25th August 2010 by Jun
Environmentally speaking, August has been an especially turbulent month. Just as BP’s Gulf of Mexico fiasco moves slowly out of the headlines, hundreds of Muscovites died from the heat as wildfires swept across Russia, China experienced its worst landslide in decades, and an estimated 20million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan. Meanwhile, a 100 square mile of ice departed Greenland, and we are told by scientists at the Met Office that the first 6 months in 2010 indicate that we are facing the hottest year on global record.
Wowzer! What a bleak apocalyptic picture to brighten up your day! As always though, Otesha is full of innovative ideas for you to confront this doom and gloom. This month’s challenge exposes the bottled water industry’s perfect con: bottled water (watch the story of bottled water for more info). Whilst the ‘Bottled Water Information’ website informs us that ‘bottled waters offer the ultimate in traceability, health, convenience and choice, as well as providing reassurance that they come from fully sustainable sources,’ the site’s run by the British Soft Drinks Association (a lobbying group representing the soft drinks industry) suggesting that your health, convenience and the apparent sustainability of bottled water isn’t exactly their main priority.
Despite the fact that access to clean drinking water constitutes a basic human right, over 1 million deaths are caused by waterborne diseases every year. 1.1 billion people are without access to clean drinking water, and yet the bottled water industry represents an estimated market of US $22 billion: enough to supply the world with clean drinking water.
When we waste our money on this unnecessary commodity (marked up by a whopping 2000%), we not only create the demand for the production of plastic bottles in an energy and oil intensive process, but for them to then be transported to our shops. Your challenge this month is to drink tap water.
Tags: bottled water, BP, British Soft Drinks Association, clean drinking water, climate change, drinking water, Greenland, Met Office, oil spill, Pakistan floods, tap water, water
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27th July 2010 by Jo
This month we challenge you to find out what you can eat seasonably, then eat it. Or grow it using the handy step by step guide, then eat it. Or steal it from Tescos… no wait, definitely don’t steal it, carrots look very obvious under the trenchcoat. But seriously now – don’t steal. Gardening is far more fun and you won’t end up in prison.
The eat seasonably people reckon the 10 easiest things to grow are:
- salad (get rocking with the rocket)
- tomatoes
- peas (give peas a chance)
- courgettes
- strawberries
- beetroot
- mint
- beans
- onions (cry me a river of chutney)
- pumpkin
Hopefully you’ll find you’re better at growing it than I am at coming up with vegetable themed puns. But either way, lettuce know how you get on (jo@otesha.org.uk). Send us photos, seasonal recipes and stories about how the slugs ate all your salad.
Tags: food glorious food, gardening, grow your own, seasonal, seasonal food, vegetables
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29th June 2010 by Jo
This month we challenge you to a digital detox. Start by turning off the tv, then pen a postcard instead of an email, postpone your phone calls or leave the laptop out of your leisure time. Aside from the constant ringing, tweeting and flickering that’s interrupting our lives, all this internet shizzle is changing our brains. “Technology is rewiring our brains,” said Nora Volkow, one of the world’s leading brain scientists. Constant bursts of information are not just disrupting in themselves, they’re undermining our ability to focus even when we’re not online.
So shut it all down, give your brain a break and tell us what happens (on a postcard of course).
Tags: digital detox, energy, penpal, postcard, tv turnoff
Posted in energy, media, monthly challenge | 1 Comment »
8th June 2010 by Jo
We racked our brains for this monthly challenge. Surely, we thought, we have already challenged you to do everything that can reasonably be challenged? Recycling monthly challenges suddenly doesn’t seem so eco. But then it dawned on us, there is one effective, yet easy challenge still unused. And how could we have overlooked it for so long? But never fear, for this month we challenge you to change your energy supplier.
Leave the fossils behind and get yourself some good energy, some green energy or some ecotricity. All UK energy suppliers are obliged to increase the amount of the electricity they sell from renewable sources, in 2009 the required level was 9.1%. Beware green tariff greenwash from companies who get most of their energy from gas and oil, a green tariff might be no more than a legal requirement. When beautifying your bills check not only how much of your energy will come from renewables, but also how much suppliers are investing in new renewables and improving the state of the grid.
Switch your energy supplier, make your bills beautiful and while you’re at it, get your neighbours, dad, gran, long lost cousins, and your work/ school/ uni to do it too.
Tags: ecotricity, good energy, green energy, green tariff, greenwash, renewable, renewables
Posted in energy, monthly challenge | 1 Comment »
8th June 2010 by Jo
This month we’re challenging you to draw everything that you buy. “Have you gone absolutely KE-RAY-ZEE over there at Otesha?” I hear you cry. Well, maybe.
Why? Because we want to get creative, we want to think before we buy and we want to make an artistic comment on our consumer-based society (call us high-minded).
We are taking our inspiration from the uber Kate Bingaman-Burt, author of Handmade Nation and creator of blog Obsessive Consumption – What Did You Buy Today? She has been documenting her purchases since 2002 and even drew all her credit card statements from 2004 until she became debt-free in February 2010. Blimey. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: consumerism, Handmade Nation, Illustration, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Obsessive Consumption
Posted in money, monthly challenge | 1 Comment »
1st April 2010 by Liz
Parents are tricky aren’t they? You can’t leave them alone for one minute, in case they go and invest their pension funds in huge energy-sucking, environment destroying initiatives like the tar sands.
Oh, what? They have already? Bad parents!
They deserve to be grounded, but since we can’t do that, our challenge this month is to (nicely) pester our parents about their pensions instead.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: ethical investment, pensions, tar sands
Posted in money, monthly challenge | 1 Comment »
1st April 2010 by Jo
Nothing feels more exciting than opening the oven to find a big lump of sticky sweet goodness to devour in half the time it took to make. What a good way to cheer not only yourself up but the people around you too. So this month we’re challenging you to get creative in the kitchen.
