Hello! Today I want to talk about recycling. In the UK, we generated 22.9 million tonnes of waste in 2016, so what happens to it? I often hear people say that they recycle plastic, so they aren’t part of the waste problem facing our planet. However, only 9% of the plastic produced in the world gets recycled (Science advances, 2017). So, what actually happens to our plastic recycling?

We started making plastic in the 1950’s, but as our demand for this convenient material has grown, our waste system hasn’t caught up, which results in an overflow of plastic (and other waste too). This overflow ends up in our oceans, which means that as the plastic breaks down, it ends up in fish, so the plastic gradually makes it back up the food chain to our plates. Most plastic can be recycled but isn’t because the process is expensive and complicated, and the product that you end up with is of a lower quality than what you put in. Recycling is a money making business, and therefore if no one buys the recycling, then it doesn’t get recycled. Before January 2018, China imported and processed half of the world’s plastic, but now China is more specific about what they will take – quite rightly, they don’t want to be the world’s bin. A lot of plastic is now incinerated overseas in countries like Malaysia, Turkey, Poland, Indonesia and the Netherlands. It is estimated that by 2050 (if we keep going at the same rate), then 20 billion tons of plastic will end up in landfill.

Recycling is definitely better than just sending it to landfill, of course, but it’s worth thinking about what you’re buying in the first place that could be package free. At the moment, this is pretty difficult, because there aren’t as many choices available in supermarkets. However, it would be good if we come out of this with more awareness about our waste, where it goes and how to reduce it. Next time I’ll be talking about some of the plastic free items that I use on the daily – until then, stay safe and stay inside.

Sources:

National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/

National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/5-recycling-myths-busted-plastic/

BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49827945

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish

Economist: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/03/06/only-9-of-the-worlds-plastic-is-recycled

I want you to stop recycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yp1KKWpPpU

I know, not the cleanest sounding title. I won’t lie, composting is pretty disgusting in a lot of ways, but it’s such a good way to send less waste to landfill. Today, I’m going to talk about what composting is, why it’s such a good idea and how I compost at home.

Most things that you would put into compost such as fruit and veg, will decompose on their own, but composting speeds up this process. Composting relies on microorganisms, which need to be in the right environment in order to work. This environment needs to be warm, moist, and full of nutrients and oxygen. The first stage sees mesophilic microorganisms beginning to break down anything that is biodegradable, during which the compost heats up to about 40 degrees C. These mesophilic microorganisms are then replaced by thermophilic microorganisms in stage two, which thrive in the high temperatures, and break everything down into even smaller pieces. Thermophilic microorganisms are particularly good at breaking down fats, proteins and complex carbohydrates. The third stage sees the mesophilic microorganisms return and break down everything that’s left into compost, which we can then use on our gardens.

According to the RHS, there are several key factors to making good compost. Obviously you first need something to put your compost in, such as a compost bin (which is what we use). This should be stored somewhere where there is not a dramatic change in temperature, as this can affect the composting process. The mixture cannot be too much of one thing and too little of another. They suggest a mix of ’25 and 50 percent soft green materials’ with the rest being brown materials. So, soft green materials are grass, kitchen waste, weeds etc. and brown materials are things like dead leaves, cardboard and straw. They also suggest turning the heap often to provide oxygen, which is very important for stage two. You can buy accelerators and activators which you can add to compost if you don’t have enough green or brown materials. Obviously, not everyone has the space to accommodate a big compost bin. If you’re in a flat, or have no garden, then there are still options. There are smaller bins you can purchase, and there are community groups that will take your waste to use for compost for allotments and things like that, so it’s worth having a look if you are not able to use it yourself.

In practice, this is really very easy. We have a large compost bin in our garden, and a little round bin in the kitchen which we use to collect kitchen waste. When this bin gets full, I take it outside and dump it into the compost bin, with any brown materials that we have, and I add a litre of water which is mixed with an activator. I then mix the compost around a bit with a spade, and just leave it. We won’t have any usable compost for months or even years, but it feels a lot better than putting it in landfill. At the moment, our green bins are not being collected as often as they normally are, so it’s great to be able to put our waste somewhere else to put less pressure on the waste collection system. It’s also a pretty easy thing to keep up with, once you’ve got the set up right.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this was interesting for you (or at least more interesting than the title sounded).

Sources:

RHS: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=444

Moral Fibres: https://moralfibres.co.uk/how-to-compost-in-a-flat/

Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/63559-composting.html

We’re back! It’s towards the end of week 4 of quarantine for me – how is everyone? As part of my commitment to educating myself on environmental stuff, I did a post about beef production, and this is the second part of that. Having spoken about why reducing your beef intake is good, I want to talk about how to reduce it.

I’m vegetarian, and for me that means that I don’t eat any meat or fish, so I’m pretty used to not eating beef. However, my parents are both meat eaters, as is my boyfriend, so I’m also used to adapting meals so that I can eat a vegetarian version of whatever they’re having. So, I have a few ideas about eating plant based versions of beef based meals. However, as I said in my last post, reducing your beef intake doesn’t mean cutting it out, it can just mean swapping in different foods, or having one less beef based meal a week, so I want to talk about that too.

