December

November

October

So… whats happening in plastic-free November?
My new blog theme and some new plugins
A guide to a #plasticfree festive season
How to use those leaves to make seed compost
Try trailing the plastic awareness game?
Updates on the #plasticfree compostable wardrobe
Take Action – sign the petition asking UK retailers to stop selling plastic cotton buds

Latest …..Google Verification!

And then there is Google verification. WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?!!! for years now Google has been asking me to verify my site then refusing to accept my attempts to do so. In fact I think it was trying to add my access-code-to-my-header-page<what//the$%6&R.U.asking4> that messed up my last site and led to the recent theme change.
But because I am really STUBBORN and refuse to be beat, I installed this plugin
Google Analytics for WordPressThis Google Analytics for WordPress plugin adds and enables Google Analytics tracking code on your website.Version 1.1 | By praveenchauhan1984 | View details.
So, I am now verified with Google. Is that a good thing? I have no idea! I just add it to all the other Google mysteries that haunt me. Like why I have 2 Google ranks for the same site and how my Google stats never match my WordPress.

Other Blog Business

Another day another theme. My blog was loading so slowly. I tried everything but I think the actual theme was badly compromised – by my own ignorance. I was using Flagman – Retina Responsive News WordPress ThemeVersion: 1.01 By ZERGE. Flagman is Responsive, Retina Ready, WordPress theme.
It was great program, really easy and intuitive to use and a great introduction to fancy themes. All faults were as a result of my own cak handed incompetance.I loaded the wrong stuff, made changes, and at one point even managed to delete all my work. I generally bodged and buggered around till I damaged it in some fundamental way which of course I lacked the skills to recognise and correct. So I decided to start again with a new template. A free one from WordPress Themes. I was planning to reload and return to Flagman but actually I rather like this new look and new theme.

DiscoveryVersion: 2.3 By Template Express a highly customizable, fully responsive and Premium design WordPress Theme. With a focus on simple customization, Discovery allows you to add your own logo, header, featured areas, social media links and much more with a click of a button. This multi-purpose theme has a premium quality design that can fit the needs of any website.Blah blah…

It needed quite a lot of tweaking but the end result is a much speedier load.

However it lacked certain features I had come to enjoy in my paid for Flagman theme. One was the blog map showing all my posts. Useful for readers to navigate their way around the blog and for me to remember what I have written about.

Thanks then to this cool little plugin
WP Sitemap Page Add a sitemap on any page/post using a simple shortcake you paste in a page or post Version 1.6 | By Tony Archambeau.
You can see my site map here…

While searching I found this – a page view count that you can add to show how popular posts are. “the Page Views Count Plugin. Use the Page Views Count function to add page views to any content type or object created by your theme or plugins. Version 1.4.0 | By A3 Revolution” . So as of this month I can see how many visits each post is. Nice. The only page it doesn’t work on is this one which it says is massively popular. Much as I would like to, I really can’t believe I’ve had over 19000 veiws!

Other blog related posts are
Building My Blog – notes on how the blog has developed over time.Does Size Matter – how popular am I and does it matter?

Playing Gmes

The Auroville community in India are tackling plastic waste through education.

“Last year, interviewing experts was part of our research phase for developing a memory style card game which we have decided to call ‘kNOw PLASTICS’. The game educates children about the impact of plastics on animals, the environment and us. If you know of any schools, organisations or teachers then we would be very happy if you could connect us or test the kNOw PLASTICS game. Follow the link to find out what this would entail.

Party Frock? 

Not quite but here are some shorts what I have made!

And a choir boy shirt
And a frumpy corduroy skirt
a new post on patterns! Get those ruffled shirts!

And an update on my Fair Share Wardrobe

Sign Up

Call To Action Switch The Stick Sign Up

Switch The Stick is a campaign and petition to get plastic cotton buds out of the drains and off the beaches. It has been organised by  Michelle and Natalie (both can be found in the Plastic-Free U.K. directory). They  are asking UK retailers to stop selling plastic cotton buds by the end of 2017.

According to Switch The Stick ” Waitrose and Johnson & Johnson announced they’d make the change to paper, and the Coop and Marks and Spencers sell paper-stem buds. Now we need to make sure the others do the same.

Tesco, Sainsburys, Boots, ASDA, Morrisons, Lidl, Aldi, Superdrug and Wilko are currently reviewing their policies on cotton buds … which is why we need to show them how many of us support the switch to paper!”

