Unpackit - cute packaging awards

Wanaka Wastebusters have come up with a cute packaging award website to out the worst packaging culprits in the country (and shine a light on the best).

The nomination that resonates most with me is the packages of individually wrapped prunes - crazy stuff.

Plastic-free picnics?

I bought this beautiful picnic lunch in Paris, at the local shops in Montmartre, where I was staying.

It was a charming experience. I bought the bread from the bakers; the incredibly smelly but quite delicious cheese from the little cheese shop; and the fruit from the fruiterers.

And the photo shows 100% of the packaging involved. The cheese was just wrapped up for me in a piece of paper and the blueberries came in that little cardboard tray. I popped the bread straight into my own cotton carry bag, no problem.

Voila, plastic-free picnic.

Whole other story in the UK. This is the picnic I bought from Marks & Sparks in Inverness:



This was the least-plastic-packaging lunch I could come up with after probably 20 mins of prowling around the aisles. And, y'know, supermarkets - really not so charming.

Guess which one was yummier??

Climate change election debate

It's the start of the election campaign. Last night I went to a climate change election debate hosted by Oxfam.

I was fascinated that while political parties thought it was worth sending the cabinet minister for climate change (Nick Smith), the leader of one of the political parties (Russel Normal of the Greens)and the opposition spokesperson for climate change (Labour's Charles Chauvel) to take part, and Adrian Macey, chair of the UN climate change talks also attended, there were only about 150 people in the audience, many of whom were the usual suspects.

Both climate change and the ETS/global political environment favouring mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions seem like they have the potential to change our lives more significantly than most other issues that might be debated in this election so you'd think people might be more interested.

Points I was interested in from the debate:

Both Labour and National were pessimistic about a replacement to the Kyoto agreement being agreed before the current commitment period runs out in 2012. Therefore NZ may have no ongoing financial commitments.

The Maori Party's stance tries to balance protecting low-income earners from rising costs with taking a kaitiaki role. It appears to focus on tweaking climate policy to help benefit Maori, such as subsiding reafforestation for carbon sinks on the East Cape.

The Greens originally favoured a carbon tax and redistribution of revenue. Their current climate change policy/emissions reduction plan includes purchasing international offsets.

Labour's line is that the lignite in Southland would stay in the ground. No state company would mine for it and any new company would pay the full costs of emissions. But deep sea drilling would be allowed with appropriate safeguards.

National tosses up between various possible uses for the Southland lignite (urea, briquettes or diesel production).

Nick Smith talked about "good" fracking and "bad" fracking - "bad" shallow fracking that shouldn't be allowed and "good" fracking that relates to geothermal exploration.

Nick Smith, as ever, was the consummate politician. However, when he tried to claim credit for National for implementing the ETS it did draw a laugh from the crowd.

British supermarkets

INSANE.

That is the only word for British supermarkets.

From a distance I had been really envious of how "green" supermarkets in the UK seemed - creating demand for Marine Stewardship Council certified fish, giving information on food miles, stocking organic food ...

Then this is what I found when I got up close:



Yes, that is four apples on a black plastic tray sealed in a plastic bag WITH A LABEL proudly claiming that this is LESS PACKAGING.

That's just bonkers.

And did you notice the little label at the bottom left? South African apples.

I bought picnic lunches at the supermarket a few times and tried really hard to find fruit that was grown in the UK. There was stuff from Spain, Italy and France but the only thing I could find from Britain was strawberries in plastic punnets.

OK, I figured, it's June, it's still only late spring, not really a good season for fruit. Maybe I'll get some vegies instead. I turned to the vegie aisle. There was an amazing variety of vegetables on display. Salad greens, lettuces, cucumbers, I think there were tomatoes. There were little plastic packets of green beans from Africa that must surely have been air-freighted. But the only vegetables from Britain were peas.

And everyone else was shopping like this was COMPLETELY NORMAL.

I was gobsmacked.

All those things that I had admired - the recyclable packaging, the Forest Stewardship Council certified cardboard, the country-of-origin labelling - now I just see it as a big greenwash.

Organic Paris

I was so impressed with how environmentally conscious Parisians are.

I was impressed when I met a Parisian man on the train from the Spanish border (yes, his name was Jacques) and part way along the conversation turned to how concerning climate change is. He was the one who brought it up, I swear.



Then I came upon this beautiful organic market (Marche des Batignolles, a Saturday market set up down the middle of the street in Montmartre). Just look at those artichokes!

There was such an amazing variety of organic products there - vegetables, fruit, bread, preserves, cotton items, cheeses ...



Imagine being able to find that variety of organic cheeses in Wellington! It was organic heaven.

Then up a side street I found an organic shop where I bought this:



This is certified organic made-from-eggs-and-cream custard (and I have to tell you, The Most Delicious custard I have ever eaten). And look, it came in a glass jar! Not a plastic pottle, a glass jar. Remember back when dairy products came in glass?