Firstly, I want to mention my favourite meat replacement – plants. Ok, probably not the plants that you’re picturing – I’m talking about things like beans, peppers, aubergine, courgette, that kind of thing. A great example of this in practice is chilli, which I make very often (for the full recipe, scroll to the bottom of this page). I basically chuck in whatever veg I have, and add lots of smokey flavour and it’s just as nice (in my opinion) as a meat chilli. I’ll warn you, it’s not the same, especially in terms of texture, but as long as you add the same flavours as you normally would, it’s just a slightly different version of the food you already love. Here’s some advice for using veg instead of mince:

1. Try to mix up what veg you use, especially in terms of texture. Add some veg that has crunch, like carrots and some that have a meatier texture like mushrooms or aubergine, because the worst thing is a mush of veg covered in sauce.
2. ADD SOME SEASONING. Meat has flavour without really doing anything, which is not true of a lot of veg. Veg is delicious, but it really helps if you add some smokey seasoning, some spice, some salt etc.
3. Cook it for longer, on a low heat. Veg often tastes better when it’s cooked low and slow in an oven or on the hob – it just helps to release all the flavours.

Secondly, there are some great fake mince options out there for when you want a more meat-like experience. My favourite is literally anything by the Meatless Farm Company, because it cooks very similarly to mince and looks a lot like mince and tastes amazing. I also sometimes use Quorn mince, which is really great because you keep it frozen and then just bung it into anything you want. The supermarkets are all trying to do more vegan and vegetarian options, so there are loads of different choices, it’s just about trying them.

Finally, something that my mum has always done when she makes things like bolognese or lasagne is adding lentils in to the mince so that it goes further. So, if you were going to use 500 grams of mince, she would get 250 of mince and add 250 of lentils instead. This is so simple and easy, and to be honest you can’t really taste the difference!

So, those are a few things you can do to reduce your beef intake, or cut it out altogether if that’s what you want to do. Next time, I’ll be talking about composting, because that is something that I’ve been trying during the past couple of weeks. Until then, hope everyone stays safe and healthy, and thank you for reading!

Chilli recipe: https://wastemakeswaste.design.blog/2020/01/27/vegan-chilli-recipe/

Meatless Farm Company: https://meatlessfarm.com/

Quorn: https://www.quorn.co.uk/

So, during this lockdown, one of my personal missions is to learn a bit more about Climate Change. I’ve never been particularly ‘sciencey’, but I want to understand why it’s good to make some choices and not so good to make others. The first of these choices that I wanted to look at was not eating beef. Now, I know that beef isn’t great for the planet, I know that health professionals don’t recommend eating very much of it, and I know that cows fart a lot, but I don’t really know what any of that has to do with the planet. So, here’s some stuff that I have learnt about cows and beef production.

There are over 1.5 billion cows on the planet, and they take up roughly 30% of the land on earth. Cows belong to a family of mammals called Ruminants, which includes cows, sheep, goats, calves and deer. In ruminants, a byproduct of their digestion is methane (CH4), which is a greenhouse gas (like carbon dioxide (C02)). This means that when cows eat, they burp and fart which releases methane into the atmosphere. Methane, like all greenhouse gases, traps the heat of the sun in our atmosphere, which has a warming effect on the earth. The problem is that methane is about 25x more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. Despite this, methane gas emissions have increased by 150% since the turn of the 19th century. So where do cows fit into this? According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN in 2006, ‘the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transport’ – that’s the whole transport sector put together!

So cows produce methane by burping and farting, but what else is there? Well, part of the reason that they produce so much methane is because of their diets. Before the 1970’s, most cows were grass fed, but as demand for beef grew, their diets changed to things like corn, which they find harder to digest. This diet also requires a lot of land and fertiliser in order to grow enough for all the cows – it takes 8x as much land to feed cows as it does to feed humans. Cow feed is also one of the number one causes of deforestation, as more and more fields are needed to grow food to feed the cows in order to meet demand for beef. Cows also use a lot of water, with 30% of the world’s water going to livestock.

That’s just the bit before cows are slaughtered, which I won’t be talking about (because we all know what that entails really). The crucial take away from this information is that it is the increasing demand for beef that is making cows such a big problem for the planet. If the demand for beef is lower, then there are fewer cows on the planet, which results in less methane, less land being taken up , less water useage, less deforestation etc. There are advancements being made in what cows eat, as a change in diet could help them to produce less methane, but overall, the most obvious answer seems to be for everyone to lower their beef consumption. Now, I’m not saying that everyone has to give up beef altogether, but even one less beef based meal a week would be a help.

So that was the sciency bit, so next time you hear from me I’ll be talking about ways to reduce your beef intake, or cut it out altogether if that’s something you want to do!

Sources:

The Truth about Hamburgers – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mvvJ-uaEtY&t=190s

The diet that helps fight Climate Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUnJQWO4YJY

Cow Farts and Climate Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26qzmw_xG58

The hidden costs of Hamburgers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3URdEzlKQ

Do Cow Farts really significantly contribute to Global Warming?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md2M2SKExmI