A Better Future ?

[nickdub]

I thought it might be worthwhile to put together a few ideas for gardeners, as to things we can do to help the environment. These are based on my "do as I do not do as I say" philosophy of life ie things I put in to practice and they are mostly old ways.

1) compost your kitchen as well as your garden waste
2) buy things loose where you can - eg no pre-packed veg and no tea bags.
3) make-do and mend - an old rotary mower blade will make a good garden knife - and obviously plants can be grown in all sorts of old containers
4) don't buy gimmicky stuff which may only be used once - this follows on from 3 and sometimes requires a bit of thought - so if you need a dipper for your liquid manure, an old tin nailed to a length of wood will probably do the trick ( may have failed here as I just bought some grow lights - time will tell)
5) grow your own green manure - comfrey is a useful for making liquid feed
6) pass on spare seedling plants, cuttings etc to other gardeners
7) preserve spare fruit eg make jam - or give it away
8) if you have a solid fuel stove, use the top to cook things like stew
9) collect rainwater
10) even if its only an old sink a bit of open water in the garden is good for wildlife
11) don't be too tidy - bugs and beasties need a habitat in which to over-winter and scruffy places in which to find food
12) if the quality is good, consider buying things like honey and eggs locally.
13) trees can last more than one lifetime and the ones we enjoy today were often planted by people who are long gone.

And if I may be allowed one wish as well :- I'd like to be able to take a container in to my local supermarket and be able to buy fresh milk there to fill it. (This happens in Lithuania where my wife is from - so it must be possible, if there is sufficient demand)

Happy New Years - Nick


(PS mods please move this, if you feel it should be in a different forum)

[veggiechicken]

There's a thread full of good ideas at https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...ead_30193.html

[bikermike]

I'd agree with most if not all of those except the milk thing - apart from the weights and measures issue (how do you know it's a specified volume? and if it dispenses a litre, some prannet will show up with a smaller bottle and it will spill), there is the hygiene issue.

I've seen vinegar and whisky on tap sale here. And Beer in NZ. But not milk.

Oddly with tea, it's dead easy to get loose tea of the domestically-approved sort, but not decaff.

My additions to the list are

14) "remember that recycle is the 3rd "r" not the first - reduce and re-use first"
15) pay extra for stuff for the surrounding factors - yes you can by [item] cheaper in a supermarket/off the internet, but at what cost to your community, the community where it is made etc? buy local/hand-made/from shops that support repair and maintenance
16) learn to fix stuff - buy tools not replacement items

I was going to list how many of the original list I achieved, but avoided the temptation to look like I was flaunting my green credentials...

[nickdub]

I'd agree with most if not all of those except the milk thing - apart from the weights and measures issue (how do you know it's a specified volume? and if it dispenses a litre, some prannet will show up with a smaller bottle and it will spill), there is the hygiene issue.

..

Hi Mike,
I can only tell you about the milk machine in Vilnius - obviously they have to be approved under the same rules we have, because they are in the EU - I believe they are also in use in Germany, though I haven't seen those.

Anyway it was a big machine ( about the size of a transit van, but no visible wheels) and placed in the foyer of a shopping mall. I presume the size was partly to allow the temperature to be tightly controlled and the selling side worked a bit like a petrol pump in that it measured how much you had taken, and you paid for that. So you'd have the same concern about milk pumps ripping you off as you would for fuel ones - only obviously the quantity would usually be smaller.

BTW it was very good fresh milk and tasted much better than what we can get here in the UK. I liked it because if the milk quality but it obviously also meant you could re-use glass bottles rather than having to have new plastic container each time you buy milk. The price was much the same as in the supermarket.

Cheers

Nick

[bikermike]

well, the rules aren't quite the same across Europe (in spite of what certain people would have you believe). Minimum standards and areas of harmonisation, but not the same rules. Try using a UK plug in Europe for example...

Hygiene is still a non-harmonised area afaik.

Anyway, the general point about reducing and re-using still stands...

[nickdub]

well, the rules aren't quite the same across Europe (in spite of what certain people would have you believe). Minimum standards and areas of harmonisation, but not the same rules. Try using a UK plug in Europe for example...

Hygiene is still a non-harmonised area afaik.

Anyway, the general point about reducing and re-using still stands...

That's OK - I'm not asking for milk-dispensing machines to be compulsory - I'd just like people such as myself to have the option to buy milk this way, so we don't have to add more empty milk containers to the ever growing mountain. Everyone-else can stick to whatever suits them. :-)

[Babru]

That's OK - I'm not asking for milk-dispensing machines to be compulsory - I'd just like people such as myself to have the option to buy milk this way, so we don't have to add more empty milk containers to the ever growing mountain. Everyone-else can stick to whatever suits them. :-)

There is a dairy farm-owned cafe and garden centre outside Ayr where you can refill glass bottles with their milk. You get the bottles from them the first place. It's from a machine, called the Milk Bot, you can see a photo of it here if you scroll down The Coo Shed Ayr, Ayrshire..