I checked in the shop but it wasn't refillable, however that day happened to be glass recycling collection day in Montmartre, so I snuck it into a collection bin.

To some extent all this is a reflection of a larger market and French (and especially Parisian) wealth, so people can afford to spend more on organic food etc., but it's still encouraging to see that level of environmental awareness.

Bin Inn!

Bin Inn is here! Well, in Lower Hutt anyway.

It's a mainstay of the Rubbish Free Year bloggers because everything is in bulk and you can take your own reuseable containers. I always felt envious because there was no such thing here.

But a branch opened at 418 High St about six months ago. I stumbled upon it in the weekend and had a quick look around. The things you can buy there in bulk! Pasta! Flour! Detergents! Lollies! Lentils! You can grind your own peanut butter. It is a plastic-free wonderland.

It's open on the weekends Sat 8.30-4 and Sun 10-3. Next time I'm out that way I'll be taking a clutch of my own bags and containers and filling everything up.

Amazing green wall

This amazing green wall on the Caixa Forum Museum stopped me in my tracks in Madrid.

After I got home I discovered this is a vertical garden by Patrick Blanc. It was featured in the Listener in early July.

It seems like kind of a fad, but I like that one of his aims is to increase biodiversity and that it runs on wastewater and acts as insulation for the building.

Windmills

I quickly snapped this pic from the train (I was a couple of hours north of Madrid) because I was so excited to see a windfarm. But then if turned out they were everywhere - all over Spain, France, England and Scotland.

Heartening, really.

Serious recycling in Spain

This is Bilbao and the most awesome recycling bin I've ever seen: a recycling bin for domestic vegetable oil. Householders can deposit their used cooking oil here and it's used for biodiesel to power the public buses.




Brilliant, huh?

Recycling in Spain

I was really impressed with the recycling facilities in Spain. In most of the places I visited there were recycling bins on the street (the photo is from San Sebastian on the north coast). Even more impressive, along with the bins for glass, paper and plastic, there would also often be a bin for compost.

I talked to someone at the environmental centre in San Sebastian and he explained that they have these bins instead of a door-to-door collection system the way we do. People in the surrounding apartments bring their rubbish and recycling out to the bins on the street.

The main trunk line

My main effort at making my Europe trip a little bit greener was to commit to not making any domestic flights. Everywhere that I reasonably could, I took the train.

So, the very first thing I noticed was that of all the places I wanted to travel (Spain, France, the UK) the only train journey that didn't have a scheduled service every day was between Wellington and Auckland.

That's right - the train between two of our main centres only runs three days a week in the winter. How crazy is that? I guess so many people fly instead that it's not viable to run more often.

But I reckon the train service is really valuable. It creates about 1/8th the carbon emissions of flying. It would be terrible if it stopped running altogether.

So I'm glad that I put my money into supporting it.

And, damn, it's a beautiful journey.

Europe

I'm just back from two months in Europe.

First up, I want to say right away that in no way do I think that flying halfway around the world is environmentally friendly. That's around 8 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, chickees. About as much as the average New Zealander emits in a year. Or, shockingly, around eight times one of the suggested annual quotas if you divide allowable emissions equally among the world's population.

However, since I needed to go the UK on family business, I was bound to be interested in thinking about environmental stuff while I was there, right?

So I'm going to share a bunch of posts on a tourist's view of sustainability in Europe.

Electric cars and off-peak power

I think I've changed my mind about electric cars. Maybe they are A Good Thing.

I used to think: "Yes, great, zero emissions, but where the heck is all that electricity going to come from?"

I read a couple of different things, one from Waikato University(The Potential for Battery Electric Cars in New Zealand) that suggests 10% more electricity would be needed - if there's a move to public transport, walking etc as well. Twenty percent more if not. That sounds like a whole new Manapouri situation.

Then someone suggested the idea of recharging electric cars with off-peak power.

And it checks out. EECA says that there is enough surplus electricity generated off-peak to power all of our current fleet of cars.

And if you needed more, Good magazine gives you ten good reasons to buy one.

There's a little niggle in the back of my mind about batteries, but for now I'm feeling positive about the idea again.

Organic vegetables, bees, butterflies and hoverflies

I've switched to buying organic vegetables.

I'd been thinking about it for a while, because of all that good stuff about organics (more carbon held in the soil, less fertiliser runoff into waterways, more biodiversity) but it took me a while to decide to make the change - because organic does cost more.

While I was dithering, I read a blog post that reminded me about the worldwide problem with declining pollinators.

And I thought to myself: "I think I can't afford an extra $10 or 15 a week for vegetables, but I think I can afford to live in a world without bees?"

I guess we don't yet know for sure the reason that bees are declining, but it reminded me that my expectations about the price of food might be based on a slightly screwed-up system.

Cancun and deforestation

Great editorial in the Listener a couple of weeks ago on solutions for deforestation coming out of Cancun: Chop or change .

I want to find out more about REDD, the UN scheme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

Cancun may only have been a small step forward, but it gives me renewed hope for a global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.