July 2008

Wild and Wonderful

Have you ever been to the Ecos Centre in Ballymena, County Antrim ? One day, towards the end of last summer, a stalwart friend and I set off via public transport to the Ecos Millennium Centre. The entrance to the Visitor Centre is via a drawbridge, a unique feature in itself.

On the island there is something for everyone. From a play park, to a recycling centre, to duck feeding, picnic areas, tractors and play tractors, etc. The exhibits were most interesting - they included wind turbines; old tyres used for safe playgrounds; reeds grown to be used for weaving baskets; mosaic tiles designed by primary school children, and more. A huge variety of trees are on the site, including Ash, Birch, Cherry and Willow. I enjoyed walking along the surrounding park area. It overlooks the M2 motorway, and has many walks and cycling lanes, passing by a hay meadow, wet meadow and Ecos Wood. Slemish mountain can be seen in the distance. Telephone +44 (0)28 2566 4400 for more information, and enjoy a fun day out.

Susan

May 2008

At Last - Compostable Plastic Hits The UK

First there was wood, then metals, and finally plastics. Now we have reached a point where we have created compostable "plastic" from recyclable material.

Plastic is one of the biggest sources of landfill material, and most plastics won't break down for hundreds of years, but if people can market this new plastic on a large scale, this will be a really big boost towards saving the planet!

People are now talking about fully biodegradable "plastic " bottles. These bottles are marketed in the UK and are the current packaging for "Innocent Breakfast Thickies", (personally I just stick to Weetabix) which are a combination of yoghurt, oats and fruit juice. The biodegradable bottle is made from completely renewable corn starch, but the material is called poly lactic acid and made in a carbon neutral process.

These bottles just take about six weeks to break down. Unfortunately, only 10% of the UK's recycling centres have machines that can sort these bottles, so you may want to recycle the cap and compost the bottle yourself.

According to the experts, for a plastic to be called compostable, it needs to be biodegradable (break down into carbon dioxide, water, biomass at the same rate as cellulose), disintegrate, and have no eco-toxicity (meaning it produces no toxic material and the compost supports plant growth). Experts also state that other materials that can be used to make the plastic is potato, tapioca, cellulose, and soy protein.

April 2008

What Are You Doing With Your Food?

How much food do you buy - and then throw away? According to recent research, it is a staggering third of all you buy. Nationally, that means £8 billion-worth of food a year. That comes to about 6.7million tons - imagine filling Wembley Stadium eight times over. The Government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) estimates that if households could cut out such waste, 15 million tons of carbon dioxide a year would be averted - the same as if we took one in five cars off the road. It seems we let too much food go off in the fridge and cupboard, and also cook more than we need or can eat - and then throw it away.

The Hedgehogs Are Coming !

With Spring and increasing warmth of the sun, hedgehogs around the country are waking up from a long hibernation this month. They are in need of food and water as soon as they emerge, as they need to replenish lost fat reserves in time for the breeding season. If you have hedgehogs in your garden, you can do a lot to help them. Offer them meat based pet food and fresh water - and soon they will be repaying you by snacking on your slugs and snails. Please take care when tidying up the garden from winter mayhem - many hedgehogs suffer terrible injuries every year from strimmers, garden forks, etc. For more info on helping these enchanting, prickly garden visitors, visit the British Hedgehog Preservation Society at: www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk