Dear Mom,
A while ago, I mentioned that ‘Climate Change’ was something that I knew very little about. Since then, I have read an interesting book called ‘Climate Change Begins at Home’ by Dave Reay which describes the choices and dilemmas faced by a family, the ‘Carbones’, regarding changing their lifestyle so that they were responsible for less green-house gas emission.
Last Sunday, while sitting in my favourite coffee-shop in Woking chomping on a bagel (cinnamon and raison) and sipping my cappuccino, I thought that it might be an instructive exercise to see if for one month it was possible (i.e. I would not starve or be in any other way seriously inconvenienced) for me to only buy stuff that came in packaging that I intended to recycle.
The first problem that occurred to me is that I really like to buy a coffee on the way to work, and of course it comes in a paper cup that might be recyclable, but that I always throw away in an ordinary rubbish bin. This was serious. So I decided that I would ask the lady at ‘AMT’ if she would give it to me in a mug. The first time I did this, it would have to be a beautiful, virgin mug so that in my mind there would be no reason for her to say no. So I bought a Royal Doulton mug (£ 3.50 on a special) from Debenhams, and on the following day (Monday) I did the first experiment.
It worked every day last week which I found (disproportionately) pleasing!
Yours etc.,
Bronwen
PS There is still a sale on this range of Royal Doulton china. Click here to order online.
What a clever idea! Wouldn’t it be marvellous if we all did this. However, you don’t say how you got all the way down platform 1 and into Crinan St (swipe card) and up to the 3rd floor (lift buttons, doors) without spilling any – I am sure I would.
But those AMT coffee people are so nice, they always have been ever since that stall was there, I am not surprised they agreed. And their coffee is great.
Love the cup. I’m quite tempted but my nearest Debenhams is in Wimbledon, half way down the train line to work, so not sure if I can quite summon up the energy.
I tend to shlurp about a third of it up before I get to the end of platform 1. The day of the photograph was just one of those rare events of extreme concentration and good fortune in finding that there was someone to open every door on the way to my desk.
The cup is living at work so my new routine is to put my things down, check my emails and then get the coffee. If I arrive late (frequently) it looks like it will have to wait until lunchtime.
I did an interesting experiment at Morrison’s today…
...but more on that later in the week…
My Lovely Wife is currently reading the same book. This injected some interesting debates into our weekend, mainly about how to strike a balance between being good planetary citizens and just getting on with your life.
Example 1: I was asked to not heat the Tesco chicken tikka curry for Friday night’s dinner in the oven but rather in the microwave, to save energy. This is contrary to previous advice along the lines of, ‘Don’t heat the curry in the microwave – it’s much nicer from the oven.’ We dim husbands are quite paralysed by this sort of switcheroo. I rebelled and said, ‘No – it’s nicer from the oven.’ Then I stayed after work for a drink with colleagues, only got home at 8.30pm and heated the curry in the microwave to save time. Right choice, wrong reason, I admit. The real climate crime here, though, as I understand from the book as it has been relayed to me, is to be buying the packaged readymade curry in the first place.
Example 2: This is the increasingly familiar dilemma of supporting developing nations vs. watching your food miles. So, the fruit and veg for our weekly shop was carefully chosen to be UK grown or nearby (e.g. France), but the Argentinian butternut and South African apples were ignored. Except for the 2-for-1 pineapples – we took a pair of those, ‘cos we were supporting the growers and… and… ‘cos we love pineapple. I am further befuddled – leading to the now familiar feeling of moral paralysis – to read that buying UK grown produce is not necessarily less of a climate crime, as the equipment etc. used in the growing could come from anywhere in the world.
Which, I suppose, brings me back to my original point about debating how to balance climate responsibility with just living your life. The book, as I understand it, would applaud you, Bronwen, for supplying your own coffee mug at the AMT booth, but question whether you needed to buy a new mug to do so – could you not have brought a used one from home, and so not implicate yourself in the manufacturing of the additional mug? (I personally think it’s OK, but I’m just following the thought trajectory here that MLW and I were traveling along this last weekend.) As we all ask at some point in our lives: how far can I go?
This whole thing is really complicated; and there seem to be logical arguments for and against every possible decision. My aim this month was just to determine whether I thought that it was possible to avoid the non-recyclable packaging.
Unfortunately, to overcome the activation energy to try the coffee cup thing, it had to be a virgin mug otherwise there was an inkling of a hygiene issue that would make it so that I was not completely confidant when asking for the first time. You are right though. I have many beautiful mugs and now that I know that the lady will (probably) say yes any one of them will do.
I am finding, though, that in avoiding the packaging, I have to make many other choices that conflict with my previous decisions regarding which products are the ‘most-ethical-by-my-rather-arbitary-criteria’ to buy. This is serious. For the basics, there should be ‘perfect products’ (organic, in recyclable containers, fairtrade if not grown locally) to avoid the stress of trading off the different ethical considerations.
My basics list would be: milk, bread, cheese, yoghurt, coffee, some form of oily fish, tomatoes, carrots, apples, onions, sugar, some form of pasta.
But surely it should be the global warming coffee mug that is used :)
What a clever gimmick! I do still prefer my lemons-and-olives design though…
I don’t go to coffee shops much but the very warm weather this weekend made a Java Chip Frappucino from Starbucks too much of a temptation to resist. While in the queue with my fellow weak-willed caffeine addicts, I noticed that Starbucks offer a 10 pence discount when you bring your own mug. Is this a recent thing (maybe they read your blog, Bronwen?) and do many coffee shops do the same?
It seems that I will have to revise my opinion of Starbucks! It is very pleasing that they have started doing this, and I would love to think that they were feeling the pressure to out-do AMT after reading my blog. :)
There is one lady at AMT who charges me 15 p less for my cappucino, but the others charge me the normal price. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have found that different people charge me different amounts for the same thing anyway (well, cheap things like coffee or steamed milk) so I am not 100 % sure that I am being rewarded for using the mug.
A few years ago now, I decided that where possible I was only going to buy hot drinks from places that used organic milk. At that stage the choices were Pret and EAT. Every morning for a month I requested organic milk from the AMT at Waterloo and then, one day as I was getting ready to say, “Oh well, never mind” the lady said: “Yes: what would you like?”. I am sure that they got other requests, but at that moment I thought that they had changed for me.