They already have over 11000 signitures. If you havn’t done so already do add your name. It’s so easy to change this and millions of fish will thank you
The petition is now on 38 degrees (new link here)
lots more information about Switch The Stick, can be found here 

September
First an apology. I have moved house and my internet provider didnt move with me. Not through want of asking. So I have been on and off line. Obviously going for a social media detox albeit subconsciously. I am trying to keep abreast but there is only so much time I can spend in Costa Coffee. I dont like leatherette or chains, they get snotty about the amount of wifi I expect for one small expresso. In a china cup if you dont mind! They do! They mind a lot.

I have been trying to get by using my phone but no contract means I have very limited data. Add to that awful coverage and cut outs, posting has been a hit and miss affair. In short sorry for the late and rather scrappy update of #zerowasteweek2016 (read it here), bad spelling, insane predictaive text and missing words.

Here is the rather later September update

Sign up….

Please do support this campaign…..

Michelle and Natalie the best U.K. anti- plastic campaigners I know are running a campaign asking UK retailers to stop making plastic cotton buds by the end of 2017. These pesky sticks wash down the drains and up on the beaches. Heres a quick update

We meet with the large retailers in just 10 days to ask them to#SwitchtheStick!! We need to keep the momentum of this petition goinghttp://switchthestick.org/ Likes and shares are great, but it´s SIGNATURES we really NEED!

If you use cotton buds you can plastic free ones here….

Waste Less Live More Week

From 19-25 September, ” organizations, charities and businesses, (including ME!!!), will be hosting … events and activities which encourage people to waste less and live more. They have kindly suggested over 101 activities including having a bath together. Feel free to join me in the tub but it’s a small tub and I’m a big girl.

And after my Zero Waste Week of eating-plastic-free -but- only-buying- from – supermarkets project I would like to to focus on local shops. Activity Number 46 looks ideal. It is Buy local – Try buying local for a day. Using local businesses instead of chains is great way of supporting local jobs and investing more money back into the local economy.

So for all of WLLM week I will be posting photos of my local shops and businesses and the (plastic-free) produce I buy from them. I invite you to join me. One day in the week, when out shopping, take a photo of your favorite indie, local shop then post it up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or all of them.

If enough join in I will combine it with Activity No 17 Have a photography competition and will offer a fantastic prizes Activity Number 39 Make a puppet or sock monkey perhaps or back to Number 77 Share a bath ? – a voucher system maybe?

So Trashionistas what do you think? Will it work? Are you in?

You can read more about it here….

Zero Waste Week

The first full week in September is Zero Waste Week. Zero waste week is organized by Rae Strauss. Each year there’s a theme. This year it is food waste. My zero waste week has been a celebration of loose and unwrapped food. As bought from supermarkets! Is that even possible? Find out how I got on, here.

Free Fruit

Blackberries are ripe – lets go picking. Not a huge fan of the jam but love bramble jelly with ham or cheese!

Subscriptions

I am moving over from Jetpack and other hungry plugins which may affect your subscription to the blog. If you want to continue getting up dates by e-mail, please re-subscribe  here. Many thanks.

 

August

July

June

May

April

 

 

March

Back home from the tropics I desperately needed some new clothes, so three weeks in Leeds saw me busy sewing. However the design brief is a little more complex this year. Not only do the clothes have to be sustainable & plastic free, they have to be rather more dressy than I am used to.
This Easter we will be in Seville for the Santa Semana and the Feria. The first is a week of processions elaborately decorated floats are hauled through the streets, by teams of ‘costaleros’ (bearers) followed by hundreds of ‘nazarenos’ (penitents), many in pointy hoods looking very sinister.
Some of the drama that is Seville….

This is followed a couple of weeks later with a big party The Real de la Feria where people drink, dance and dress up. The “women wear the traditional “traje de gitano”, literally “gypsy outfits” or flamenco dresses, often in bright colors, and accessorized with matching/coordinating flower in hair, comb, jewelry, tasseled scarf/shawl and fan. The dresses are pricey, but worth investing in if you’ll be coming back again – nothing makes you feel part of an event like being dressed appropriately”

Bugger! After nearly a year backpacking, preceded by a year living in a van I can truthfully claim that while all my outfits may well be representative of the modern-day gypsy none of them are fit for a party. This nomad wears khaki shorts, sludgy colored T-shirts (murky from repeated mixed washes) and the emergency muumuu for visiting Iran. Absolutely no bright colors or fringed shawls and definitely no frills.
All I have in my hair is twigs and bits of straw. I haven’t accessorized since my Jackie reading days.
But I am not investing in a dress. I can’t afford it and I would feel ridiculous. More importantly I am living within my fair share of fabric allowance which works out at 3.8 kg of natural fibres. You can read more about it here.

