The next generation of green savers

A couple of weeks ago, Asda ran a competition to win tickets for the Prince of Wales, ‘A Garden Party to Make A Difference’ and asked the question ‘What are you doing to live a more sustainable life’. Obviously I responded by telling them that I’d invented Count On It labels to help myself and families like me reduce unnecessary food waste. Since launching Count On It labels, my business has now evolved and we have two more products in the early stages of development, both which make being green in the home easy.

Anyway, a couple of days later Asda got back in touch and confirmed that I’d won the tickets for myself and my family to attend the event and on Sunday 19th September off we went to London.

The event, which is part of the Start campaign, took place in the private garden of Clarence House and of it’s neighbours Lancaster House and Marlborough House. It aimed to give people of all ages a fun day out, whilst showing how even by making small changes we can all live a more sustainable life. First of all it was such a great privilege to be able to walk around these historic gardens and see at first hand Prince Charles’ very own vegetable garden and the beautiful herb garden. The houses were stunning and we were also fortunate enough to be able to see a glimpse of Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall themselves, as they left Clarence House to attend the Battle of Britain service at Westminster Abbey.

Throughout the garden party there were some fantastic exhibitions, a favourite of ours was the incredible ’sign-writing’ shower exhibit from B&Q. The huge ’shower head’ spelt out how by using a shower UK households could reduce their water consumption. The shower ’sign-wrote’ this message with a computer-controlled jets pumping out individual water droplets at pre-determined intervals. What a stunningly effective way to get the message across, now all it would need for my home is an attachment which told my boys to use soap!

Another display purposely low tech, but equally as effective, was the recycled milk bottle planter irrigation system as part of the ‘The Future Cities Garden, created by www.PetherickUrquhartandHunt.com. The planter as shown in the photo, used recycled milk cartons as plant pots with a hose feeding each pot, creating a space-saving, multi-use planting system – growing salad leaves, herbs, flowers – perfect for gardens with limited space or homes without gardens, just balconies – the only cost – time to construct and plant. What a fabulous idea to use in schools to teach children about recycling, engineering, design and of course, self-sufficiency.

Recycled self-feeding milk carton planter

They’re were also some fantastic ‘freebies’ too, packets of wildlife attracting plant seeds, Dianthus (Russian Skies) and Wild flower, Sweet Rocket from the Royal Horticultural Society. Plus packets of Mixed Salad Leaves aimed at children from the RHS Campaign for School Gardening. www.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening and of course, not forgetting the obligatory ‘bag for life’ – and I can now confirm, yes, I have now got enough bags for my life, my children and most probably their children’s. Joking a side, this is an issue that I believe will soon be coming back to bite us, with a glut of reusable bags soon seeing themselves heading for our bins and landfill – unless they could be taken in by charities in their clothes collection bags.

Adam Fellows cooking at the Asda 'Eat Seasonably' exhibit

Down the enclosed part of the Mall, we then enjoyed the cooking skills of Adam Fellows at Asda’s Eat Seasonably cooking demonstration tent. Using only seasonal vegetables, the chefs showed the audience how to cook up fresh, tasty meals from British fruit and vegetables.

Another supermarket, Waitrose, had a great exhibition which focussed on ways we can all reduce, reuse and recycle. On display was their latest waste reduction initiative which is being launched in October, a new style of meat packaging which will help their customers remove 90 tonnes of plastic from their bins each year. This flexible style of packaging will remove the need for rigid meat trays, as the photo shows the pile of flexible packaging on the right in contrast to the same amount of rigid packaging in the supermarket trolley to the left.

Waitrose new meat packaging - 90 tonnes less plastic waste

We then had the inventive exhibition from Marks and Spencer’s – which showed how their Plan A was making a difference to the environment, their customers,employees and the people who work to supply all the products we sell. The exhibition, which was incredibly reminiscent of the Wallace and Gromit ‘Cracking Idea’ exhibition at the Science Museum a year ago, showed how their coat hangers where recycled, their donate your clothing scheme with Oxfam and how artificial colourings and flavourings have been removed from their food and soft drinks.

Of particular interest to me was their fridge display which showed how households could get the most from their food through proper storage, labelling, yes, that’s were www.countonit.co.uk labels would be perfect, menu planning and the use of leftovers. As expected, this was a great way of giving people tips and ideas to make their food and money go further, but what saddens me is that on standing near the display for a little while (studying it of course) I heard over a dozen people state ‘I never throw any food away’.

Aaaargh, how many times have I heard this – it is so frustrating. We are ALL responsible for throwing some edible food away, the leftovers on a child’s plate, the yoghurt that got forgotten about in the back of the fridge, the over-catered party food, it happens, even to those who do their best to keep their waste to a minimum. But with so many people in denial, how are we every going to get people to face up to this problem as a nation and do something about it. Unless products are designed in such a way that people become green without radically changing their existing habits or even realising it – an area which really interests me and which I plan to tackle through my own design business.

Finally, there was the Farmers market, eco-car display and eco-school and not forgetting a fabulous dance show by Strictly Come Dancing’s Darren Bennett and Lilia Kopylova, who incidentally walked past us when I was stuffing an organic sausage in my mouth, so I couldn’t smile or say ‘hi’ – I’m sure they got over that, quicker than I did!

All in all, it was a fantastic event which highlighted how simple changes can make a huge difference. The creativity of some of the exhibitions showed how easy, low cost and even stunning it can be to use more envirionmentally sound products and ideas, which will in turn save us money and reduce the impact on our world.

We don’t have to overhaul our lives to be more environmentally-friendly, we don’t have to drastically change our shopping habits, we don’t even have to stop eating the foods we enjoy – we just need to use a little common sense, seek out products that give more than they take from our environment, be more aware of our own personal impact on our world (and our pockets) and be a little eco-creative with what we use.
Thank you Asda for giving us the opportunity to join Prince Charles at his home at this brilliant event, it was fantastic.

After watching Great British Waste Menu on the BBC a couple of weeks ago (and blogging about it), a few of us got together on Twitter (where else) and have decided that something has to be done to help everybody make a positive impact on this country’s wastage.

We’ve come up with a campaign called ‘More for my money’ #m4mm and the aim is to bring all existing waste reduction schemes, campaigns, businesses under one roof. So if anyone, wherever they are in the fresh food/produce supply chain, wants to find out where and how they can reduce waste, all the info is in one place.

Instead of searching in one direction for recycling tips and advice, then in another for composting info, then in another for products that help you reduce food waste like Count On It labels, all of this information will be in one place – a one stop ’shop’.

This is the vision:

• a one touch resource ‘centre’
• helping the individual (wherever they sit in the supply chain)
• to bring together all existing campaigns
• practical and useful advice
• one step at a time attitude (not preaching)

So, if you like this idea and would like to join us, it’d be great to have your support.

Lots of things are happening already, we’ve got volunteers to do our website, interviews lined up with local BBC and a diverse range of people who want to be part of the campaign and support it where they can.

If you want to know more, please drop us an line and we’ll put you on our circulation list so you get to find out how you can join in and hear what’s happening next.

Thanks again for your interest and hopefully we’ll speak again very soon.

Lyndsey

p.s. keep you eye out for the #m4mm on Twitter – and join in the conversation :0)