Seems quite popular with locals. Good idea for a dairy farm, cut out the middle-man. Lovely cafe too, always mobbed when I've been there.

[veggiechicken]

https://themilkstationcompany.co.uk/

[SarrissUK]

There's a dairy farm outside Milton Keynes, near Winslow that sells fresh, not homogenised milk. Bloody lovely. Real milk

[Guest]

I thought it might be worthwhile to put together a few ideas for gardeners, as to things we can do to help the environment. These are based on my "do as I do not do as I say" philosophy of life ie things I put in to practice and they are mostly old ways.

1) compost your kitchen as well as your garden waste
2) buy things loose where you can - eg no pre-packed veg and no tea bags.
3) make-do and mend - an old rotary mower blade will make a good garden knife - and obviously plants can be grown in all sorts of old containers
4) don't buy gimmicky stuff which may only be used once - this follows on from 3 and sometimes requires a bit of thought - so if you need a dipper for your liquid manure, an old tin nailed to a length of wood will probably do the trick ( may have failed here as I just bought some grow lights - time will tell)
5) grow your own green manure - comfrey is a useful for making liquid feed
6) pass on spare seedling plants, cuttings etc to other gardeners
7) preserve spare fruit eg make jam - or give it away
8) if you have a solid fuel stove, use the top to cook things like stew
9) collect rainwater
10) even if its only an old sink a bit of open water in the garden is good for wildlife
11) don't be too tidy - bugs and beasties need a habitat in which to over-winter and scruffy places in which to find food
12) if the quality is good, consider buying things like honey and eggs locally.
13) trees can last more than one lifetime and the ones we enjoy today were often planted by people who are long gone.

And if I may be allowed one wish as well :- I'd like to be able to take a container in to my local supermarket and be able to buy fresh milk there to fill it. (This happens in Lithuania where my wife is from - so it must be possible, if there is sufficient demand)

Happy New Years - Nick


(PS mods please move this, if you feel it should be in a different forum)

If you can find a raw milk farm near you they probably have it on tap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YTyXmKNHj4

[mothhawk]

14) "remember that recycle is the 3rd "r" not the first - reduce and re-use first"...

Recycle is the fifth "r" in my book - refuse, reduce, re-use, re-purpose, recycle is how it goes.

[Nicos]

Funnily enough I too have started stopping and taking a second to reflect on what I need to buy and in what form.
I have been horrified this year by the amount of plastic involved in Christmas gifts on the shelves...plastic toys kids don't need, plastic wrapping paper...I was uncomfortable about it last year, but it seems to have smacked me in the face this year.
I keep thinking things like...that'll be around for 200/400 years before it biodegrades into tiny pieces of plastic which will still stuff up fish, animals, the soil....
I look around my home and sigh and the things I have collected over the years....and particularly at the decorations on my Xmas tree. Happy memories...but so much plastic!!

I will keep them because, that's the point of reusing and recycling...but this year I went out and bought a load of wooden toothbrushes to give as Xmas gift stocking fillers.

I still remember a time before plastic everything...rusty tins for storing food, washing up in the sink without a plastic bowl....glass or metal kitchen implements...so many glass bottles....woolen rugs/carpets...wooden or metal toys...

It snuck up on us didn't it?

Good thread, which really should be inspiring rather than depressing

[bikermike]

ironically enough, the adbot served up an ad for "Dutch artificial grass" underneath this thread... hey ho...

but yes, lets focus on what we can do, not what's not been done...

at least we are all trying.

[Thelma Sanders]

re-use, re-purpose, recycle

Aren't these all just re-using plastic one way or another? As long as we just don't dump it and try to ignore the problem.
Stopping the beginning of the chain is the most difficult. No new plastic once oil runs out, though, which may just happen soon enough....

[Squingy]

So very happy to see that someone besides me care about things like this. The first time I commented, in the Netherlands, about how I didn't understand how or why people threw away so many things, they got really angry and defensive with me. Every week people were throwing out perfectly good furniture on a whim for 'redecorating', tall stacks of catalogues every couple weeks never even read, it was shocking.

The fashion industry is a next set of c**** forgive my language, promoting 'trendy' clothing and yearly wardrobe changes where sheeple mindlessly nod their empty heads and toss out their wardrobe for more neon or whatever-is-in-now crap only to rinse and repeat yearly so their kids would be left with a bunch if crap to get rid of and fewer resources to do it with.

I have an online shop that produces household items and jewellery from rubbish that I rescue from roads, bins etc. Sadly people aren't interested in handcrafted or saving the world when they could buy something for half the price mass produced from a factory in China or wherever. Or even more stupid pay ten times the price for the same thing to fatten some CEO's a** then moan and bleat about the 1% and them not getting a fair wage.

Anyhooooooo...I still do my shop, largely as a loss making endeavour because I hope that at least some might see possibilities, attribute a value to rubbish and perceptions about what and how we throw away will change. So happy to see at least a few people are thinking about this.