Any clothes I get are going to have to last me the year. They have to theatrical enough for Seville yet practical enough for the U.K. Who knows where we will be and what we will be doing when we get back to the U.K. But I can’t imagine a flamenco dress is going to come in handy.

So I need something dressy, theatrical yet practical, sustainable yet frivolous

Seville Loose Foods

We will of course be partying plastic free – here is our list of loose food products we can buy here. It includes crisps!!!!February will see the return of the wanderer and I am so looking forward to getting home and catching up with some of my zero waste chums.

I will shake the dust of deepest, darkest Borneo from my feet and embrace the grey drizzle of Yorkshire. Plus  we actually have a house to live in – hurrah! its been a long time since I have had a fixed abode. We will have no furniture so it will be an excercise in extreme minimalism! Bring it on!

Meanwhile lets get on with this months #plasticfree tasks.

Latest

Looking into making pants and I found this kit in a box. Could be a useful introduction. You can also get them at John Lewis

Jen over at Make Do & Mend got sent on a course!

Participate

First theres a petition to sign.

Introduce charges on plastic & polystyrene containers for the takeaway industry

Plastic Free Lent 10th Feb to 26th March.

For those of you who didn’t know, some folk are taking part in a plastic free Lent. Sorry for the late news and indeed I would love to tell you more about this project but I don’t know a great deal myself

. It is organised by peopel in Bristol (I am pretty sure of that) and has run for a couple of years now. It has a great FB page.

Here’s some blurb “Welcome to the Lent Plastic Challenge. A group for all those who are ready to challenge themselves and take on the pesky single-use plastics that pile up in our modern life.

To support your challenge, each week we will have different theme. So you can start off in the first week with one item and build up gradually”

Hooray for them. I would love a feature them  though I ask and ask, no information ever gets sent my way. Sigh. Would love to have them in my the Plastic-free U.K. directory.

Mothers Day March 

Now the madness that is Valentines Day is out of the way you can start thinking about Mothers Day and here are some excellent ideas on what to get the old dear and how to wrap it up.

Activites

While it is still a bit cold to be out there, thoughts now turn to the garden and the seeds that need to be sown for the coming year. You need to start planning ahead for plastic free seedlings.
You can buy plastic-free seeds from these suppliers and find instructions on how to make your own paper seedling pots here.

I am going to have to make some new clothes when I get home. Browsing through Offset Warehouse and their amazing range of fair trade fabrics that they send out plastic-free.

I will of course continue to boycott plastic and help others do the same by sourcing loads of great and sustainable alternatives. Check out the new and updated lists of plastic free products here.

Save Our Bottles

In 2015 I started a petition asking Diary Crest to reconsider their decision to phase out refillable glass bottle for doorstep deliveries. In December I received this message from Milk & More (Diary Crest)
“glass milk bottles will continue to be delivered until at least April 2017. This date may be pushed back further. Many thanks.”
Good news for now but I will continue to promote the petition. If you haven’t signed yet please consider doing so.

Fair Share Fabrics Project

If we cannot produce more (and we are rapidly running out of resources), we have to consume less. And consume more fairly. This is how the equation works for me

• • We cannot exceed current levels of production
  • We cannot expect others to want less than we have.
  • Therefore we can only consume our global share

What’s a global share? 
If all the fabric created annually was shared out equelly amongst the global population
11.74 kg per person of which 3.8 kg is natural fibres. You can check my figures here.
Last year I used 3.5 kg of natural fibres and 3.2kg of synthetics. You can see what that looks like here.

2016

This year I will be doing the same with hopefully a lot less synthetics.

Back Home

Been on the road for much of last year. I am looking forward to getting back home, ordering some fabric from Offset Warehouse and getting sewing….

Cutting The Crap

I hopefully suggest that this year everyone cuts one bit of unnecessary plastic, says no to straws perhaps, maybe use reusable produce bags or find a milkman with reusable bottles.