes seemed to be labelled with their sizes so I got a bit fed up. I headed to the back of the shop where I found this fab handbag!

Then I turned towards the main shopping area, where all the usual high street shops are, and to my great excitement discovered a People Tree shop. I looked longingly at the Terra Plana shoes but decided that they were a bit out of my price range. I saw some gorgeous Soul of Africa loafers but they only had them in brown and red – if they had had black I would have snapped them up. Finally, I popped across the road to the Banardo’s shop and picked up this long-sleeved t-shirt, which Chris says is “very me”, whatever that means!

By this time Chris had finished his 50-mile bike ride so I had to conclude my tour of Brighton. I was very happy to get so many bargains in one shopping trip, and Brighton is now my new favourite place to go shopping. Unfortunately it is a 2-and-a-half hour drive from where I live so I won’t be visiting too often!

I would also like to say sorry for the looooooong gap between blog posts. My excuse is that it has been summer and when it is sunny I like to be outside enjoying myself rather than tapping away at the keyboard. However, as the evenings get darker I will probably do more writing, so watch this space!

This is a repost from my blog archive.  Enjoy!

We have been redecorating recently, and being a bit of a treehugger, naturally I decided to spend some time researching eco-friendly paint options. I discovered that most paint contains something called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). These are chemicals which can cause indoor air pollution that is bad for the environment and bad for your health. Once you have painted your walls, the chemicals can continue to affect the air in your home for years. VOCs are also what make paint smell, so low-VOC paints are more ‘breathable’.

Luckily the British paint industry seems to have cottoned on to this problem, and they have come up with a 5-band classification scheme: Minimal, Low, Medium, High and Very High. B&Q have also developed a logo (right) which can help you to make an informed decision. While I was shopping for paint I noticed that most brands seemed to be labelled Low or Minimal, which is encouraging.

You can also go one step further and buy paint that is completely natural. These paints contain zero VOCs. The only compromise you have to make may be on colour. Natural paints tend to be available in more muted, natural shades. They can also take much longer to dry. At the moment there are no mass-market natural paint options, so unfortunately you can’t just pop down to your local DIY store and pick up a few cans, you will have to plan in advance and order your paints online (although many suppliers offer next-day delivery).

Remember the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?  I think we’re starting to get the hang of recycling, but what about reducing?  Reduce the amount of stuff you buy and you will reduce the amount of waste and pollution that is created.  If you want to know more then take a look at The Story of Stuff.  Think about all the things you have bought over your entire lifetime.  That’s a lot of stuff.  And did you really need all of it?  Has it made your life better?  Can you even remember most of it?  Where is it all now?  I’d be willing to bet that you don’t even have most of it any more.

So if you want to make a difference with your shopping habits, buy nothing and make do with what you already have.  This requires a lot of creative thinking and resourcefulness.  Think about alternative uses for things before throwing them away.  For example, I once had a TV stand that, during its long life, also served as a coffee table and bedside table simply by putting a throw (which I also already had) over the top.  

Borrowing (or renting) is also a great tactic to help you buy less stuff.  Instead of buying books and DVDs, borrow them from the library.  I usually read most books once and then they sit on the shelf gathering dust and cluttering up my house.  Now I search my local library catalogue online to find books I want, and I can even reserve them online.  Last week, I suggested a book that they didn’t have in stock, and they only went and ordered it for me!   Friends are also another great source of stuff you can borrow.  Last year, we cut down a tree/bush thing in our garden (to make room to grow veggies) and our friends lent us their shredder.  We could have bought our own, but we would never have used it again.  We lent the same friends a food processor when they were having a dinner party.

Freecycle is another great resource to help you buy less.  It’s a little bit like ebay as people advertise second hand goods, but everything is FREE!  You just have to go and collect it!  Freecycle is also fab for decluttering and getting rid of old junk – your trash becomes someone else’s treasure.  I have scored a compost bin and some jewellery making kit from Freecycle, and given away a whole host of clutter.  It’s a great way of saving things that are on their way to landfill, whilst saving yourself money in the process.

If you really want to go the whole hog, you can even join The Compact, a group of people who pledge to buy nothing new for a whole year.  I joined the pledge and managed about 6 months without buying anything at all.  I don’t stick to it any more, but I definitely buy a lot less than I used to, and I never go shopping just for fun any more – I only go if I actually need something.  So if nothing else, it will change the way you think about shopping.

It really doesn’t take much effort to buy less, and it certainly won’t cost you anything.  But I believe that changing our pattern of massive overconsumption is the single biggest thing that we can do in order to reduce our impact on the planet and make our way of life more sustainable for the future.  And if I haven’t convinced you then can I remind you again about The Story of Stuff?  Seriously, it’s well worth a look.