Making your own treats will also help reduce; the amount of packaging you consume, the amount of products which have travelled so many miles to you and the amount of money you spend which goes to companies who advertise heavily at children and stick horrible additives in their food.
This is Nick’s ever evolving and never quite the same cake recipe:
With a fork mix 2 tablespoons of margarine with a good pouring of fairtrade caster sugar, pour a tiny bit of oat-milk/milk/water/whatever into the mixture and mix, add chocolate/nuts/fruit if you fancy some or have some in stock but if not don’t worry, mix together and then add around 5/6 tablespoons of organic self raising flour, mix together. You should now have a mixture which is thick and gloopy (if not add some more flour). Then put into whatever baking utensil/casserole dish (line with baking paper) you have and put into a hot oven of around 180C and cook for about 30 mins or until you can prod the middle with a knife and the knife comes out clean.
As always we would like to see pictures of your best brownies, Fairtrade fruitcakes, lovely lemon tarts and organic oakcakes. We also want to hear stories of kitchen happenings and any great recipes that you would like to share (jo@otesha.org.uk). Bon appetite!
Here are three cakes (carrot cake, cheesecake and chocolate cake) that Carla made and brought into work!
At Stitch and Bitch they’re laying down their needles to bake too. Full of puns and peatnut butter, two of our favourite things, purl your eyes around this stitch dropping and drooling recipe- PKnit2Togobble Pknitbutter Cookies
Tags: additives, baking, cake, cookies, fairtrade, food glorious food, packaging, pknitbutter, recipe, stitch and bitch, treats
Posted in food glorious food, monthly challenge, reduce reuse | No Comments »
1st March 2010 by Jo
Without water we ain’t got nothing and although this planet is full of it, only a tiny proportion is fresh water. Then bear in mind that every drop of
the wet stuff that passed through our pipes, taps, drains and cisterns has been cleaned to drinking standard, using more than a bucketful of energy in the process.
This month we challenge you not to waste a drop of it:
But whatever you do, let us know (email jo@otesha.org.uk). We’ll put your drops of good advice up here and our favourite answer will receive a Fairtrade chocolate bar.
Our favourite water-saving stories
We have it on good authority that the hard-working hosts over at the Hub Islington have fixed their leaky tap. Way to go!
On top of this, we learned through twitter that the Adnam’s brewery harvests their rainwater & uses it to flush their loos and wash their lorries. This is great news – we love an ethical pint.
Tags: adnam's, bottled water, dripping tap, green roof, staggered shower, toilet hippo, waste, water, water butt
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1st February 2010 by Jo
According to some clever bloke on the Internet people have been making new years resolutions since 153BC. This month we challenge you to carry on the tradition and commit yourself to a green resolution.
We’ve resolved to:
- Go to more swishing parties (that’s clothes swapping to us lay men)
- Stop buying new clothes
- Mend old clothes
- Reuse water bottles and stop buying mineral water
- Take showers inside of baths
- Vegan it up two meals a day
- Write more letters (to friends and MPs)
- Protest more
- Brave the weather and the traffic and cycle to work everyday.
And remember, if you break yours you can always start again on the Chinese or Iranian new years.
Martha sent us this resolution:
Mine is to grow my own sweet potatoes, as it is apparently quite easy and I never see any for sale from anywhere closer than Spain.
For anyone who wants to try this first buy a couple of sweet potatoes now since you need to start them nowish. Put them in an airing cupboard or somewhere else nice and warm. Leave them till about April by which time they should have produced some lovely shoots. Take these shoots off and plant them in a nice peat free seed compost, and keep them somewhere fairly warm, definitely frost free in sunlight and don’t forget to water them.
In June either plant them in a reasonable bit of soil or, as I will, in a big tub- old plastic dustbin I used last year for strawberries in my case. Peat free compost and regular feeding with some seaweed product should work fine. If you can add some home made compost all the better. Make sure the tub is well drained. Leave to grow, making sure they are weed free- if you plant them in the ground it’s good to plant them through something, maybe old carpet.
I think they are ready in August-September. When you dig them up be sure to dig deep as they grow downwards or you’ll miss a load of them, one of my reasons for planting in a big tub; I should make sure to get them all.
Tags: bottled water, Cycle, grow sweet potatoes, Internet, letters, new years resolutions, protest, resolutions, showers, swishing, veganism, write to your MP
Posted in fashion, food glorious food, monthly challenge, reduce reuse, travel & transport, water | No Comments »
1st December 2009 by Jo
As the festive season draws near we challenge you to have a happy and socially and environmentally sustainable Christmas/ Ramadan/ Hanuka/ Winter Solstice etc.
How about some environmentally friendly decorations? Rent a living tree instead of buying a dying one, after Christmas the tree will be collected and replanted. You can even order the same tree again next year to see how it has grown.
Have yourself an energy saving Christmas, let your lights be solar powered. Have a sustainable festive dinner, let the Well Hung Meat Company do you an organic turkey. Or get a fair trade advent calendar. It doesn’t matter if you eat four days worth of chocolate in one go, you can feel good about yourself knowing that cocoa farmers are getting a fair wage.
Save yourself another tree and send e-cards this Christmas, let your wrapping paper be rescued (newspaper and potato printing has reached dizzy heights of sophistication this year). With the trusty website instructables on hand you can make just about any present you can imagine. Or give time not money and do something nice for someone this Christmas.
Tags: advent calendar, christmas, e-cards, fairtrade, festive, hanuka, living tree, ramadan, solar lights, winter solstice
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